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Chelsea midfielder Moises Caceido has said the pressure of a £115m price tag was to blame for his “tough” first season at Stamford Bridge.
The 22-year-old scored one goal and managed just four assists in 48 games following his move from Brighton last summer, and he has admitted he lost confidence in himself.
“The beginning was tough for me, because you are at a big club, the price, you always have to win every game,” said Caicedo.
“It was tough for me because when I was in Brighton, the pressure is less. At Chelsea, it is different. I felt a lot of pressure because, you know... the club, the history, the players who were there.
“But after the last four or five months, I felt more comfortable at the club.”
The Ecuador international, who played in this summer’s Copa America, has a lot to thank Mauricio Pochettino for, after the now-former Chelsea coach kept faith with the record signing and helped him get back to his best form.
“A lot of people around me helped me – Mauricio and his staff,” Caicedo said. “They were with me when I felt like I was not the same Moises.
“[I asked them]: ‘Please help me because I want to show my quality, my football.’ They were with me. I have a person outside of the club who helped me a lot to get the pressure out of my mind.
“A guy I speak to regularly told me, ‘Moises, you are a good player, you can do whatever you want on the pitch with responsibility. Just trust in yourself. If Chelsea paid that [much money] for you, it’s because you are a very good player.’”
Caicedo now has a new manager to impress, after Pochettino was replaced by former Leicester boss Enzo Maresca. So far, Caicedo is enjoying a return to the style of play that led to a bidding war between Chelsea and Liverpool; the Reds agreed a £111m deal with Brighton for Caicedo before he chose to join Chelsea.
“He plays like the same system that I played in Brighton. He wants the same,” Caicedo said of Maresca. “He wants me to show my quality, to have good personality, to show to my teammates that I am the boss on the pitch.”
