Michael Olise Chelsea transfer truth revealed as £77m Enzo Maresca reality clear

There is more than a slight irony in the transfer business that Chelsea are conducting so far. Not only did Tosin Adarabioyo, 26, become the oldest player to sign for the club since the summer deadline day in 2022 (Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang, 33), but he is now the tallest in the squad.

It was just over 12 months ago - and then regularly from there on - that Mauricio Pochettino first complained about the relative lack of experience, maturity, and seniority in the group he inherited and was tasked to mould together. It also didn't take him long to effectively point out that Chelsea's squad was small and not well suited to heading balls away, clearing crosses, or defending set pieces.

Adarabioyo alone answers some of these problems. In Jhon Duran, Chelsea are in talks for a player who, although still only 20, has the controlled aggression to fight for loose balls and win aerial battles in a way that others simply don't. He is a point-of-difference player in both boxes.

Then there is Michael Olise. Once again, the club are strongly interested in the Crystal Palace man, football.London understands, and the irony continues.

Yet again, Olise is only 22, but already he has three years of being a regular in a Premier League squad. Before that, he was a standout player as a teenager in the Championship at Reading. He is one year younger than Mykhailo Mudryk, for example, but has played more than twice as many senior minutes.

So yes, there is irony in the type of player Chelsea are looking at currently, especially when contrasted with the manager they just decided to part ways with (mutually). Olise alone is a set-piece demon, able to cross in and shoot around the box. He is creativity personified.

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He is also a player who, like Conor Gallagher, Ian Maatsen, Trevoh Chalobah, and Nicolas Jackson, among others, has risen through the ranks and taken each new challenge at every level of football in stride. These are characteristics that matter but are often overlooked. You can't apply data to that, but responding in tough times or to adversity is crucial, as is existing in a senior squad environment.

If Chelsea get a deal across the line, Olise will also become the third left-footed right winger in the squad, along with Cole Palmer (£42million) and Noni Madueke (£35million). Since Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly took over the club just over two years ago, they have signed five players of this description, plus Kendry Paez and have also used Ian Maatsen in the same role.

Last August, football.london analysed just what the effect of all these young players signing at a similar age and in the same spot might be. With Olise now on the radar again, the question is worth posing once more.

His possible arrival would shift the dynamics of the attack significantly. Madueke would become the third choice on the right, while even Palmer himself could have a changed role. For a player like Olise, who the club wanted just as much as anyone last summer, it is a decision worth making.

If signing someone of his quality costs Chelsea Madueke in the long run or Omari Hutchinson now, then those in power will be confident in the call here. Olise is a different calibre of player, already demonstrating the skill and quality to justify almost any price tag, let alone around £60million which really isn't much anymore.

This will be Enzo Maresca's issue to solve. Unlike Pochettino, who took on a group of players entering the first full season of Premier League football, Maresca now has the benefit of most of his squad being 12 months further on. Palmer is no longer the kid off the block with talent but a waste of money; he is now one of the stars.

Should Olise be landed, then Maresca would hold two of the best young wingers in the world in the palm (no pun intended) of his hand. Pochettino wasn't afforded this luxury, and making this sort of thing clear in public towards the end of the season is one of the reasons he landed in hot water with the co-sporting directors.

But that is now in the past, and what is in the present and potential future is a Chelsea with plenty of options. Where do Olise and Palmer fit together in an attack based around a 4-3-3 on paper, a 3-2-5 on the ball, and a 4-1-4-1 out of possession? They can be selected together, but alongside Christopher Nkunku and Nicolas Jackson, it would need some midfield gymnastics to make it work.

The beauty is that with European football, there will be ample room for rotation and spreading the load. There are stylistic problems to get around here, though.

In Palmer, Olise, and Duran (two of which Chelsea currently don't own), there would be a chaotic and instinct-driven core to the attack. All three are shot-happy, like to try from a distance, and do not willingly just play passes for the sake of it. They are all players with the quality to break open games and win them on their own. How does that fit into Maresca's patient build-up football? This is without the unpredictability of Jackson being considered as well.

Any coach would be lucky to have players of this ilk, but Duran failed to get himself into the thinking of Unai Emery, an experienced and elite coach. Will his spirit be unleashed or hindered under Maresca? Does attempting to tame Palmer, who was given the keys to the Chelsea team, let alone attack last season, improve him as a player? Can Olise, who does things his own way, be catered to by Maresca?

These are players who desire empowerment, thrive on responsibility, and have the characteristics to do things that cannot be coached in systems. This is not chess; this is throwing the board and scattering the pieces.

Maresca, it is likely, will position them into fitted roles. They will have set passing patterns and ways of playing. But the real ingenuity of Palmer, Olise, and, to an extent, Duran is the way they cannot be predicted or defined. They are agents of chaos, players who smell the game and take moments under their wing.

There may well be a clash of styles here that will again need to be worked through. Maresca will be fortunate to work with players above the level of those at Leicester, but his management track record has no evidence to suggest he can make it all work under the pressure that Chelsea brings. This is the risk that placing such wonderful components in his hands brings.

Unlike Pochettino, who was more established as a coach than most of his players were in the game, Olise and Palmer have more gravitas and aura right now than Maresca does. The manager would have to impress them as much as they would need to prove anything to him.

The world can see the talents of Olise and Palmer, even the flashes of Duran, sprinkling or brilliance from Jacskon, and out of Nkunku. Maresca has less to go on. He has more to demonstrate.

How this all plays out is uncertain and unclear. It suggests a change of angle in the attack towards transfers and an adjustment from the recruitment team, all but accepting their mistakes in how the squad was built in the first place. But now it's Maresca's turn to try and make it into something aligned and successful.