Labelled aptly upon his arrival at Stamford Bridge as ‘Sarri’s son’ by Chelsea fans; drafted in from Naples for £52M with now Ex- Blues boss Maurizio Sarri last season, Jorginho was instantly stigmatised by an unwanted label.
Jorginho’s style of play epitomised much of what Sarri’s philosophy was about. The Brazilian-born Italian was deployed as a defensive midfielder – a strange decision considering his lightweight stature, which is more akin to a gangly billy-goat then the typical Roy Keane-esque bulldozing holding midfielder which has postered English football for decades. Jorginho was completely incongruent to everything our league stood for, and that made him look like a fish out of water.
He topped all the passing stats in his first season, but once it became apparent that 2,000 passes were made without a single assist, fans were after his head like Henry VIII. Fans even began hypothesising the notion that Jorginho must have been sleeping with Sarri’s wife, as he continued to start games despite constant booing from fans. This, of course, was bullshit. But fans were so offended by Maurizio Sarri’s refusal to change the system that when results started to turn sour that it was easy to pinpoint the blame on the very player he brought to England to help implement his philosophy. To the naked eye it was a side-pass here, a side-pass there. A, ‘If i pass it to my mate here, i’ll move five yards and he can give it back to me there’, like a pointless game of stalemate chess. Jorginho’s obedience to Sarri’s tactics was killing his career – but fans were really missing the point.
Jorginho is the modern day regista. His job is to dictate the flow of play from deep, keep possession of the ball and start attacks, but he has more to his game than that. Sometimes in football people only see what they want to see, they don’t stop to think about what’s actually going on and become fixated on a negative and miss the big picture. What they want to see is some kind of feeble donkey who cannot run, make a forward pass, dribble, nor shoot – just so one can prove that they were right. But these armchair geniuses are stupid.
Make no mistake, though. Jorginho is a donkey. Watching him plod around the pitch is like watching a partially-disabled, frenzied deer flee from a huntsman. But what Jorginho lacks in his physical pace he more than makes up in the mind. He’s two passes ahead of everyone else at all times. While others start thinking about what the are going to do with the ball as they receive it, Jorginho is thinking about where he should be next having layed off a pass, received it back and made of cup of tea. Besides that, he demonstrates unbelievable composure on the ball; comfortable receiving it under pressure. If you pointed a gun at his head, he’d just say ‘ciao’ and lay it off to a teammate just the same. He’s also a leader – always communicating with his teammates and shouting at them when they need a kick up the arse. And he’s tough in the tackle, too – not afraid to get stuck in.
I’m going to throw some stats at you now in support of this.
Jorginho has bettered arguably the two best defensive midfielders in the league in tackle success, interceptions, recoveries, big chances created and accurate final third passes, which isn’t bad for a donkey. You could argue that he’s been part of a Chelsea team this season who have been unorganised to say the least, and you’d be right. He has needed to defend a lot of the time, while the others need to defend less as they’ve always got the ball. But one still needs to actually make a tackle when the danger is there. He tops the Premier League Charts in number of through balls made (8) – that’s more than Kevin De Bruyne. He’s also sixth in the number of passes made by any player this season, and ninth in number of touches made. Chelsea have the third highest goals so far this season (14) and I’m in no doubt that Jorginho has had a part to play in this as a deep lying play-maker.
His role has also evidently changed. While he finished the season with his grand total of zero assists, a lot can be said about Chelsea’s strike-force. there is only so much you can do to grab an assist when your forwards consist of Olivier Giroud, Alvaro Morata and an ageing Gonzalo Higuain – all of which couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with a banjo between them. You could have had a prime Iniesta in there and he wouldn’t have fared much better. But this season he’s already amassed last season’s tally with uno so far this season, and it could have been more had our forwards been more clinical, (even if they have been good). He’s also equalled his record of tackles this season of 18, in just seven games. Do a bit of quick maths and that’s 2.57142857143 per game. You’re welcome.
But what does all this really mean? Jorgi was actually an underrated player last season, but Sarri’s style of play, (which although to be fair, was a success come the end of the season with a third placed Premier League finish and the Europa League trophy) made Jorginho look like he offered nothing but maintain possession of the ball; he was limited. But little did fans know, he was really the instrument of our success; dictating the flow of the game. What Lampard has done this season though is release him. He’s begun to gallop forward more; becoming more of an industrious player for Chelsea. He now is creating more chances, is more of a warrior; and become a leader – now the club’s official vice-captain. He does everything he did unconventionally well last season and a lot more. Like a puppeteer, he’s played us all the fool like puppets in a Shakespearean play, all along. Only now are people realising it. From Sarri’s sacred son to now endeared as ‘Chelsea’s Jorginho’, he’s finally getting the recognition he deserves. There’s a reason Pep Guardiola was so keen to bring him to Manchester City.
Hard luck, Pep.
Compulsively Human 