The Chelsea project is starting to come to fruition after many summers of questionable investments and major spending, as key players are starting to emerge as legitimate top talents in the Premier League to start the 2024/25 season under Enzo Maresca.
Moises Caicedo and Nicolas Jackson are beginning to show their quality, while Levi Colwill has become a strong anchoring point for the defense. Meanwhile, Cole Palmer and Christopher Nkunku are world-class attackers with Pedro Neto and Jadon Sancho already showing signs of their brilliance at Stamford Bridge.
But perhaps the biggest development at Chelsea is actually occurring outside Chelsea and at one of the partner clubs under the management of Todd Boehly and the ownership group BlueCo.
Ligue 1 side Strasbourg have produced top talents in recent years, most namely defender Mohamed Simakan, who has become one of the best in the Bundesliga for RB Leipzig.
Strasbourg likely have an even better player on their hands in Brazilian phenom Andrey Santos, who may be a bit overlooked by another major Brazilian prospect under the Chelsea banner, Palmeiras’ Estevao Willian.
But Santos has been arguably the best player in all of Ligue 1 to start the 2024/25 season with three goals in four starts and a league-high 4.3 tackles per game for Strasbourg.
As if those numbers in two completely different statistics weren’t enough, the midfielder is also averaging 1.5 key passes and 3.0 combined fouls drawn and dribbles completed per game for the 10th-placed underdog side.
Thanks to these numbers, there are only two players in the entire French top flight who have a higher rating than the 20-year-old 2023 signing from Vasco da Gama. Those players are mercurial PSG star Ousmane Dembele and underrated Lille winger Edon Zhegrova.
Santos is the biggest young standout in a league known for producing young talents, and only two of the league’s most respected stars on the wing are performing as well as the Chelsea loanee.
After wasting his first half of the 2023/24 season at Nottingham Forest, the 12.5 million euro signing found a home in the winter at Strabsourg and is now blossoming into their best player.
Chelsea look to have a bargain on their hands, and if Santos keeps this up, he should be worth at least five times what the Blues signed him for and could be the Ligue 1 Player of the Season.
At this rate, Chelsea fans should be watching Santos as a future starter alongside Caicedo, putting the pressure on 121 million euro transfer flop Enzo Fernandez to finally step up.
The managing editor of The Trivela Effect, Kevin has 15 years of experience in digital media. He covered Real Madrid from 2019-2022 for The Real Champs as a site manager. You can contact him at the site’s official Twitter handle @TrivelaEffect or via the site’s official email thetrivelaeffect@gmail.com.