Chelsea: Lessons learnt as Blues edge out Crystal Palace

4. Reece James has a ways to go

Apart from the through ball that led to Olivier Giroud’s opening goal—which was massively helped by Gary Cahill going down with an injury—Reece James did very little to show that he’s on track to become Chelsea’s undisputed starting right back.

Wilfried Zaha’s goal was a direct result of a cheap giveaway by James. Palace’s second was set up by a pass from James McArthur that easily bypassed the Chelsea youngster, who was late to even consider closing down the space. Finally, James was almost hilariously absent as Zaha set up what should have been Palace’s last-gasp equalizer. You can see him marking absolutely no one as Mason Mount tries to stay in front of Zaha. If you want to be extremely charitable, James was maybe trying to cover the space Zaha was looking to run into, but that only served to force Zaha onto his stronger right foot, leading to the cross that Scott Dan got his head to.

Most of James’ issues come down to the same basic trait: his lax style of play, especially with the ball. He’s basically the polar opposite of Azpilicueta, and given that they play the same position, that difference is pretty striking. Even against Palace, where Azpilicueta was deployed as a left back, the comparison between the two full backs was clear—it didn’t favor James.

There’s no question that James possesses far superior technical skills, but his choice of when to use them tends to get him into trouble. If you look at Azpilicueta, he does all of the boring things incredibly well: running up and down the flanks, marking players so they can’t receive the ball, being aware of his positioning, etc. It’s not the assists or the (very) occasional goals that make him one of the best full backs in the world. Those moments are exceptional by definition, and even on the best days they make up a small percentage of a 90-minute match.

The good news is that he couldn’t have a better mentor to learn from. If James ever intends to surpass Azpilicueta on Lampard’s depth chart, he’ll have to learn the mentality and tricks that have taken Chelsea’s captain to the absolute highest level.

Tuesday showed how far he has to go before he can seriously be considered for the long-term starting role. He’ll get more chances this season as long as Lampard continues to deploy Azpilicueta as his left back. It shouldn’t be hard for James to move in a positive direction after his performance against Palace. Hopefully we start seeing that development over the next handful of matches to end the season.