Caicedo struggled to find consistent form in his first season at Chelsea but under Enzo Maresca, the 24-year-old has established himself as one of the best midfielders in the Premier League.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Caicedo was asked about his decision to join Chelsea ahead of Arsenal in 2023.
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‘Everything happens for a reason,’ Caicedo said.
Moises Caicedo has established himself as one of the Premier League’s best midfielders since joining Chelsea (AFP via Getty)
‘I almost did it but now I’m here and I’m so happy. The timing was good.
‘I waited until Chelsea came for me. People laughed. They said I chose the wrong place, but sometimes you need time to adapt to a big team. I needed that.
‘I want to give everything to this club because they didn’t doubt me. I chose Chelsea because they have ambitions. I want to win trophies – more trophies with this club.
‘I would like to be here for a long time. I want to keep playing like this but get even better. I want more trophies with this club.’
Speaking ahead of Chelsea’s Premier League match against Arsenal on Sunday, Maresca claimed that it is impossible to compare Caicedo with Declan Rice.
‘It was a little bit different time when I was at West Ham,’ said Maresca, who was an assistant to Manuel Pellegrini.
‘[Rice] was younger, I spent many extra sessions with Declan, one versus one, and you could see that he was already very good.
‘He was with second-team players as a central defender. Manuel Pellegrini decided to play him in the first team as a midfielder but [he] was different age compared to Moises. But you could see that he was already very, very good.
‘He’s [Rice] not playing as a holding midfielder, he’s playing forward, he’s playing like Enzo Fernandez. It’s a different position.
‘It’s evolution for him and it’s Mikel’s [Arteta] work. He is a fantastic player and he’s a complete player. He can defend, he can attack, he can do anything.’
Shaun Wright-Phillips says Chelsea’s talented but bloated squad is creating a ‘problem’ for two of Enzo Maresca’s summer signings.
Chelsea spent another £300m on new signings last summer to bolster a squad that had just qualified for the Champions League and won the Conference League.
Wright-Phillips – another winger who had a successful spell at Chelsea – says it is too early to brand the Garnacho signing a ‘mistake’ but says both his and Gittens’ struggles are becoming a ‘problem’ for Maresca.
‘I wouldn’t necessarily say it was a mistake to sign Garnacho, because he’s clearly a good player,’ Wright-Phillips told Best Betting Sites.
‘I think Chelsea’s problem is that they have about seven or eight wingers now. They’re all good enough to get into other Premier League sides, but they need minutes on the pitch.
‘They need games. I remember that I was always better if I was playing more regularly. I just grew into every occasion.
‘I think some of those wingers, it could be similar. They need to be on the pitch regularly to be at their best. I think Jamie Gittens seems like one of those players who needs their confidence high, and he works off his instincts.
Chelsea summer signing Jamie Gittens (Picture: Getty)
‘Those kinds of players need to play regularly. At this Chelsea squad now, that chance doesn’t really happen, so they have to find a way to keep these players ready no matter how much or how little they are playing.
‘Because the only one at the minute I would say that is actually thriving is Pedro Neto. And he’s continuously playing and he’s basically hard to drop.’
Despite a number of players potentially growing frustrated with their lack of minutes, Chelsea have enjoyed a promising first-half to the season.
Wright-Phillips believes the pressure is on Arsenal as they visit Stamford Bridge this weekend but insists they are still ‘favourites’ to beat Chelsea.
‘I’d say Arsenal are the team most under pressure,’ the ex-England star added. ‘They know they’re top, and they’ve got a chasing pack ready for them to make mistakes.
‘They know they need to keep winning and that pressure is on them. They don’t want to let that gap get chipped away at.
‘If anything, they will be aiming to build the cushion going into the Christmas period, where the games come thick and fast and teams can stumble.
Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal visit Chelsea this weekend (Picture: Getty)
‘But for Chelsea, it’s almost a statement match. A win there, and they will believe that they are real challengers for the title.
‘They might play it down, but a win there puts them in a great position to pick Arsenal off, and it will be a huge boost for their confidence.
‘If you can beat this Arsenal team – scoring loads, defending brilliantly – then you can beat anyone.
‘Having said that, I think Arsenal are the favourites. They’ve only conceded a handful in the Premier League and at times they just look unbreakable.
‘The way they defend, how quickly they recover into their position off the ball, it’s just frightening. That’s even when they’re missing Gabriel.
‘I watched them in the derby at the weekend, and Spurs barely laid a glove on them, couldn’t really hurt them. Arsenal dealt with whatever came their way and they’ve done that in almost every game this season.’
In this week’s edition of the Football Interview, Kelly Somers speaks to former Manchester United player and manager, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. They discuss how he went from being in the army at the age of 20 to winning the Champions League with Man Utd. They also reflect on Sir Alex Ferguson impacting his journey into management and how his tenure as Man Utd manager came to a close.
Mikel Arteta’s side are six points clear of second-placed Chelsea in the Premier League ahead of their trip to Stamford Bridge on Sunday.
City, meanwhile, sit a point behind Chelsea and are looking to recover at home to Leeds United on Saturday after back-to-back defeats.
Arsenal, meanwhile, impressed once again in the Champions League this week as they ran out 3-1 winners at home to Bayern Munich.
Speaking ahead of City’s game against Leeds, Guardiola admits his side are now running the risk of watching Arsenal run away with a significant lead at the top of the Premier League.
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‘We cannot lose games, absolutely, that is the truth,’ Guardiola said.
Pep Guardiola says Arsenal are looking ‘so solid’ after their win against Bayern Munich (CameraSport via Getty)
‘They are so strong and winning games, and winning games in a way where they are so solid, like we had in the past with Liverpool against us and they were not going to drop many points.
‘That’s why you have to be up there and this is what we will try to do.’
Guardiola also claimed his City players ‘didn’t try’ in their 2-0 defeat at home to Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League on Tuesday.
‘As a fan, I would not cheer my team, playing in the way we played,’ Guardiola said.
‘We didn’t try and in football when you play on the green you have to try things and we didn’t try. Maybe I have a theory to rotate because it’s impossible to sustain but I had a lot of confidence in them and I still do.
‘I have a huge value for what they are as football players. Maybe I think higher of them than they think about themselves. It was a good lesson for me, as experienced as I am as a manager it was a good lesson for me for the future.’
Slot is under growing pressure at Anfield(Picture: Getty Images)
Liverpool reportedly view Paris Saint-Germain boss Luis Enrique as along-term replacement for Arne Slot should they decide to part ways with Arne Slot.
Slot guided Liverpool to the title in his first season in charge on Merseyside but a catastrophic second campaign following a transfer outlay of over £400million in the summer has prompted speculation over his future.
Jurgen Klopp, who stepped down last year after nine years in charge, has been installed as the early favourite to replace Slot should Liverpool decide a change is necessary.
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The German, who is currently the Head of Global Sport for Red Bull, has not ruled out a return in the past with The Sun reporting the club could turn to him to save their season.
The report suggests the move would be a short-term one, a situation where Klopp would be asked to fill in until the end of the season.
Klopp has been tipped to return to the club (Picture: Getty)
PSG boss Enrique is regarded as a long-term target by Liverpool’s owners, the report suggests. The Spaniard is one of the most highly-regarded coaches in world football, leading PSG to a long-awaited Champions League last term.
Having managed in Italy, Spain, France having also led the Spanish national team, Enrique has previously suggested he would like to work in England in the future.
Luis Enrique is reportedly admired at Liverpool (Picture: Getty)
‘I follow above all the Premier [League] because I would like to go to England to work,’ Enrique said in 2023.
‘I wouldn’t go to any team but to one that could do important things, which greatly reduces the number. I don’t put my hopes up, really, because there are many candidates.’
Slot will hope to turn the situation around before any drastic decisions are made. Liverpool take on West Ham United in east London on Sunday in what is now a must-win game for the former Feyenoord boss.
One key battle will decide Sunday’s showdown (Pictures: Getty)
Team Moises or Team Declan? For weeks, if not months, it feels like every pundit, manager and fan has had to pledge their loyalty to one of the Premier League’s two outstanding central midfielders.
It might come as some relief, therefore, that after all the never-ending talk, the two will finally do battle again, this time in the middle of the Stamford Bridge pitch when Chelsea host Arsenal on Sunday afternoon.
After a sluggish start to the campaign, Enzo Maresca’s side have now lost just one of their last eleven games in all competition and sit in second place in the league, just six points behind the Gunners.
The duel between Caicedo and Rice will be rightly placed under the microscope, and any path to victory for Chelsea will surely involve Caicedo getting the better of his Arsenal counterpart.
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But there is a certain irony that after all the talk, a more intriguing battle elsewhere on the pitch could prove the key battle in deciding the fate of Sunday’s top-of-the-table clash.
A large part of Arsenal’s open-play creativity this season has been borne out of their intelligent use of rotations in midfield and attacking areas to overload wide areas and isolate opposition players.
Declan Rice and Moises Caicedo have been the two best midfielders in the Premier League this season (Picture: Getty)
It was something which the Gunners did to great effect to break down Tottenham’s deep, low block in last weekend’s north London derby, and again in midweek in their statement victory over Bayern Munich.
And while every player carries a threat in this system, it is still Bukayo Saka who represents the most threatening cog in Arsenal’s attacking machine.
Saka has long been an indispensable part of Arteta’s side since his first-team breakthrough, and already has six goals in all competitions this season. But as his importance and profile in this Arsenal side grow season on season, so too does the attention that he receives from their opposition.
Bukayo Saka remains the most important cog in Arsenal’s attacking machine (Picture: Getty)
Against Tottenham, Destiny Udogie, Micky van de Ven and even Wilson Odobert, at times, were all at times trying to mark Saka when he received the ball.
And versus Bayern, Saka found himself constantly stalked by Konrad Laimer at left-back, while there were times when even Harry Kane dropped deep into his own half to ensure his England teammate couldn’t get on the ball freely.
But even when faced with this greater attention, Saka’s threat and ability to create chances has still maintained.
Against Vincent Kompany’s side, he had five touches in the Bayern box and created four chances, the most of any Arsenal player, even though he was withdrawn with over 20 minutes still on the clock.
Marc Cucurella will be tasked with stopping the Arsenal forward on Sunday (Picture: Getty)
Saka eventually got the better of Laimer on Wednesday, just as he did Udogie the previous weekend, but Sunday’s trip to Stamford Bridge now pits the 24-year-old up against Marc Cucurella, perhaps the Premier League’s most in-form full-back alongside Timber.
Yamal has managed to make even the best defenders look foolish, and looked threatening when receiving the ball in the opening stages, but he soon found himself out of ideas up against Cucurella, who snapped at his opponent’s heels all evening and restricted the teenager to just one shot on goal.
Cucurella’s performance was lauded from all quarters, with former Chelsea captain John Terry quick to label the defender as one of the world’s best full-backs.
‘He is everything I want to see in a Chelsea player at the moment,’ he added. ‘Aggression, great one vs one, a threat going forwards, the threat he shows in every aspect of his game is what I love about him as a player.’
And Maresca was certainly pleased too with his full-back’s performance, adding: ‘Since I came to the club, his level has been high, not only his defending but also as part of our play with the ball. Cucu always gives us an advantage, and we are delighted with him.’
Both Cucurella and Saka are players whose excellence is derived from their relentless consistency, and both will expect the very best version of the other when they line up on Sunday in south west London.
Rice and Caicedo will take the headlines, but whoever comes out on top in the battle down Arsenal’s right may ultimately play the most pivotal role in deciding the fate of this table-topping clash.
