- 7 hours ago
Chelsea vs Arsenal was billed as the battle of the Premier League's best midfielders; Declan Rice vs Moises Caicedo. But with one sent off, and the other looking unusually ineffective, it was actually right-back Reece James - deployed centrally - who dominated the middle of the pitch. Adam Clery looks at why Enzo Maresca is increasingly using him in this position, and what makes him such a special player.
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00:00Alright, hello everybody, welcome to the Adam Cleary Football Channel. I am Adam Cleary and this is a long overdue
00:06look at why Rhys James is the boy.
00:10Which I don't entirely understand the meaning of, but someone told me to say.
00:14And just very quickly, right, because I know this is coming a little bit later in the week, but it's
00:18delayed because we only went and won that FSA award that we got nominated for.
00:25Now I'm not going to ramble on about that here, there's a deeply wet channel update you can go and
00:29look at if you're interested, right?
00:30But as this award is 100% a public vote, I just wanted to A, show it to you, but
00:37also say that if you did vote for us, just 100,000 thank yous.
00:43We're only on that shortlist because you guys have watched the channel and you've enjoyed it and we were only
00:47on that stage because you literally took time out of your day to go and vote for us.
00:53So, yeah, thank you very much.
00:56So, yes, very mad, all of that.
00:59And if you're wondering why it looks like I've had about three hours sleep, it's because I have.
01:03So, there you go.
01:05Anyway, Rhys James.
01:09We're going to start here with the Chelsea-Arsenal game from the weekend because it was quite, quite weird.
01:15It was a match that despite the red card, the fact that Chelsea had to play for like an hour
01:19with only 10 men, I think both sides would be a little disappointed they did not win.
01:24Arsenal will look at it as a missed opportunity, naturally, but Chelsea looked for a while like they might go
01:30on and do something insane here and I think were genuinely quite unlucky not to.
01:35But the story here is not about the whole 10 versus 11 thing.
01:40The story here is, in fact, about this man.
01:43Now, this is not my line.
01:45Obviously, I've read it about 500 times on Twitter since this game.
01:49But in a match that was billed as Rice versus Caicedo, who is the Premier League's best midfielder, it turns
01:57out that the answer might actually be Rhys James.
02:01And yes, there is a degree of hyperbole to that and it is also probably what I've called the video,
02:07so sorry for being extremely YouTube about the whole thing.
02:11But he is genuinely making a case for being the best all-rounder in world football right now and in
02:18this game, you saw exactly why.
02:21And just for a little bit of context here, right, it's becoming increasingly obvious this season, and to an extent,
02:27yes, the back end of last season,
02:29that Maresca likes to change which side he wants to invert his fullback from.
02:35Quite often you'll see Cucurea pushing up into advanced midfield positions, but if the opposition's main threat is coming down
02:41that side of the pitch,
02:43he doesn't want to give them the opening when they're trying to reposition.
02:46Case in point, Barcelona just last week, Cucurea's main job, rather than being a threat in the attacking third, was
02:54to sit on that side and ruin Lamine Jamal's night.
02:58Which, if you watch that game, he absolutely did.
03:02And what that means in relation to Rhys James is that just playing him as like a conventional inverted fullback
03:08who slides in next to Caicedo isn't always that easy.
03:13There are going to be some games where he's the one who has to tuck in along with the rest
03:17of the defence,
03:18and that is a tremendous waste of his ability on the ball.
03:22I feel like I said loads of that wrong, but I can't remember how.
03:27And so, in order to get around the problem of not really being able to invert him in a number
03:34of massive, massive games,
03:35what Enzo Mureska has started doing, and we'll just wind them all back here a second,
03:40is flat out starting him in central midfield in those really, really big games.
03:46Four times it's happened this season.
03:48Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Tottenham and Arsenal.
03:52In fact, my dear friends, the only massive game Chelsea have had this season in which he did not start
03:58Rhys James in central midfield
04:00was that one where he started Malé Gusto in central midfield, which seemed really weird at the time,
04:07but as the match went on, it became really obvious that James' main job in that game was to help
04:13Josh Asciampong through it
04:15and sit in front of that makeshift defence.
04:18He won the most tackles, he won the most duels, he won the most headers of any player on the
04:23pitch that day,
04:24which, while not allowing him to impact the game as far up as maybe Chelsea would have liked,
04:28was so important for them getting that win.
04:32And Mureska obviously deserves a lot of credit for just how he is managing Rhys James in general,
04:36but I think the major thing is that he is repeatedly making the correct decisions
04:41for assessing where his impact is needed on the pitch in relation to his starting position.
04:47But this was the starting line-up against Arsenal,
04:49I want to talk about his impact in this game specifically,
04:53because it really felt like one of those matches where everyone starts to notice
04:57something that's been quietly going on in the background for a little while now.
05:02And how he went about his job changed before and after the red card,
05:07but the job itself remained the same.
05:09He was there to stop Arsenal at any point enjoying domination in the centre of the pitch.
05:17From, like, literally the kick-off, you can see him here, I think we're a minute in or something,
05:21sticking to Declan Rice like a friggin' limp at mine.
05:25And he gave him just an absolutely minging evening pretty much from there on out.
05:30Before that red card, Rhys James' job was to stop Declan Rice doing anything
05:35that moved the ball up the pitch, to cut him off in every phase of the game
05:40from the rest of that Arsenal team.
05:42And if we look at all of Declan Rice's passes in that first half,
05:47you will see they are virtually all sideways or backwards.
05:52In fact, the only one that looks like it's really good and he's cutting through Chelsea, right?
05:58Go and actually look at that.
05:59It's a free kick.
06:01And even then, when he takes it,
06:03he will be able to smell exactly what flavour energy drink James had when he was warming up.
06:09He's still only about a foot away from him.
06:11And if you want to see just the extent to which Rhys James was doing this job on Declan Rice,
06:16right?
06:16This is all from one sequence.
06:19James sticks tight to Rice when Reyes got it at the back,
06:23preventing him from trying this little line-breaking pass.
06:26And when they do eventually go along with it and get it into Chelsea's half,
06:31he is still straight across to him over on the touchline
06:35and forces him to play backwards instead of trying to find any of the players ahead of the ball here.
06:41And even though Arsenal, given the credit, they do hold on to the ball,
06:44they don't make a silly mistake, they go all the way back to the goalkeeper,
06:48Rice becomes their deepest player just trying to find any sort of space.
06:52And Rhys James, again, still is in his face to such an extent
06:57that all he can do is turn around and give it back to David Raya.
07:01All three of these examples are from the same Arsenal sequence.
07:06There is maybe like one minute separating all of these clips.
07:12Just nowhere on this football pitch was Rhys James willing to let Declan Rice play the ball forward
07:18or even really have the space to receive it.
07:21And just to be absolutely clear about this, by the way,
07:24when Chelsea had the ball, it did look like Declan Rice's instructions were exactly the same.
07:30He was trying to stop Caicedo getting on it in a good position,
07:33trying to stop him from turning and playing forward.
07:35But the difference is Rhys James, in that first half at least,
07:39did look like he was absolutely getting the better of that personal battle.
07:44That really early yellow card for Zubamendi comes from James
07:47pulling rice all the way up here, but then slipping around him to get on the ball
07:53and drawing a really rash challenge as he comes across to try and cover.
07:57And I can understand how that looks really negative.
08:00That looks like spoiler tactics from your defensive midfielders.
08:04But by winning that personal battle, if you're the player that's coming out on top there,
08:09you are effectively giving yourself the space to play higher up
08:12that you are denying your opponent.
08:15James was doing that.
08:16And what we're seeing really consistently this season is that James is almost always
08:21winning those sorts of contests, regardless of who the opposition is
08:26or where they start him on the pitch.
08:28And if that's not quite going in, right, this little moment here really neatly sums it up.
08:33Chelsea are being forced back.
08:35Rice is shadowing Rhys James.
08:37And he just fractionally gets drawn over to Caicedo enough that James can move off and find this little bit
08:46of space.
08:46And it all just sort of happens in this tiny fraction of a second.
08:49But you can see immediately how annoyed Declan Rice is when that ball goes out there
08:54and nobody has covered for him or backed him up while he's been doing that pressing.
08:59And Rhys James then plays it forward in exactly the way he was stopping Declan Rice from doing.
09:05Chelsea get up the pitch and they get a chance out of that.
09:08And it's a terrible effort in the end, yes.
09:10But it all comes from Rhys James managing to find space against Rice that Rice was not being able to
09:17find against James.
09:19And that is the whole point of winning your individual battles.
09:23That is the impact they can ultimately then have on a game.
09:26Now, that is all well and good if you are Enzo Mareska, who is a top-level manager who prepares
09:32thoroughly for each game
09:33and comes up with tailored game plans, isn't it?
09:36Having a player at your disposal who can not only help you to implement loads of different approaches,
09:43but also is so good that he will ensure that said approaches are usually quite successful.
09:48But when this game changed as a result of that red card, so did Rhys James.
09:57Chelsea, quite surprisingly, did not make a single substitution in the wake of the sending off.
10:03And all they did was they moved Enzo Fernandes back into that central midfield position
10:08and Rhys James' job changed from ruining Declan Rice's afternoon to just generally ruining Arsenal's.
10:15Now, as I said at the start, we are a few days late to talking about this game
10:18and there have been other far more analytical channels than this one.
10:23We've done some fantastic breakdowns of this match.
10:25And the one thing all of them say is that they were surprised with just how chaotic this game was
10:33in the second half.
10:34Because you've seen it yourself, haven't you?
10:35A team goes down to 10 men, they do two banks of four, they try and shut the whole thing
10:40down, they kill the match.
10:42But Chelsea seemed really happy for it to still be quite open.
10:47In fact, the first change they end up making is to bring on Alejandro Garnaccio.
10:55Garnaccio, a man who is to open end-to-end chaotic games of football what a splash of milk is
11:02to a cup of tea.
11:03And theoretically, that should have been especially against a team as good as rotating as Arsenal are.
11:10An extremely daft thing to do.
11:12But Rhys James basically went on a one-man mission in central midfield, both in terms of screening his defence
11:20and moving the ball up the pitch.
11:22He stopped pressing high and following Rice, because that would have left poor Enzo all alone.
11:27Instead, started looking after zones.
11:30Basically making sure he was taking a starting position that covered this area in front of the back four,
11:35even if slightly over to the right-hand side.
11:37But then ensuring that when he did get the ball, he was well-placed to get it up the pitch,
11:42either by himself or by finding one of the wide players.
11:45It's just a fantastic little example of how that works here, right?
11:49Him, Fofana, and Gusto all rotate so that Rhys James is now at centre-back.
11:55You can see Fofana is at right-back.
11:57He drives forward with the ball.
11:58He exchanges a pass.
12:00He skips past two players.
12:01Zubamendi is absolutely furious about this.
12:04But then, instead of continuing to carry that ball upfield and leave a big gaping hole behind himself,
12:12if Chelsea lose possession, he instead gets his head up and passes it.
12:16But of course, they're down to ten men.
12:18There isn't a simple option in front of him.
12:20Anything forward risks losing it and then them bypassing him with the first ball.
12:24So he sprays it beautifully out to aforementioned semi-skimmed Alejandro Garnaccio.
12:30And that is brilliant, yes, but with a man less on the pitch.
12:33Which, crucially, it is not him over-committing.
12:37If Chelsea give that ball away over there on that side, they're still set.
12:41And likewise, instead of putting pressure on all the way up the pitch
12:44and risking leaving a hole if he gets passed around,
12:46he started sitting deep and looking to commit to the challenges that were in front of him.
12:51Like, this take off Zubamendi is brilliant.
12:54And again, he does not over-commit himself by charging forward.
12:58He does the exact same thing.
12:59He lifts his head and he sprays it out to a player in a better position.
13:03And he's just doing this adaptive, all-round, situational, brilliant midfield play every single week.
13:12Like, you look at his passing numbers for a fullback.
13:14And obviously, they are off the charts, right?
13:18Assists, key passes, passes into the final third, progressive passes, through balls, switches.
13:23They're all in the very top percentage points of all the fullbacks in the Premier League.
13:29But yes, no, you're absolutely correct.
13:30Of course, those numbers are really impressive for a fullback,
13:34because he's a fullback who spends loads of time in central midfield.
13:38So they should be really good, right?
13:41But then you compare them against actual midfielders.
13:45In fact, you know what?
13:46Let's just compare him to Declan Rice,
13:49who is, of course, another man who won an FSA award this week.
13:54Just saying.
13:55And don't look at those green bars, because they're not comparing like for like there, right?
13:59Look at the actual numbers per 90 minutes.
14:02You're talking fractions between them.
14:05And in a few areas, James is actually outperforming him.
14:09Assists, key passes, passes into the final third, progressive passes, through ball switches,
14:14all those exact same things.
14:16And they absolutely hold up against the best midfielder in the Premier League,
14:22even though James is not permanently a midfielder.
14:26He's spending loads of his time in defence.
14:29But I know, I know, I hear you, right?
14:32It's all well and good praising Rhys James and saying how good he is.
14:36But it's the fitness, isn't it?
14:39He's a fantastic player, but he just simply can never stay fit.
14:43And yes, OK, I do hear that, right?
14:46But just quietly, really quietly, because I am worried I'm going to jinx this just by saying it, OK?
14:52OK, Rhys James has not missed one single game of football through injury in 2025.
15:02And yeah, all right, he's been rested and he's been rotated and he's been left out of the squad.
15:07And just hang on a second.
15:09And I can see you there looking at Leicester in March.
15:12That is an illness, not an injury.
15:15They're very, very different things.
15:17Even like Superman can get a cold, can't he?
15:21I presume anyway.
15:22But regardless, whatever it is Rhys James is doing with his own body and in a way that Chelsea are
15:28managing him with Maresca and the fitness team and whatever,
15:31it does appear that he has put a lot of those physical problems behind him.
15:36So yes, I do wish to officially start a change.org petition to lobby the government to ban Chelsea from
15:45playing him more than once a week between now and the World Cup.
15:48Thanks very much.
15:49But of course, Chelsea fans, that is simply what I, an idiot who has not really been to bed yet,
15:55think about one of your star players.
15:57And I'll bet you've been watching him a lot more than I have.
16:00So please let me know in the comments down below.
16:01Is this a new role for him?
16:03Is this simply what you expected of him all along?
16:06Can he stay fit for the rest of the season, please?
16:09I need that to happen.
16:10I'm on my nearest here.
16:12All thoughts, all feelings, everything in the comments below.
16:14As ever, big reminder, if you have not subscribed to us already here at ACFC, that would be an amazing
16:20thing for you to do because we're getting like so close to 200,000 subs, I can smell it.
16:26And on the off chance we hit that before the new year, I would go absolutely mad.
16:32I'd streak.
16:33That's not legally binding.
16:35I probably wouldn't.
16:36But I'll tell you now, if you click that, there's a chance.
16:39So you're telling me there's a chance.
16:41And finally, go on then.
16:43Why the hell not?
16:43One final thank you to everybody.
16:45It's so heavy, by the way, who voted for us in the Football Supporters Association Awards 2025.
16:51I'm not going to go through the whole thing again.
16:53As I say, we've done a proper video on it, so you can go and watch that if you're really
16:57interested.
16:57But just to even get this nomination in that category with all the other people in it is wild.
17:04So, genuinely, I'm still lost for words about how you, not us, how you managed to win that for us.
17:12But yes, that's Rhys James.
17:14That's the video.
17:14Hope you've had a nice time.
17:15I'll see you soon.
17:16Love you all.
17:17Goodbye.
17:18Bye.
17:19Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.
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