How Juan Cuadrado Can Revive His Chelsea Career in 2015/16

Cuadrado means "square" in Spanish, and as far as Juan Cuadrado’s Chelsea career has gone so far that would seem to be entirely apt.

His is the face that doesn’t fit, he’s the odd man out, the square peg in the round hole.

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In 14 appearances for the Blues last season it’s pretty difficult to remember him actually doing anything. He’s there in the celebratory pictures that followed successes in the Capital One Cup and the Premier League, but he’s something of a ghostly figure. He almost looked embarrassed.

It’s not because the 27-year-old is a bad player, far from it, but it’s just because he looked to be entirely unsuited to his team.

Previously seen as a natural wide man whose desire is always to get down the wing and, in old-fashioned terms, “get chalk on his boots,” Cuadrado found himself thrust into a team whose wide players are expected to track back, a quality that Jose Mourinho so clearly admires in the Brazilian Willian—the direct rival for Cuadrado’s place in the team in a battle that the Colombian is losing emphatically.

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Willian is Mourinho’s dream of a player, and if Cuadrado is to earn a place in his manager’s affections then he could certainly try to learn from him, but there’s another Brazilian on Chelsea’s books who could also serve as his muse.

On the day when Chelsea sealed the Premier League title against Crystal Palace back in May, Cuadrado came into the team at short notice after midfielder Ramires had been taken ill.

In a microcosm of his Blues career so far, he was largely anonymous in a drab game and was substituted at half-time, but Mourinho’s decision to promote him from the bench and not John Obi Mikel, Nathan Ake or Ruben Loftus-Cheek hinted at a ray of hope for him.

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If Cuadrado can adapt his game and become more effective in central areas there is no reason to believe that he still can’t resurrect his Blues career, even though the transfer rumours linking him with an exit—such as Steve Brenner's in the Guardian—continue to be plentiful.

The key would appear to be an improvement in his performance centrally, though. In order to consistently be picked by Mourinho, the Colombian would need to improve when he’s got the game going on all around him, and not just all away to his left.

In Ramires, he’ll see a player who never seems to stop running wherever he is stationed on the pitch, albeit one whose effectiveness in the Chelsea side seemed to wane during what was a below-par campaign last time out.

Indeed, players such as the Brazilian and Mikel have found their Chelsea futures questioned as the stocks of the likes of Loftus-Cheek and Ake have been on the rise, with Mourinho’s apparent mistrust of the older pair seeing him turn to Kurt Zouma in defensive midfield on plenty of occasions last season—a tactic he could repeat were Chelsea to prise John Stones from Everton, which they remain hopeful of doing, according to Mark Walker of the Independent.

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This isn’t to say that Cuadrado should become a direct replacement for Ramires—the pair’s games are just too different—but if the Colombian can use the versatility of his fellow South American as inspiration, then he might find his Chelsea career is prolonged.

He’s almost certainly not going to shift Willian from Mourinho’s first team, and so developing something of a back-up plan for some minutes must be uppermost in Cuadrado’s mind.

He is technically gifted, and not just a wide man who wants to run down the line, so it is perfectly possible that he could find success elsewhere on the pitch.

Should he fail to do that, then he might find that he’s got no other option than to look elsewhere for employment sooner rather than later.