“My expectation is…” – Ben Jacobs lays out Enzo Maresca’s festive plan for Reece James | OneFootball

Ben Jacobs has great insight into what goes on at Chelsea, and as well as the usual transfer chatter, his feature on the London is Blue podcast this week also had lots of snippets about the Reece James situation.

The club captain has been used pretty regularly by Enzo Maresca since returning to fitness, but in a variety of roles, on both sides of the pitch. And he was even dropped for our last game as the coach looked to use Marc Cucurella’s 1 vs 1 still on the left with Malo Gusto returned to the right in a non-inverted role.

Jacobs explains this as the coaching staff experimenting with James tactically as well as in terms of his fitness, and expects a more consistent right sided role after this break. You can see Jacobs answering questions on James in the clip embedded here, with these quotes coming after 10 minutes:

Enzo Maresca speaks to Reece James at Anfield.

James set to make right side his own – but will never play 100% of games

“It feels like James’ role, his leadership, and the side [of the pitch] that he plays on are all being questioned or sculpted at the moment, while he’s also getting fully sharp or match fit. And that’s a lot. So respite, and games where he’s fit and on the bench, might be quite useful, just as he’s sort of eased back in,” Jacobs explained.

“I’m sure they’ll take a second assessment on his fitness and how quickly he’s able to adapt to the style and the philosophy during this international break. And then my expectation is that James will remain predominantly right sided even though we’ve seen him on the left, and that he will be busy if fit, during the festive period… it’s like stocking up James and preparing him and integrating him.”

After returning at the end of the last break a month ago, James managed to stay fit through a flurry of games. Now it sounds like the next stage of his integration is coming.