Paul Merson Slams Chelsea's 'Crazy' Enzo Fernandez Suspension After City Defeat
Chelsea’s 3-0 defeat to Manchester City on Sunday did not just expose the gulf in class on the pitch. It dragged the club’s decision‑making into the spotlight as well.
They went toe-to-toe with Pep Guardiola’s side for 45 minutes. Compact, disciplined, dangerous enough on the break to make City think. At half-time, level and still in the contest, there was at least a sense of resilience.
Then City clicked up a gear. Chelsea fell apart.
The midfield, already light on control, simply disintegrated. Moises Caicedo and Andrey Santos, left to carry the creative and defensive burden in the middle of the pitch, struggled badly as the champions swarmed all over them. Chelsea could not get out, could not breathe, could not build.
And watching that unfold, Paul Merson could not believe who was missing.
Merson: “Crazy at the highest level”
Enzo Fernandez, Chelsea’s most gifted passer and the man who knits their build-up together, sat out the game under a two-match club suspension after interviews that did not go down well at Stamford Bridge.
For Merson, writing in his Sky Sports column, the call was indefensible.
“Why in your brain of brains would you ban Enzo Fernandez for two games?” he wrote. “He’s your best passer of the ball, the one who can create, and you chop your nose off to spite your face.
“And it’s not the FA banning him, it’s the club. It’s crazy at the highest level. They were crying out for him yesterday; they couldn’t get out.”
The evidence was there in real time. Without Fernandez dropping into pockets, taking the ball under pressure and threading passes through the lines, Chelsea’s build-up froze. Caicedo and Santos are both talented, but neither offers the same range or tempo of distribution. City sensed that weakness and pressed with impunity.
Neville points the finger at Fernandez and Cucurella
If Merson’s anger is aimed at the club’s hierarchy, Gary Neville has been more pointed about the players themselves.
Neville has already criticised Fernandez this season and believes that if Chelsea miss out on Champions League qualification, the Argentine and Marc Cucurella will shoulder a large share of the blame. Cucurella, like Fernandez, has also spoken publicly in a way that has not helped the mood around the club, drawing Neville’s ire.
At a time when Chelsea need stability and clarity, the noise has grown louder. Internal suspensions, public criticism, and a squad still trying to find its identity under pressure at the sharp end of the season.
Chelsea punish themselves
Strip away the emotion and the decision still looks self-defeating. Chelsea chose to go into a game against the most ruthless, well-drilled side in the country without their best passer by choice, not by force.
They paid for it.
With Fernandez in the side, Chelsea at least have an outlet. A player who can receive in tight spaces, turn, and find a forward runner. On Sunday, that option simply did not exist often enough. Attacks broke down before they began. The second half became a training drill for City, wave after wave of pressure crashing over a midfield that could neither protect the back line nor launch meaningful counters.
There were other ways to make their point. A heavy fine. A ban from an FA Cup quarter-final. A clear internal warning. Instead, Chelsea and Liam Rosenior went “the extra mile” with a two-game suspension and ended up damaging their own chances in one of the toughest fixtures of the season.
The irony is brutal: the punishment landed hardest on the team sheet.
City on another level – with or without Enzo
There is another truth to this, though. The way City played after the interval, it is hard to argue that one man would have flipped the script entirely. They suffocated Chelsea, shifted the ball with their usual relentlessness, and once the first goal went in, the outcome felt inevitable.
As some around the club admitted, even a prime Lionel Messi might have struggled to stem that tide.
Yet elite clubs are judged on marginal gains, on the details that tilt tight moments. Chelsea removed one of their few players capable of changing the rhythm of a game like this. Against most teams, that might be survivable. Against City, it is asking for trouble.
United defeat keeps door ajar
The only sliver of encouragement came away from the Etihad. Manchester United’s loss to Leeds United on Monday kept Chelsea’s season alive in a way their own performance did not. Beat United this weekend and the gap shrinks to four points. The table, suddenly, would not look quite so bleak.
That is the context that makes the Enzo decision sting even more. Chelsea are fighting for Champions League football, counting every point, every swing in momentum. They chose to go into their biggest test of the run-in with one hand tied behind their back.
The question now is simple: in a race this tight, can they afford another own goal off the pitch?
