Thomas Tuchel believes Chelsea attacker Hakim Ziyech still 'needs to adapt' despite creator's swift start
Ziyech has lost just once for Chelsea since joining but has been sidelined since his new manager's first game in charge
By
James Benge
•
4 min read
Chelsea's best moments under Frank Lampard came with Hakim Ziyech on the pitch. Before the Ajax midfielder made his full debut the Blues had labored to five draws in six games. Add the talismanic Morocco international to the mix and suddenly Chelsea were a force to be reckoned with, reeling off five wins in his first five games.
Timo Werner was scoring goals for fun, Kai Havertz looked more at ease without such an overwhelming creative burden and the tandem between Ziyech's curling left-footed deliveries and the overlapping runs of Reece James caused sleepless nights for Premier League left backs. Further injuries robbed the 27-year-old of more game time but what is indisputable is this, he has lost just one game in Chelsea colors whilst his teammates have lost five without him.
It is curious then that his new manager, yet to pick him in the starting XI since his first game in charge of Chelsea, should think that so much more adaptation is required from Ziyech.
"Hopefully tomorrow we'll see the best of him," said Thomas Tuchel ahead of Chelsea's FA Cup fifth round tie against Barnsley. "He has had a good training week. We count on Hakim like we count on everybody else, there's absolutely no doubts about that. We took some decisions not against him but for other players. He will have the chance to show tomorrow the same quality he shows in training, the same determination.
"For me it's clear that he needs to adapt to this kind of football, to this kind of league. He comes from the Dutch league, from a strong, strong Ajax squad but they were the benchmark in the league and it's not the same intensity and competition like it is here."
How Ziyech compares to Premier League creators
| Ziyech output per 90 | Premier League rank (players with >500 minutes) | |
|---|---|---|
Passes made in final third | 26.79 | 2 |
Chances created | 2.55 | 7 |
Expected assists | 0.28 | 4 |
Assists | 0.43 | 5 |
Sequences involved in that end with a shot | 7.23 | 7 |
Open play shots on target | 0.85 | 35 |
After all, among players who have played 500 minutes in the Premier League this season Ziyech ranks seventh for chances created per 90 minutes, 12th for key passes and fourth for expected assists, a metric that tracks the probability of any pass played leading to a goal.
Such numbers compare favorably to the Ziyech who lit up Europe in Ajax's run to the Champions League semifinals in the 2018-19 season. He is creating 2.55 chances per 90 in the Premier League this term as opposed to 2.51 two years ago in the Champions League and averaging 0.43 assists as opposed to 0.24. Only in terms of open play shots on target has there been a notable decline in performance from 1.61 to 0.85. Certainly there are few indications that this is a dramatically different player to the one Chelsea thought they were buying in January of last year.
His performances this season have come while, as he admitted earlier this week, struggling on and off the field in a new country. Ziyech believes he picked up the pace of the English game swiftly but his run of injuries have been "bloody annoying" and being without his friends and family during an England wide lockdown has been no less of a challenge. Add to that all the niggles that come with moving to the United Kingdom, he noted driving on the left hand side. So it's possible that Tuchel still feels he is not seeing his No.22 at the peak of his powers not as a result of what has happened on the pitch, but because the challenges of adapting off of it suggest there still may be even higher heights to come.
It is of course significant that two of the sextet of players above him in terms of chance creation are Chelsea team-mates: Mason Mount and Callum Hudson-Odoi, youngsters who have proven that the departure of Lampard need not have had any impact on the pipeline between the academy and first team at Cobham.
Hudson-Odoi in particular has seized the opportunity brought on by the change in coaching staff, impressing so much in an unfamiliar right wing-back role that Tuchel felt compelled to give him more opportunities further up the pitch. Notably, in the 1-0 win over Tottenham last week the 20-year-old took up a role somewhere between inverted forward and number 10 that seems tailor-made for Ziyech.
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Whilst Tuchel is still talking in terms of "unfair" selection, Ziyech might simply feel he is one of the unlucky ones who are still paying the price for that first game, a weary draw at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers. A couple of good performances, starting with a visit to mid-table Championship opponents who will surely sit deep and challenge Chelsea to break them down, and the Moroccan international may very well be back in favor.
Tuchel is in no doubt that Ziyech is well-suited to such a task. "He has the certain quality to decide matches, the certain quality to do the unexpected which can give you an extra twist in any game and on any level," he said. "He proved that with Ajax. Of course we want to push him to the same level of performance that he showed there."
Certainly if Tuchel is right in his belief that there is at least one more level for Ziyech to reach before he displays the full range of abilities Chelsea paid nearly $50million for, then Premier League defenders might be having sleepless nights once more very soon.
