Before this week, Romeo Lavia had never completed 90 minutes for Chelsea, but in the space of four days, the Belgian midfielder has now done it in back-to-back matches.
The first one came against Liverpool in the Carabao Cup at Anfield, where Chelsea were knocked out on penalties against Liverpool. Then the 22-year-old followed it up in Saturday's 2-0 win over Manchester United.
The midfielder racked up 23 defensive contributions against Michael Carrick's side, whilst creating two chances and one big one, completing 64 of his 72 passes, and making a massive 14 recoveries.
As the second international break of the season approaches, Lavia only needs to play six more minutes to overtake his minutes tally from last season, but what has also been impressive is that if he were to overtake it against Sunderland, it would have only taken him eight Premier League games to reach 377 minutes, compared to 12 last campaign.
Since Chelsea signed Lavia from Southampton in 2023 for £53 million, injuries have plagued him, limiting his playing time within the first team, but now, under Xabi Alonso, Lavia seems to have got over his injury issues and is showcasing to everyone the player they saw when playing at St. Mary's.
Alonso revealed post-match that he only found out that Lavia was going to be starting Saturday's game after finding out that Jordan Henderson was ill the night before, but praised Lavia's performance especially on such short notice.
"From a midfielder point of view, for me it has been a top, top performance. He's done so many things right, he's been always connecting the defence with the attacking players, he's been able to switch the game, he's taken many right decisions, he's been very dynamic, competitive."
"So I think that not just this game, for the last two, three weeks, he's been playing at a very good level, and I'm very happy for him, and today he deserves a huge recognition for his performance."
For club and country this season, Lavia has already crossed the 80-minute mark four times, compared to just twice in the three previous seasons since he joined Chelsea, and Alonso believed that, even with Henderson's surprise illness, Lavia was ready to play back-to-back 90-minute matches.
"Yes, but we knew Jordan was not feeling that well so there was a risk to choose who to play. Rom, he's feeling better, he's feeling stronger, he's feeling more confident to go with more minutes, with more load. After playing around at Anfield the whole game, not even 72 hours later, to play that way with that energy. But sometimes the head is more important than the legs and now his head is in a good place."
Whenever Lavia has been fit for a couple of games in a row, he always looks like one of the best players on the pitch. Still, now that he seems to have shaken off his niggles, he looks like a complete player and can be a key part of what is a very exciting team that Xabi Alonso is building.
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