Emerson has all of 13 Premier League minutes this season, those coming in Chelsea’s last two games as a substitute left wing. Of the stop-gap solutions available, Maurizio Sarri may have devised the best one.
Maurizio Sarri exhibited an unusual blend of stubbornness (nothing unusual there) and flexibility on Boxing Day against Watford. Both of Chelsea’s left wingers – the starter Pedro and his replacement Callum Hudson-Odoi – came off with hamstring injuries. So committed was Sarri to Eden Hazard as the false-nine, rather than send on Olivier Giroud and letting Hazard see out the game on his usual left wing, Sarri deployed Emerson – the closest thing he had to a winger left on his bench – in place of Hudson-Odoi for the last five minutes.
Pedro and Hudson-Odoi were both unavailable for the next game against Crystal Palace. With Victor Moses in exile, Emerson was Sarri’s ersatz substitute winger. Sarri gave Emerson the final eight minutes in place of Willian.
The spate of injuries to his wingers and Ruben Loftus-Cheek, who played on the wing last season at Crystal Palace and whose attacking midfield prowess is perfect for inverted winger, could keep Emerson in the winger rotation. If Sarri keeps Eden Hazard as the centre-forward before Pedro or Hudson-Odoi are back from injury, Emerson could be in consideration for starting on the wing. The fulcrum for the decision could be who is playing attacking midfield.
Playing on the wing is a productive use of Emerson’s speed, and minimizes his defensive vulnerabilities. While Emerson may be able to recover on defence faster than Alonso, once he is in position he is simply not as effective as the Spaniard. Emerson is a strong crosser and dribbler, two attributes necessary but not sufficient for the offensive full-back.
Emerson’s acceleration and potential X-factor as a winger could inject the unpredictability Chelsea need up front. If Emerson channels his physical and technical abilities towards Pedro’s direct style of play rather than Willian’s dribble-and-stop maneuvers, Emerson could be a useful contributor for one-two’s and bringing the ball centrally for better shots.
More importantly, Emerson could make the runs through and behind the defensive lines that none of Chelsea’s wingers are currently making. Whatever reluctance Pedro and Willian have to time a run off a defender’s shoulder and loop in behind (as N’Golo Kante of all people did against Palace), Emerson may not have it. Nor are Chelsea’s opponents as familiar with his movements as they are Pedro’s or Willian’s. While his forward play is not as polished as theirs, it is unknown and therefore not readily defended against.
Of course, there are all the tactical elements of being a winger that Emerson will not have simply from lack of experience. Even if he has been training with the forwards, he will be far behind the learning curve. Then again, Chelsea seem to have slid back on their Sarrismo learning curve over December, so perhaps the gap is not as great.
One major tactical issue with the usual wingers would be a non-issue with Emerson. Willian does not read Eden Hazard’s movements well when the Belgian switches sides, leading to congestion among Chelsea players when Hazard shifts over. This is the sort of situation an inexperienced winger like Emerson would struggle to read and react to. However, Emerson will mostly play when Hazard is staying central. Any shifts between the wingers will be less dramatic than they are with Hazard, minimizing the effects of Emerson’s newness on the play.
Emerson’s turn at winger will likely not have the dramatic impact and career transformation that Marcos Alonso’s and Victor Moses’ turn at wing-back did. Nor is it as noteworthy as N’Golo Kante’s use as a box-to-box midfielder, since Maurizio Sarri is not foregoing much in the way of Emerson’s standard position to use him somewhere else.
Regardless, this is a move born of necessity but still has some longer-term utility. Chelsea certainly want to get their money’s worth out of Emerson, both as a productive member of the team and when they sell him to his next club. Building his versatility by plugging holes in the squad can contribute towards those ends.
Ensuring there are no more such holes in the squad is a longer-term project for the club and Maurizio Sarri. Perhaps changing the team’s strength and conditioning regimen to make the players more “injury proof” and resilient would ensure they do not lose two players at the same position to the same injury in the same game ever again. And, of course, they need an actual plan for building the team. Buying Christian Pulisic helps, but only so much if he simply replaces Eden Hazard in the depth chart or comes at the cost of losing Callum Hudson-Odoi.
But given the club’s history of buying stop-gap players, it is a good sign that Maurizio Sarri is making use of the players he has. If Emerson succeeds as a stand-in winger, it may just stop the club from panic-buying another player like, well, Emerson.