Graham Potter has supplied a glowing appraisal of Chelsea midfielder Moises Caicedo, hailing the £115m signing’s qualities on and off the pitch.
The pair first met at Brighton. Potter was supervisor when the energetic midfielder moved to the south coast and handed him his Premier League debut in direction of the tip of the 2021/22 season. Nonetheless, Caicedo solely ended up making 16 appearances below the English coach, who was poached by Chelsea in September 2022.
By the point Caicedo made his nine-digit transfer to west London the summer time of 2023, Potter had lengthy since been sacked by the membership’s trigger-happy homeowners. Regardless of their restricted crossover, the out-of-work supervisor is fast to laud his former participant.
“When folks discuss staff gamers, properly, that is Moises,” Potter wrote in a column for the BBC throughout October’s worldwide break. “He simply desires to do the perfect he can for his staff. In fact he’s a greater participant when the staff is functioning properly, however he’ll make everybody else higher too.
“He’s not the man who’s going to dribble previous ten gamers, or attempt one thing flash,” Potter continued. “He’s bodily, he wins the ball for you and he retains issues easy when he has received it, though he has received high quality too.”
Caicedo initially struggled to adapt to life in London. The 22-year-old infamously gave away a penalty on his Chelsea debut in a humbling 3-1 defeat to West Ham United. Nonetheless, he improved because the season progressed and has emerged as a commanding presence on the base of midfield for incoming boss, Enzo Maresca.
Potter defined that Caicedo’s new, defensive-minded position “offers them with the steadiness which permits that entrance 5 to assault”. The previous Seagulls coach added: “Moises’ positional sense will get higher and higher, the extra he performs in that position, however he’s already excellent at recovering these huge areas and profitable the ball again. Together with the whole lot else, that makes him the proper match for the way in which they wish to play.”
In a world the place knowledge might be morphed to suit any opinion, Potter warned: “The influence he has within the staff goes past many of the stats which might be proven for midfielders, as a result of they do not wholly replicate his position and affect on the staff.
“You should utilize these binary measurements, like tackles made, distance run or sprints and it tells you one factor about him – however not the whole lot.” These figures are fairly flattering for the Ecuador worldwide. No Premier League participant has made extra mixed tackles and interceptions this season than Caicedo, per FBref. The statistical analysis group at CIES additionally dubbed him the greatest younger midfielder on the planet.
Off the pitch, Potter hailed Caicedo’s “world class” character. “Moises is a mixture of somebody who desires to study and enhance, however can also be extremely smart anyway,” the 49-year-old defined. “The way in which he approaches issues is the proper mixture for a supervisor or coach to work with, and due to that I all the time thought his future was extraordinarily brilliant.”
