Chelsea: Sarri developing Loftus-Cheek as his future box-to-box midfielder

Ruben Loftus-Cheek has been competing directly with Ross Barkley and Mateo Kovacic to be attacking midfielder in Maurizio Sarri’s midfield three. This may not be Sarri’s long term plan for Loftus-Cheek at Chelsea FC.

Maurizio Sarri has commented several times that, while Ruben Loftus-Cheek was strong in the physical and technical areas, he needed to improve the tactical side of his game. This is exactly what he said about Ross Barkley.

More recently, after the game against BATE Borisov came a new emphasis: Loftus-Cheek must also improve on the defensive side. Sarri leveled no such criticism at Barkley, despite both players displaying the same relaxed attitude towards defensive contributions. This could be because Sarri sees Loftus-Cheek and Barkley diverging in the long term. Whereas he sees Barkley as an attacking midfielder, Loftus-Cheek’s future is the box-to-box midfielder.

In the same interview Sarri went on to talk about the difficulties of accommodating Loftus-Cheek because he has many top-class midfielders. Chelsea’s midfield is improving its performances, but Loftus-Cheek’s initial stumbling block of a stacked midfield will not become his ceiling. He has all the attributes to make that box-to-box position his own.

He is blessed with incredible physicality, and he has much quicker feet than his frame would suggest. His attacking is stronger than ever, as evidenced by his four goals in his last three starts. If he can keep improving the defensive side of his game then he will progress as a player by leaps and bounds. His passing also needs slight improvement, but that should come from training with players like Jorginho and Cesc Fabregas, and from an increased tactical awareness brought on by training under Sarri.

Readers might be dismissing this theory due to the obvious. N’Golo Kante already plays that position. And not only is he one of the best midfielders in the world, but the man literally never needs a rest.

However, Kante’s position change under Sarri shows that he wants him to do more than he is good at. The manager is trying to put a square Kante into a round midfield hole.

Try as he might, Kante will never be a natural box-to-box midfielder, and he will never chip in with more than the odd goal and assist per season. Yes, he has become more attacking since Sarri took over, and yes, he was more attacking at Caen. But there is a reason that specializing as a defensive midfielder took him to a completely different level: because he is really good at defending, and merely OK at attacking.

Looking at a highlight reel of his time at Caen shows you that most of his attacking contributions came from intercepting or tackling the opposition and then starting attacks. He just happened to be further up the pitch when he did it than at Chelsea, so they led to more chances and more attacking contributions.

Defending is much easier to improve than attacking, because discipline is easier to teach than flair. In that sense Loftus-Cheek has a massive advantage over Kante, because the attacking side of his game comes much more naturally to him.

As a defensive midfielder, Kante is undroppable. As a box-to-box he has a real ceiling, and Loftus-Cheek has no such limits at that position.

If Loftus-Cheek’s development goes to plan, and Sarri stays at the club and sticks with his trusty 4-3-3 (and there is no reason why he wouldn’t), it would not be a surprise to see Kante sold in 1-2 years. However sad that might be and however well he’s played in the past, there isn’t really a place for him in Sarri’s system. Chelsea’s pragmatic financial policy will not let a player worth over £100 million stay if he does not have a fixed berth.

That being said, Sarrismo is still evolving and his different tactical approaches have not yet been revealed. But so far, at least, Chelsea’s midfield roles have been pretty static, as they were at Napoli.

Maurizio Sarri recently called Ross Barkley a complete player. That is because his defensive game is good enough for his position as the most attacking of the midfield three. With Loftus-Cheek he wants defensive improvement. If Loftus-Cheek can improve his defensive contributions, then he,  too, will become a complete player for a position on the right of Sarri’s midfield three.

In the second game against BATE Borisov, Sarri experimented with both Barkley and Loftus-Cheek starting, and that could well be a more common tactic in the future.

People have been comparing Loftus-Cheek to Michael Ballack for years, not because he can be an attacking midfielder but because he can become an all out box-to-box powerhouse. And if he does that, not even Kante will stand in his way.