Romeo Lavia: Chelsea's injury-hit, one-time Liverpool target who could be crucial for run-in

New York Times

03-05-2025

Enzo Maresca made it clear after Chelsea's 1-0 win over Everton that he sees two very different versions of his team: the one with Romeo Lavia in it and the one without.
'When he is fit, he is one of the best midfielders (in the world),' Maresca said of Lavia in his post-match press conference. 'He can defend very well, he can attack, he can break the line (with the ball) and pass between the lines.'
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Unfortunately for Maresca, Chelsea have been without Lavia much more than they have been able to call upon him in his second season at Stamford Bridge, after a debut campaign that was wrecked by injuries. Saturday against Everton was only his 12th appearance in the Premier League in 2024-25, nine of which have been starts.
Lavia has not yet completed a full 90 minutes since his move from Southampton for a fee of £53million plus £5m in add-ons in August 2023. It would be poetic if he finally achieved that milestone against Liverpool, the team that pursued him for much of that summer window before losing out to Chelsea in the battle for his signature.
Liverpool had identified Lavia as a potential solution to their hole in the base of midfield created by Fabinho's drastic decline. Even as a 19-year-old, his composure and technical polish on the ball in a struggling Southampton team had marked him out as the kind of press-resistant No 6 that every modern elite team wants.
Lavia has shown glimpses of those qualities and has demonstrated his value even in relatively limited outings this season. Chelsea are actually losing slightly more often during his Premier League minutes on the pitch (nine goals scored, 10 conceded), but some context is required: Maresca underlined his high opinion of the Belgian by pushing him into his starting XI for big matches against Manchester City, Liverpool, Newcastle and Arsenal, often when short of his peak sharpness and rhythm.
The only two Premier League matches Lavia started in December were a 3-0 dismantling of Aston Villa at Stamford Bridge and a thrilling 4-3 fightback away at bitter rivals Tottenham — two victories that rank as arguably Chelsea's two most impressive performances of the season. He distinguished himself in both.
Early in the first half against Villa, one sequence demonstrated the two most outstanding aspects of Lavia's game: his ability to receive and retain the ball under pressure, and his talent for identifying and playing line-breaking passes that give his team an advantage.
In the 11th minute, he took possession of the ball in his own defensive third, held off Jaden Philogene as he dribbled diagonally upfield, then threaded a perfect pass through a small gap between two Villa midfielders into the feet of an unmarked Cole Palmer in the right half-space:
Any statistical analysis of Lavia suffers from the small-sample-size problem, but these progressive passes already mark him out. According to SkillCorner, whose tracking data uses an AI model to identify defensive structures and passes that go through them, Lavia is one of only seven midfielders with 500 or more minutes in the Premier League this season to average 4.7 or more line-breaking passes per 90 minutes.
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To put that in Chelsea context, Moises Caicedo ranks 10th with an average of 4.4 line-breaking passes per 90 minutes, while Enzo Fernandez ranks 15th with 4.1 per 90 minutes.
Not all line-breaking passes are created equal. Fernandez's passes have broken the last line of opposition defence 18 times this season; only Cole Palmer (19) has done so more often. Lavia's speciality (illustrated in the graphic below) is playing passes through an opponent's midfield line, most often into Chelsea team-mates operating in the left and right half-spaces:
Those passes are very unlikely to result in direct assists, but they are crucial for the attacking success of Maresca's system, which relies in no small part on consistently getting the ball to the players in those half-spaces — chiefly Palmer — with time and space to make good decisions in the final third of the pitch.
Lavia is the best player Chelsea have at playing these particular passes, and he is just as capable of playing them through opponents who sit deep as those who press high. Here he is against a conservative Everton, receiving a seemingly innocuous square pass from Caicedo, quickly swivelling his body and rattling the ball between three opponents into Fernandez:
Tottenham's aggressive press in December gave Lavia even more opportunities to carve open their midfield line and he did so repeatedly, despite only playing the first half. The most impressive one might have been this sequence shortly before the interval: receiving a pass from Benoit Badiashile under pressure from Dejan Kulusevski and angling a first-time pass forward to Palmer through a gap that did not appear to exist:
Lavia has a sharp understanding with Palmer, no doubt grounded in their shared history at Manchester City's academy. Midway through the first half against Tottenham, they worked in tandem to torment Pape Matar Sarr: Palmer drifting slightly to his left to lure the Senegal international into leaning one way, then darting to his right as Lavia hits a perfectly timed and weighted pass into the space behind Spurs' midfield…
Maresca believes a Caicedo-Lavia base gives his midfield the best balance, explaining in November that he values their physicality and strength in the middle of the pitch. Initially, his desire to field both relegated Fernandez to the substitutes' bench. More recently, Caicedo has started as the nominal right-back and inverted into midfield alongside the Belgian whenever Chelsea have the ball, with Fernandez moving up into the left half-space.
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Lavia is more impactful defensively than Fernandez. His aggression in the tackle makes him well-suited to a team that seeks to recover the ball in the opposition half. Here he is against Villa simply beating Boubacar Kamara to a 50-50 ball and timing a slide that doubles as a forward pass to Nicolas Jackson:
On the stroke of half-time against Spurs, he anticipated Son Heung-min's pass infield towards Sarr, took the ball, drove forward and played a quick pass up to Jackson:
But there is a reason why Maresca sees Lavia as an ideal partner for Caicedo, rather than as a viable alternative to the Ecuador international. He is more active than aware defensively, and as the deepest midfielder, his occasional lapses are more likely to be damaging to the team.
The most memorable example came in Chelsea's 2-1 away win over Leicester City in November. Introduced in place of Caicedo in the 81st minute, Lavia realised too late that he needed to be the one to defend Bobby De Cordova-Reid, with Levi Colwill drawn right to track the run of Victor Kristiansen. Stephy Mavididi clipped the ball into the box for De Cordova-Reid and Lavia, caught the wrong side, brought him down to concede a penalty:
Tottenham also stretched Lavia defensively in the first half in December. In the 24th minute, Son initiated a one-two with Dominic Solanke and sprinted beyond Caicedo into the left channel. Solanke became Lavia's responsibility, but the Belgian allowed the Cobham graduate to get away from him. Son elected to shoot himself and nearly scored, but if he had squared the ball to Solanke the result would have been an even better chance:
That sequence highlighted some of the broader risks with Maresca's preferred midfield alignment. Caicedo is not a natural right-back and can be vulnerable to faster wingers, particularly without the injured Wesley Fofana around to defend the large space created by his inverting runs. Going with Reece James in that role instead may strengthen Chelsea defensively at the cost of weakening the midfield, and the recovery runs exert a physical toll.
But the potential rewards of picking Lavia are considerable.
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Chelsea are likely to encounter more high-pressure than low-block defences in their daunting Premier League run-in, starting with the visit of Liverpool to Stamford Bridge on Sunday. There are no regrets at Anfield about missing out on Lavia; Arne Slot's midfield has been the best in the country this season and Ryan Gravenberch, in particular, has been moulded into exactly the type of No 6 that Maresca wants Lavia to be in his team.
Stronger opposition is never a good thing, but aggressive pressing can widen the Belgian's windows to play those line-breaking passes through the midfield. That should also help Palmer, who is searching for rhythm and has been dropping deeper and deeper to touch the ball in recent weeks.
Last but not least, Lavia's progressive passing talents make Marescaball much more watchable for supporters — as long as his body holds up.