Chelsea have four players in Spain’s squad for the upcoming international break. Two of them hope to continue their momentum with starts against Wales and Croatia, while the other two have more complicated balancing acts between club and country.
After not scoring for a month and a half, Alvaro Morata scored twice in four days. Just as he was starting to build some momentum and confidence and looked ready to repeat his form from last fall, the club season went into hiatus for an international break. Fortunately, Morata is one of four Chelsea players called into the Spanish national team. Now he must hope Luis Enrique gives him a rare start in either the friendly against Wales or in the Nations League against Croatia.
Kepa Arrizabalaga is in much the same position. He is undefeated as a Blue and has improved with every game as he adapts to his new teammates, managers and league. Chelsea’s last two games against MOL Vidi and Southampton were his best of the season. He made key saves in each – nearly world-class saves against the Saints – and his distribution and positioning at St. Mary’s Stadium was already looking better than some of Thibaut Courtois’.
But like Morata, Arrizabalaga will need a stroke of fortune and faith from Enrique to play in the upcoming international games. Arrizabalaga has a slightly better chance, inasmuch as David de Gea is hands-down Enrique’s top goalkeeper. Enrique does not need de Gea to show or prove anything in a friendly game or quasi-friendly tournament.
Arrizabalaga, on other hand, has yet to make his competitive international debut. If anything were to happen to de Gea, Enrique’s Spain would be in a better place than Manchester United, but not if he does not know how his backup goalkeeper will function in the side.
Ryan Giggs has Wales in high-flying form, not least because of Chelsea’s ne’er-to-be-seen defender Ethan Ampadu. Playing Arrizabalaga and Morata against Wales in a friendly is a no risk, all reward proposition for Spain. Arrizabalaga can continue his development as the next David de Gea and Alvaro Morata can not only maintain his momentum but extend it to his national team. He has not scored for Spain since his brace in an 8-0 drubbing of Liechtenstein in World Cup qualification. He has only played one half of Spanish football since then, netting a goal in a friendly against Costa Rica.
Their teammates for club and country – Marcos Alonso and Cesar Azpilicueta – have different motivation equations.
Both have played every minute of the Premier League so far this season. Neither will get much rest from Maurizio Sarri. It is one thing for them to be critical members of the best XI. It is another for them to have no realistic back-up for the Premier League.
The gap between Marcos Alonso, Cesar Azpilicueta and their respective back-ups is greater than any other position. This creates the usual catch-22 for the coach. He has to play them in every Premier League game because he can’t afford to rest them. But by playing them so much he risks losing them to fatigue and injury. This makes it all the more important for them to get some downtime during the international break.
But neither Alonso nor Azpilicueta are regulars in the Spanish squad. They are the equivalent of Emerson Palmieri and Davide Zappacosta as far as Luis Enrique is concerned. Both need every opportunity to establish themselves in the side. Otherwise they both risk their international careers looking like Azpilicueta’s has to date: a decent (but still too low) number of call-ups but paltry playing time.
Azpilicueta, in particular, needs the chance to refresh himself mentally and physically. While Morata and Arrizabalaga will want to play as much as they can to continue their recent form, Azpilicueta needs to break out of his.
For much of the season he has been a few levels off his usual standard, even with fundamentals like his body angles and positioning. He is holding his own as the more conservative full-back in Maurizio Sarri’s asymmetric system, and spends much of the game dropping into the centre to cover David Luiz or Antonio Rudiger. But when the play comes down Chelsea’s right he is not smothering it as effectively as usual. The game against Liverpool was a noteworthy exception as he helped pocket the Reds’ offence, particularly Roberto Firmino. But the game against Southampton showed he could use a few days away.
Marcos Alonso started against England in the last international break, and Cesar Azpilicueta came on in the 75′ of the second game against Croatia. Neither Alvaro Morata nor Kepa Arrizabalaga left the bench. Hopefully Luis Enrique will reverse that pattern this time and give them each at least one start, if not both. The minutes will do them good for club and country.
Enrique should also talk to Alonso and Azpilicueta about what they want out of this break, and what will serve them best, as well as their club and country. Their situation is much more complicated and, as a new manager, Enrique must get to know what great assets they are and how to best use them.