Reece James: Can Chelsea captain rediscover his spark in midfield after Enzo Maresca's comments about his best position?

"The day after I signed with Chelsea, I sent him a video about seeing him as a midfielder."

After years of speculation and debate around Stamford Bridge over whether Reece James' future lay in the middle of the park, it took new Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca only 24 hours to begin to put wheels in motion last summer.

The Argentine revealed his conversation earlier this month, more than half a year after the fact, after starts in the engine room against Aston Villa and then FC Copenhagen, the latter bringing a goal to show for it.

The Blues captain, still only 25, has filled in at centre-back and in central midfield for Chelsea before and has long cemented his primary place, when fit, as one of Europe's best at both full-back and wing-back.

Maresca may not be aware that this evolution has been prophesied for some time. He had not even taken his first coaching job when James was first transformed into a midfielder midway through his first season on loan at Wigan in 2018/19, going on to win both the player's player and club player of the year in his debut season.

"The reason we were moving him around a bit in that season was because of how outstanding he was in each position," then-Latics manager Paul Cook later explained. "So, if we had what we felt was an area of the pitch we could improve, whether that was central defence, whether that was wing-back or central midfield, Reece would go in there and be our best player."

Plenty of players have made the move between midfield and full-back but James is the latest in an increasing number doing the opposite. Trent Alexander-Arnold went to Euro 2024 wearing the No 8 shirt, having played no more than a handful of games for Liverpool away from right-back - but effectively operating as one in-game.

That has given James something of a soft-launch even before this two-game test, with Maresca in the Guardiola-mould of moving a full-back into the middle of the park when his teams have the ball to help dominate possession.

For flying full-backs built on crosses it can limit their game, and for a long time James fit that mould well. Even after his half-season in midfield with the Latics, Cook did concede he thought right-back would end up being his best position.

James does not have that same lightning speed now. Even six years on, almost a third of the league starts across his entire career came during that spell in the Championship, such has been the injury hell he has faced since, especially across the last three seasons.

But necessity is the mother of all invention. Perhaps Maresca did always see this progression back into midfield as he said, but now is certainly the time for it, even on a purely pragmatic level.

While Chelsea's system demands a lot of its midfielders, it does not require the intensity of runs of its full-backs and will likely prove kinder on James' body.

On a technical level, there is little question James can do it. He has all the attributes of an astute defensive midfielder with his one-on-one one defending, and even in the midst of his injury woes Man City's Jeremy Doku called him "one of the hardest defenders I've ever played against" last season.

But his reputation as an attacking full-back need not go to waste either. In 2021/22, the last season where he started more than half of Chelsea's Premier League games, he completed the eighth-most final-third passes per 90 of any player in the division. If he can stay fit there is no reason James cannot be moulded into a box-to-box midfielder, something Cook already recognised almost a decade ago in the north west.

James did look leggy and rusty in Chelsea's defeat at Aston Villa, playing a rare full 90 minutes, but this appeared a player lacking game time rather than one who has lost his touch, his concentration levels faltering as he was twice caught in possession in dangerous moments at Villa Park.

The 25-year-old himself still feels he has more to learn about a return to midfield, saying recently: "I'm fairly used to the role and with time I'll improve." That seems an inevitable next step so long as he can stay fit.

And there is the biggest question on Maresca's lips. In a position where the head coach lacks depth, can he trust on James to stay fit and help provide it?

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