Chelsea player ratings: Wolves’ goal summed up many Blues’ performances
By George Perry
Jorginho, Midfielder: 4.5
Jorginho got bypassed very early in the counter-attack, probably because he was so assiduously attending to his r—— duties (we won’t use that word) that he forgot he may also be described as a deep-lying midfielder.
Jorginho put on a caricature of a performance. The short, one-touch, crisply telegraphed passes… have you noticed how Jorginho almost always passes in the direction he is facing when he receives the ball? He doesn’t scan to see who is available, who is covered, who is making a run, who (on either team) is doing something unexpected. He does not take a touch to see what people do in response to him having the ball. That was one of those Cesc Fabregas things. Know-nothings derided him for spending too much time on the ball, but some of that time was allowing his teammates to do things that they knew he would know what to do with, all the while identifying this movements and timing the right pass.
Oh, and in case your local neighbourhood Sarritologist with a picture of Jorginho in his profile crawls into your DMs, yes, Jorginho made three over-the-top dinks to Gonzalo Higuain. They obviously amounted to nothing, but they raise an important question: why did he never send those in for Alvaro Morata?
Read. Jorginho benefits as much as anyone from Maurizio Sarri's changes to Sarriball. light
N’Golo Kante, Midfielder: 7
Kante was a frequent recipient of Jorginho’s short, one-touch, crisply telegraphed passes. For a player who is not technical enough to be a r——, he certainly found his way out of the trouble Jorginho passed him into. Kante would take a few touches, dribble, find the right pass to Azpilicueta or Mateo Kovacic, and keep the play moving on.
Mateo Kovacic, Midfielder: 5.5
Mateo Kovacic’s best contributions to Chelsea’s midfield are against teams with a strong counter-attack, where he can interdict or at least slow down those break-outs in the opposite half. Maurizio Sarri had good reason to expect Wolves would be such a team, so Kovacic was a smart add in the starting XI. But it was just as smart to make him the first sub in the 56′ for Ruben Loftus-Cheek.