Enzo Fernandez, Romeo Lavia and Reece James have all sent messages of support to Moises Caicedo after he posted on Instagram following his Chelsea debut.
The £115million signing came off the bench around an hour into Chelsea’s 3-1 defeat at West Ham United on Sunday afternoon in what turned out to be a bit of a nightmare first match in the famous blue shirt. In the final moments of the game, with the Blues chasing a late equaliser, Caicedo brought down Emerson Palmieri inside the box and John Brooks had no hesitation in pointing to the penalty spot.
Lucas Paqueta converted from 12 yards to ensure the three points would be staying with the Hammers at the London Stadium. Caicedo then took to Instagram on Monday to post a message to the Chelsea fans following the incident.
The 21-year-old wrote: “It wasn’t the debut that I expected but I’m happy to get my first minutes with this big club. We’ll keep working. hard to put this team where it deserves. Thanks to the fans who are supporting me.”
His teammates Fernandez, Lavia and James have now commented on his Instagram post with messages of support for the Ecuadorian midfielder. Enzo said: “This is not how it starts, but how it ends. Let’s go all out brother! We will all work together”, while Lavia added: “In this all together mi hermano”, with James saying: “Together as one”.
After a really busy week in terms of completing the British record transfer and meeting up with his new teammates for the first time at Cobham, Mauricio Pochettino and his backroom staff assessed the midfielder on Saturday and deemed that he was only ready for a place on the bench. With Chelsea needing a goal, though, Pochettino did turn to his new midfielder for the last 30-or-so minutes in east London.
“We took the decision that we would play with him in the last 30 minutes because he is ready to play 30 minutes but maybe he wasn’t ready to play from the beginning, but 30 minutes yes,” the Chelsea head coach said on Caicedo after the game. “He did well, some very positive things. Okay, in the last minute we concede a goal but we cannot say nothing wrong.
“It was positive but we [all] feel disappointed because we deserve more. But in the end we didn’t get the result we wanted.”
Next up for Chelsea and Caicedo is a Premier League match with Luton Town on Friday evening in what could be the midfielder’s full debut for the club. He could also be joined by fellow new signing Romeo Lavia, who was not included in the squad for the trip to West Ham.
