Pochettino contradicts himself, the changes that have him in their sights

It was surprising that last Saturday the Ecuadorian Moises Caicedo was a substitute in the match in which Chelsea suffered a new defeat in the Premier League, they lost 4-1 away to Newcastle on matchday 13. Caicedo, 22, is the player most expensive in Premier League history Chelsea paid $146 million to sign him from Brighton. For Fernandez, the London team paid $87 million to Benfica of Portugal.

Mauricio Pochettino, the Blues' Argentine coach, justified Caicedo's absence by commenting; He only arrived last Friday from the Ecuador team, after the qualifying matches and only had one practice.

So we thought the best thing was to avoid any injury problems and just be careful with him, having so many games ahead of him, the coach continued about the tricolor midfielder. However, Argentine midfielder Enzo Fernández did not receive the same treatment, who started against Newcastle after accumulating 160 minutes in the 2026 World Cup qualifying matches with the Albiceleste.

The Argentines played against Uruguay in a 2-0 defeat at the Bombonera stadium in Buenos Aires and Brazil with a 1-0 victory at the Maracaná field in Rio de Janeiro; and Gardelito Fernández only performed 20 minutes less than what Caicedo recorded with the Tricolor. The Santo Domingo player accumulated those minutes in the matches against Venezuela and Chile.

The contradiction

A contradiction in coach Pochettino, because both elements left for South America to play the matches with their national teams and traveled around 26,000 kilometers from their departures from England. But to calm any comments, the DT stated; That is why we have a large squad, to use players when some are not completely in perfect condition. So not starting with Moises was to avoid any risk.