{"id":15519,"date":"2026-07-08T19:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T19:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=15519"},"modified":"2026-07-08T19:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T19:36:14","slug":"there-is-simply-no-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=15519","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;There Is Simply No Room&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p><strong>Chelsea legend Marcel Desailly says \u201cthere is simply no room\u201d for Enzo Fernandez in Real Madrid\u2019s starting lineup.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Argentinian international has excelled as a no.10 for the Blues, but speaking to <em>Sportscasting.com<\/em>Desailly said that Real head coach Jose Mourinho would ask him to play in a deeper-lying role, which he has not played at club level for quite some time:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think Enzo Fernandez is the right fit for Real Madrid. He\u2019s a great player, but after the experience he has had at Chelsea, I don\u2019t see how he is capable of adapting \u2013 I can\u2019t see him doing the work of a number 4 or a number 6 in club football, and that is what he should be doing, because in my opinion, that is his best role.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnder Mourinho at Real Madrid, he would have to adapt and be prepared to do that defensive workload that he typically does with Argentina, which he was not used to at club level because at Chelsea they spoiled him. He is a player who has the quality to go to Madrid, but can he adapt and put in a defensive workload to be effective?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMadrid has that Turkish player, Arda G\u00fcler, and Bellingham is also demanding to be one of the offensive players, along with Rodrygo, Mbappe, and Vinicius \u2013 you understand? There is simply no room for Fernandez to go to Real Madrid and expect to play as an offensive player.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"sra_unit\"><link rel=\"stylesheet\" id=\"block-sra\" href=\"https:\/\/chelseanews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/snack-related-articles\/dist\/css\/snack-related.min.css?230424-120159\" type=\"text\/css\" media=\"all\"\/>\n<aside class=\"sra-group sra-related-list\">\n<h2 class=\"sra-group-head\">Most Read on Chelsea News<\/h2>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Fernandez could well stay at Stamford Bridge<\/h2>\n<p><smartframe-embed customer-id=\"c78749ece7fd074ea5dc1889e7c53f0f\" v=\"f216f6d5d0b6ef819f6e02bf8357cefd\" image-id=\"esmeATpJJaY4\" theme=\"iy-theme\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; aspect-ratio: 1.5002797985450476; max-width: 2681px;\"\/><!-- https:\/\/smartframe.io\/embedding-support --><br \/>Asked about his future following Argentina\u2019s win over Egypt on Tuesday, Fernandez remain tight-lipped:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not thinking about my future now. I\u2019m here living this moment that is incredible for me and after the World Cup, we\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Following Real Madrid\u2019s statement that they have \u201cno intention\u201d of signing the 25-year-old, though, it seems more than likely that he will stay with the Blues beyond the summer transfer window.<\/p>\n<p>There have been reports that Manchester City and Arsenal are interested in <strong>Fernandez<\/strong>but you can\u2019t see either team meeting his \u00a3120m asking price, even if Xabi Alonso\u2019s side were willing to consider bids from Premier League rivals.<\/p>\n<h2>He has thrived at Chelsea as an attacking midfielder<\/h2>\n<p>While Desaily has pointed out that Fernandez has been used in a more withdrawn role for his country, it is very clear that he is best deployed in more advanced areas.<\/p>\n<p>The midfielder found the back of the net 15 times in all competitions last season, as well as contributing 7 assists.<\/p>\n<p>You do lose a lot of Fernandez\u2019s game when he is deployed as a holding midfielder, and Alonso should be using it as part of his argument if he does try to convince the player to remain at Stamford Bridge. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea legend Marcel Desailly says \u201cthere is simply no room\u201d for Enzo Fernandez in Real&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}