Second Chelsea Star Flirts With La Liga Giants Before Questioning Club Direction

The international break has been particularly damaging to Chelsea’s reputation.

Another major problem for Chelsea. | Elsa/FIFA/Getty Images

After Enzo Fernández’s continued flirting with Real Madrid, Chelsea left back Marc Cucurella has followed suit by admitting an interest in returning to Barcelona.

Multiple to-and-fro responses from Fernández—most recently a public desire to live in the city of Madrid—have sparked significant uncertainty about the Argentine’s future at a time in which the entire Chelsea project is being questioned.

Midfielder partner Moisés Caicedo declined the chance to fuel the fire of his own potential exit, but Cucurella, while insisting he was not thinking about leaving Stamford Bridge any time soon, could not resist admitting a desire to return to La Liga.

“At the end of the day, Spain is always Spain,” he said. “It’s my country and where I grew up, and you always think about going back, but I think I’d leave it for a few years.

“I’m very happy [in England], my family too, and as a life experience, it’s a very good one.”

Pressed specifically on a hypothetical move to Barcelona, where Cucurella’s career began, the left back added: “Well, it’s clear that if something like that happens, it’s difficult to turn them down, but I’d have to consider it.

“At the end of the day, it’s not just about me. I’d also have to think about my family, maybe, what’s best for them or for all of us, but as I said before, I’m not thinking about that right now.

“If it happens, it happens, and we’ll see what we decide.”

A few hours later, Cucurella further rocked Chelsea with a damning admission about the current direction of the club.

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Cucurella Questions Enzo Maresca Departure

Cucurella disagreed with Enzo Maresca’s departure. | Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC/Getty Images

Tensions have been high around Stamford Bridge ever since the departure of manager Enzo Maresca in January. While results on the pitch were mixed, the Italian’s exit was largely down to a behind-the-scenes conflict with a sporting hierarchy under immense pressure for its conduct since the arrival of new owners BlueCo in 2022.

Maresca was replaced by Liam Rosenior, who is under his own pressure after a run of four straight defeats and a humiliating elimination from the Champions League at the hands of a Paris Saint-Germain side emphatically beaten by the Blues in the Club World Cup last summer.

“Liam is a very good person and has been great at handling the group, the characters,” Cucurella insisted to The Athletic. “He likes to stay close to us and his football ideas are good, but we don’t have the time to train them.”

Cucurella did, however, follow Fernández in claiming Chelsea were wrong to part ways with Maresca in the first place.

“With Enzo Maresca in charge, we were more stable, because we worked together for 18 months,” he continued. “If you look at our first preseason with him, there were doubts. You need a process for every player to understand what we need to do. In our last months with Maresca, we played almost by heart. If we changed the system, we knew what we had to do. You need that time.

“Look at Arsenal now, who are fighting for every trophy. They’ve been with [Mikel] Arteta for almost seven years and they have not won much. But that trust in the project gives rewards.

“We knew what Maresca wanted from us. Winning a title like the Club World Cup also helps, strengthens the bond, and you create great relationships during the celebrations. When a manager gives you that confidence and offers you a platform to fight for titles, you’d die for him.

“The moment Maresca left, it had a big impact on us. These are decisions taken by the club. If you asked me, I would not have made this decision. To make a change like that, the best thing is to wait until the end of the season. You would give everyone, the players and the new manager, time to get ready, have a full preseason.

“The instability around the club comes from this, in a nutshell. We had a caretaker first, then a new manager, with new ideas and no time to work on them. It is what it is.”

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Chelsea’s Transfer Policy Comes Under Fire

Chelsea offered nothing against PSG. | FRANCK FIFE/AFP/Getty Images

Defeat to PSG, 8–2 on aggregate, was particularly embarrassing for Chelsea and exacerbated existing concerns about the make-up of the squad.

Blues officials have focused on recruiting young, exciting talents with high potential, favoring those players over older options who may not offer the same resale value, but bring the experience that is sorely lacking in the dressing room.

Tosin Adarabioyo, 28, is the oldest player in the Chelsea squad, marginally ahead of goalkeeper Robert Sánchez and 27-year-old Cucurella, and the left back admitted the club’s “win later” approach to business has had a real psychological impact.

“Results like [the PSG defeat] are always hard to take,” Cucurella said. “You are fighting and training every day only to realize, at the very end, that when games matter, we are still a bit away from the top level.

“I understand this is part of the club’s policy, and that they want to take this direction—signing young players and looking to the future. But, for all of us who are still here and want to win big things, moments like this make you feel discouraged.

“We have a good core of players. The foundations are there. But to fight for major trophies such as the Premier League or the Champions League, you need more. Signing young players only might complicate achieving those goals. Against PSG, we lacked players that had gone through situations like that.

“You need time as well, and I know the young players are the ones that will have the experience in the future. But you need to find the balance between both worlds.”

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