Alejandro Garnacho's Chelsea Struggle: Good Player in a Dysfunctional System?

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Only two seasons ago, Alejandro Garnacho was at Stamford Bridge, sitting on an advertising hoarding after scoring his 2nd to put United 3-2 up as United players swarmed him with unfettered adulation, knowing little about the crushing defeat on the horizon.

This past Sunday must felt been a surreal deja vu to him - wearing the other kit, wallowing in another dreadful defeat, while the ones in Red who had embraced him that night walked past without as much as a look to acknowledge his presence.

For Garnacho, everything in life has happened earlier and faster than he’d imagined.

He made his senior debut for United at just 17, became a father at 19 and won the Puskas Award at 20. Garnacho must have known he would be asked to impact the game off the bench against his former club, but once more, he must not have envisioned doing so after just 16 minutes.

With Manchester United missing four senior centerbacks, on paper, it felt like the script was being written for him, around him. Football, however, seldom plays out the way it looks on paper.

As is the case with everything Garnacho does - new tattoos, new haircut [or colour], every innocuous word - there was forensic scrutiny of every action on the ball by both fanbases in attendance. His 3 shots (between the 72nd and 76th minute) were all blocked and he lost possession 15 times, both metrics mirrored by Pedro Neto on the other flank.

Garnacho did also manage 10 touches in the opposition box, the most by any player, and nearly twice as many as United’s front four managed in the Chelsea box. None of that matters to the Chelsea faithful who will point to one goal scored in his 22 appearances this far, and a video that showed Cole Palmer admonishing him for losing Bruno Fernandes in the lead up to United’s goal.

That Chelsea fans remember his brace against Arsenal as well as they do two missed marking assignments on set-pieces leading to opposition goals defines his time in Chelsea aptly.

There were years of evidence about the good, the bad and the ugly in Garnacho’s game for Chelsea to pore over before agreeing to spend on his services. The Argentinian international is a strange player - a winger who struggles to take on, yet manages as many shots and touches in the box as most centerforwards.

Noni Madueke showed compares eerily well to both metrics and yet Chelsea offloaded him to Arsenal for a tidy profit. Perhaps that was the plan all along with Garnacho too - low risk, high reward or high fee.

Or it is simply what is painfully evident at Chelsea these days, a disconnect between the what the hierarchy considers an ideal fit and what the manager wants - resulting in neither benefitting and the squad suffering.

It is worth noting that only Joao Pedro [5] has more PL assists this season for Chelsea than him and Neto’s four. Garnacho has played almost 1200 minutes fewer than both. His passing numbers have improved - he is in the 94th percentile for PL wingers for assists, 88th for chances created, 90th for big chances created and 89th for touches in the penalty box.

His shooting numbers, however, have taken a massive hit. His 3.4% shot conversion rate is among the worst in the league for wingers. For the first time in his senior career, he has dropped below the 3 shots p90 threshold to a measly 2.29. He is also averaging the worst shot on target% ratio in his senior career (22.9%), down 13% since last season. He has also mustered just 1 shot from a fast break compared to 10 last season and 8 the season before that, despite Chelsea managing the 3th highest direct attacks this season.

None of that is helped by the fact that Chelsea are on their longest scoreless streak in the Premier League since March 1998, scoring only 19 in their12 games under Rosenior. Aside from Joao Pedro, Chelsea’s attack has been stagnant, if not regressing, individually and collectively.

All signs point to Garnacho being just as he was at United - a good player in a decent, if not poor, unit. He is still 21, arrived at Chelsea without a preseason and a full 90 at club level for five months since being frozen out by Ruben Amorim.

Rosenior, who proved himself an acute profiler of players at Strasbourg, hasn’t tried to innovate to bring Garnacho closer to the zones he thrives in. There is an opportunity to turn Chelsea’s best off-ball mover in the frontline into a cloaked dagger, yet he is being asked beat his man from the touchline, something he has been poor at for three seasons straight.

Garnacho finds himself in that lonely corridor of uncertainty - driven out into the cold from United and yet to earn the warmth of the Chelsea faithful. He will need more than grit and industry to find his way out, he will need a manager who knows how to accommodate and platform an unconventional skillset. Rosenior must be privy to the knowledge that Garnacho’s output on the right wing [11G, 8A in 35 games] is more fruitful than on the left [38G, 21A in 145 games.] That solution will prove temporary though with the club loaded on right wing options.

With Gittens and Estevao facing time on the sidelines, there will be an extended opportunity to earn the fans’ favour before the summer. There should be no dearth of belief. He remains one of the esteemed few to have shared a pitch in competitive games with both Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, a privilege earned, not given.

The last time he was at Wembley, he scored to help United beat City in the FA Cup final in 23/24, then went on to open the scoring against them in the Community Shield weeks later. A brace against Arsenal in the semi-finals in the Carabao Cup highlights his penchant of turning up in the big games. The last few games will prove decisive - an audition for his Chelsea future and for Lionel Scaloni as he looks to seal a place in the Argentina squad for the World Cup.

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