by Marc Cucurella was booed by sections of the Chelsea crowd on Saturday, perfectly summing up his difficult start to life at the club.
It’s fair to say things aren’t going well for Chelsea at the moment. On Saturday they drew 1-1 with West Ham at the London Stadium, their third successive draw and their seventh away game without a win.
The result leaves Graham Potter’s side ninth in the Premier League table with 31 points from 22 games, nine points adrift of the top four.
Potter is under increasing pressure despite only turning coaching in September. Chelsea have won just six of the 16 league matches Potter has been in charge of, and heavy investment in the January transfer window has yet to bring an improvement in form.
It can be a little hard to judge Potter after just 16 games, especially since the January window was his first opportunity to make his own team. New signings João Félix and Enzo Fernandez impressed on Saturday, the former giving the visitors the lead by converting a perfect cross from the latter.
However, while by no means bad, Spanish left-back Cucurella again failed to make himself fully at home in the Chelsea XI.
The 24-year-old was one of the best players in the league last season and looked likely to join Manchester City in the summer.
City and former club Brighton could not reach an agreement, so Cucurella ended up joining Chelsea in a deal worth £63m.
After a dismal start to the season under Thomas Tuchel, many thought a reunion with his former Brighton manager would see Cucurella back to his best. That doesn’t seem to have happened yet, and some Chelsea fans are starting to lose patience.
A video emerged on Twitter showing some of the Chelsea fans booing Cucurella when he was substituted during the second half of Saturday’s game. There was then audible applause as left-back Ben Chilwell came on for him.
