Andrey Santos | 2026/27 Performances

CasaStreets said:
I missed the game, did he play poorly?

Trying to make sense of this. Everyone here seems to say he was poor but also reading elsewhere it also sounds like he was maybe our best player on the day aside from Lammens.

His stats looked solid and the 'every touch' clip also seemed reasonable in the context of a team playing poorly - did he do something especially wrong?
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His role is to close down players, close passing lanes, and move the ball forward as quickly as possible to the players in front of him. He largely did this. Both goals were conceded via set pieces.

I think people were expecting him to unlock Hull on his own. A lot of the people here criticising are the ones who think Tchouameni, by virtue of previously playing for Real Madrid, would have done this.

No conclusions should be drawn from Sunday. We could literally have played any other midfielder from any other team in place of him, and we would have looked just as shite. Carrick has my support but the weekend was on him.
 
Fahad Jawaid said:
The problem with him is, he does not really have any great trait as a CM, he is not a grass eating high intensity player like Baleba. He is not a great passer, not a great tackler, he can not run with the ball nor can he dribble with the ball. He is just average at everything. He should be fourth choice midfielder behind Mainoo, Baleba and Tielmans.
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The poor man's Fred?
 
ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:
The problem is one which I’ve been saying all summer - you get these players who are all very different. People were saying that they compliment each other, well they do when you look at them as a three or a four. But actually we need players who are good enough to play in a two, not those who are lacking so much that you need an additional player.

What midfielder doesn’t suit a three? It’s about being good enough to play in a two.
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This is why I'm confused when people say something like "we need to replace x player with two players to replace his skillset". Well, okay, but two players can't replace one player on the pitch.
 
BuzzKillington said:
His role is to close down players, close passing lanes, and move the ball forward as quickly as possible to the players in front of him. He largely did this. Both goals were conceded via set pieces.

I think people were expecting him to unlock Hull on his own. A lot of the people here criticising are the ones who think Tchouameni, by virtue of previously playing for Real Madrid, would have done this.

No conclusions should be drawn from Sunday. We could literally have played any other midfielder from any other team in place of him, and we would have looked just as shite. Carrick has my support but the weekend was on him.
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It seems to me mainly that people with knowledge about football, about tactics or about Santos says he was one of the better players on the pitch, and people with little knowledge about any of it says he was invisible.

Don’t know which category I’m should be in, but I thought like you, that he did what his role demanded pretty well, and that resultet in us having a lot of good counterattacking possibilities that we didnmt pounce on and very few chances against created through playing through our midfield.
 
Bright_Eyes said:
This is why I'm confused when people say something like "we need to replace x player with two players to replace his skillset". Well, okay, but two players can't replace one player on the pitch.
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Rotation? Replacement when injured? Perhaps.
 
We are going to miss Casemiro from set pieces in both boxes. It's a fact. We are going to be more vuberable until De Ligt gets back and who knows what version of him we are going to be getting but himself and Maguire are our most dominant players in the air and smaller teams are going to keep trying to hurt us that way.

As I've kept saying over the summer we need to develop a way with our exisiting players to win games without that advantage and I'm confident we will figure it out but we need games and chemistry to form between the players. Bruno and Cunha still look miles off it and they were two of our best players last season. I would say our biggest isssue over the years has been getting more than one or two players performing really well at any given time. Players step up and start carrying us for a while and then fall off and someone else emerges
 
Ali Dia said:
We are going to miss Casemiro from set pieces in both boxes. It's a fact. We are going to be more vuberable until De Ligt gets back and who knows what version of him we are going to be getting but himself and Maguire are our most dominant players in the air and smaller teams are going to keep trying to hurt us that way.

As I've kept saying over the summer we need to develop a way with our exisiting players to win games without that advantage and I'm confident we will figure it out but we need games and chemistry to form between the players. Bruno and Cunha still look miles off it and they were two of our best players last season. I would say our biggest isssue over the years has been getting more than one or two players performing really well at any given time. Players step up and start carrying us for a while and then fall off and someone else emerges
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We have rarely played as a team. I dislike the idea of ‘individual brilliance’ and ‘patterns of play’ and that sort of debate - as usually it ends with people saying Bruno is the problem!

But you are right, we need to find more consistent ways of winning - and also in keeping goals out.
 
Our first choice targets, Ederson and Fernandes, were more all rounder types, and both of them added athleticism + on ball ability.

Now Santos and Tielesman are both very good on the ball, no doubt about that, but there are questions marks on both of them off the ball. Santos' defensive game, I'm still not sure about.

So going from Ederson to Santos meant you got a better passer, but not someone as fast/strong. But I also think if our midfield was Ederson, Mainoo, Tielesman and Baleba, we would have lacked passing ability.
 
The "he needs to play in a 3 man midfield" stuff is not true.

Santos played a lot next to Caicedo in Chelsea. Tielesman played next to Ndidi/A.Onana. You see the pattern, both passers, both playing next to a more physical, ground eating CM.

So Baleba + either Santos/Tielesman makes sense. But then you have Kobbie, who's neither the ball winner, nor your playmaker. That's where it begins getting complicated.

I think in certain games when its not too stretched, Santos + Tielesman/Mainoo can work too. But Hull away was not that game.
 
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I feel like Kobbie is far better defensive as most people acknowledge. He’s a really strong lad and can cover ground. This means that either Kobbie or Baleba have to be in the starting lineup since Santos and Tielemans lack defensive qualities.

Kobbie/Baleba
Kobbie/Santos
Kobbie/Tielemans
Baleba/Santos
Baleba/Tielemans

Could all work in my opinion. Simply just not Tielemans/Santos as we saw against Hull.
 
ericcovicc said:
I feel like Kobbie is far better defensive as most people acknowledge. He’s a really strong lad and can cover ground. This means that either Kobbie or Baleba have to be in the starting lineup since Santos and Tielemans lack defensive qualities.

Kobbie/Baleba
Kobbie/Santos
Kobbie/Tielemans
Baleba/Santos
Baleba/Tielemans

Could all work in my opinion. Simply just not Tielemans/Santos as we saw against Hull.
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Kobbie definitely brings a bit more to the game too. His sharpness, decision making, intensity are all there. Feel a Kobbie / Baleba midfield pairing will be the best option for tricky fixtures.
 
It’s early days but I really feel we’ve got our midfield rebuild wrong.

For me it should’ve been 1 of Santos/Tielemens + 2 Athletic signings. I think that would’ve complimented us much more.

Instead in our squad we have 3 CMs with the same weakness of struggling to get round the pitch quickly + cover ground - Baleba is going to be seen as the best partner for Mainoo, Tielemens & Santos - when he is unavailable we will struggle imo.

I do think a summer of Baleba, Tielemens OR Santos, Sangare would’ve been a much more well rounded summer window for a similar price.

Youd then have Baleba vs Sangare for one position. Then Mainoo vs Tielemens/Santos for the other.

It feels currently our best midfield will be Mainoo vs Tielemens vs Santos for one spot + just Baleba for other.
 
ericcovicc said:
I feel like Kobbie is far better defensive as most people acknowledge. He’s a really strong lad and can cover ground. This means that either Kobbie or Baleba have to be in the starting lineup since Santos and Tielemans lack defensive qualities.

Kobbie/Baleba
Kobbie/Santos
Kobbie/Tielemans
Baleba/Santos
Baleba/Tielemans

Could all work in my opinion. Simply just not Tielemans/Santos as we saw against Hull.
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Agree that Mainoo is stronger defensively than given credit for, but I don't think that Santos is particularly lacking in defensive qualities, nor do I think that a Kobbie/ Tielemans pairing would be stronger in that sense than our pairing against Hull.

I think Tielemans may require pairing with Baleba, but Santos and Mainoo should be fine together.
 
Highfather_24 said:
The "he needs to play in a 3 man midfield" stuff is not true.

Santos played a lot next to Caicedo in Chelsea. Tielesman played next to Ndidi/A.Onana. You see the pattern, both passers, both playing next to a more physical, ground eating CM.

So Baleba + either Santos/Tielesman makes sense. But then you have Kobbie, who's neither the ball winner, nor your playmaker. That's where it begins getting complicated.

I think in certain games when its not too stretched, Santos + Tielesman/Mainoo can work too. But Leeds away was not that game.
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I agree with this, with the assumption that the holding midfielder is really good defensively, which I am not sure Santos is (yet).

I believe we all expected Santos to be a bit quicker, agree him and Tielemans will not work together. But every other combination should be fine. Mainoo I think will fit both Tielemans and Santos, not sure about Baleba though as then we have no passers in the midfield two.
 
Borys said:
Casemiro was always very solid as the deepest midfielder (DM, #6, holding whatever we call him). He was difficult to dribble past, never the quickest around but very strong in duels, also effective at tackles. Even in his last seasons with us you could see that. I don't see that yet with Santos. The bolded part is what people "say" about Santos, but yet to be seen. A few games played at walking pace mean the holding midfielder will always look like he's in "right place right time", even if we put Zirkzee there. Whenever the game was played faster, Santos was not even bad, just nowhere to be seen. But, to be honest, this was mostly last 2 games where Andrey and Tielemans combined into clusterfeck of a midfield duo (not entirely their fault, definitely not Santos fault).

Passing wise I see a lot of similarities between Casemiro and Santos, no complaints here. He was probably nervous but he saw passing options and tried to execute them, I think this will be fine. It's the defensive part of the game I am worried about, from what I have seen in pre-season and vs Hull (very limited of course) he looks weak in duels.
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Individually, Casemiro had great defensive stats and was fantastic in the air for us (defensively and offensively) and he absolutely did his part but in the open field it was 50/50 whether he would affect the ball. Carrick came in, made us cede the ball, go into a semi-permanent mid-block and had Mainoo and Bruno play more conservatively in the middle. This was both because of our structural issues and because of Casemiro's lack of legs.

The Hull game was a mess of unfit players and Carrick picking the wrong players in wrong positions. Santos and Tielemans didn't look great, although I thought they were both at least trying to midfield (i.e be in position, recycle the ball, be a passing option etc) but Bruno deciding he would high press and play as a second striker abandoning his midfield partners was the final straw. It was essentially a 4-2-4 with Dorgu and Bruno having horrific games out of position and whenever they got on the ball. Prime Kante and 24-25 Baleba in the middle wouldn't have solved that when you also had Shaw and Mazraoui offering nothing on the channels.
 
criticalanalysis said:
Individually, Casemiro had great defensive stats and was fantastic in the air for us (defensively and offensively) and he absolutely did his part but in the open field it was 50/50 whether he would affect the ball. Carrick came in, made us cede the ball, go into a semi-permanent mid-block and had Mainoo and Bruno play more conservatively in the middle. This was both because of our structural issues and because of Casemiro's lack of legs.

The Hull game was a mess of unfit players and Carrick picking the wrong players in wrong positions. Santos and Tielemans didn't look great, although I thought they were both at least trying to midfield (i.e be in position, recycle the ball, be a passing option etc) but Bruno deciding he would high press and play as a second striker abandoning his midfield partners was the final straw. It was essentially a 4-2-4 with Dorgu and Bruno having horrific games out of position and whenever they got on the ball.
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The problem wasn't in midfield anyway, Hull were only threatening from out wide in the first half.

Got a bit more luck through the middle in the second half, but that was due to the game state becoming so transitional when we had to chase it.

The biggest disappointment from Bruno and Tielemans is they just couldn't find the right passes when we needed it. Always hard against a packed defence, but their in there to keep moving the ball and pull them opposition around until there's an opening. It was either too slow or too forced on Saturday.
 
Grande said:
It seems to me mainly that people with knowledge about football, about tactics or about Santos says he was one of the better players on the pitch, and people with little knowledge about any of it says he was invisible.

Don’t know which category I’m should be in, but I thought like you, that he did what his role demanded pretty well, and that resultet in us having a lot of good counterattacking possibilities that we didnmt pounce on and very few chances against created through playing through our midfield.
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Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t brilliant, but he did ok. He needs to, and will, go up a couple of levels but it’s going to take some time until we see the best of him and Tielemans. Especially if they’re being asked to play together.

I’d play one of him or Tielemans next to Kobbie as much as possible over the next couple of months whilst Baleba is out and blood them in slowly. Hopefully by the time Baleba is looking for game time in early October, one or both of them have settled in to a degree.
 
Crimson King said:
The problem wasn't in midfield anyway, Hull were only threatening from out wide in the first half.

Got a bit more luck through the middle in the second half, but that was due to the game state becoming so transitional when we had to chase it.

The biggest disappointment from Bruno and Tielemans is they just couldn't find the right passes when we needed it. Always hard against a packed defence, but their in there to keep moving the ball and pull them opposition around until there's an opening. It was either too slow or too forced on Saturday.
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It absolutely was on top of all the other issues I've already mentioned. We were getting attacked down the channels because we couldn't control the first and second balls which was due to Heaven/Shaw and also the midfield. However, we also couldn't create anything of note in the first half as Bruno was too far away from the middle, hiding in front of Hull's CBs and almost stepping on Cunha's toes. It was hard for Santos and Tielemans to find passes when Dorgu was coming infield leaving Shaw hanging on the left channel and then your captain trying to find space in the hole where they had 3-5 people already there. It was a structural problem as well as personnel.
 
We can't be playing him + Tielemans IMO. Got outplayed completely in the Milan game and also until Hull went up 1-0 and decided to sit back a bit more. One of them is fine to offer progressive passing from deep. Their job is to find the guys in between the lines. If Cunha / Bruno / Mbeumo can't make it stick under pressure then it's on the attackers or on the system itself. Mainoo should help a lot in these situations.

For me:

RCM: Santos / Tielemans. Orchestrate play from deep.
LCM: Mainoo / Baleba. Carrying, running.
 
ericcovicc said:
I feel like Kobbie is far better defensive as most people acknowledge. He’s a really strong lad and can cover ground. This means that either Kobbie or Baleba have to be in the starting lineup since Santos and Tielemans lack defensive qualities.

Kobbie/Baleba
Kobbie/Santos
Kobbie/Tielemans
Baleba/Santos
Baleba/Tielemans

Could all work in my opinion. Simply just not Tielemans/Santos as we saw against Hull.
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Santos and Tielemans didn't feel right.

I think Santos - Mainoo would be more ideal for Champions League matches than PL. While Baleba - Mainoo would be more ideal for PL matches than Santos - Mainoo. As for Tielemans, he will need to play next to Baleba due to his risky passes mean we might be less tidy in possession so we will need cover for him unless we play in midfield 3. Tielemans would also be great option as super sub if we need to add more creativity in the team when we are chasing the game.
 
gajender said:
We have hardly played with traditional No 10 though , Bruno play is closer to support striker than a proper no 10 anyway I agree with the sentiment we need to move towards proper midfield 3 .
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This is where I think we'll land in the long run. Bruno should not be undroppable or un-rotate-able. Our long-term evolution isn't simply going to be via finding a new Casemiro, it will be reconfiguring and improving on the contribution from the collective of Bruno-+Cas (at that age)+Kobbie (at that age). I think Santos, Baleba, and Kobbie will be key parts of what that looks in the long term from a squad perspective and Bruno + Tielemans will not.
 
shabadu84 said:
This is where I think we'll land in the long run. Bruno should not be undroppable or un-rotate-able. Our long-term evolution isn't simply going to be via finding a new Casemiro, it will be reconfiguring and improving on the contribution from the collective of Bruno-+Cas (at that age)+Kobbie (at that age). I think Santos, Baleba, and Kobbie will be key parts of what that looks in the long term from a squad perspective and Bruno + Tielemans will not.
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Hopefully we start moving towards midfield 3 from this season itself while giving Midfield three of Baleba , Santos and Mainoo enough time together in middle as well .
 
Teja said:
We can't be playing him + Tielemans IMO. Got outplayed completely in the Milan game and also until Hull went up 1-0 and decided to sit back a bit more. One of them is fine to offer progressive passing from deep. Their job is to find the guys in between the lines. If Cunha / Bruno / Mbeumo can't make it stick under pressure then it's on the attackers or on the system itself. Mainoo should help a lot in these situations.

For me:

RCM: Santos / Tielemans. Orchestrate play from deep.
LCM: Mainoo / Baleba. Carrying, running.
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Exactly how I see it. One of santos/teilemans with one of mainoo/ Baleba.
For big games I wouod have santos sitting and Baleba box to box providing he rediscovers his form.
 
JE-0801 said:
Santos and Tielemans didn't feel right.
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To be fair, Tielemans really wasn't at the races. His passing was awful, which isn't usually the case and his tracking of runners was below usual standards as well.

Hard to judge a partnership when one is so undercooked in preparation
 
astracrazy said:
Seems odd to me to sign a player as part of a midfield re-build who doesn't seem to pair well with anyone else. I think him with Mainoo would be no better. In fact, I'm not even sure Mainoo and Tielemans would work either to be honest. Whos doing the running.
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There's no combination of those three that really works - they all have the same weakness. They all need, ideally, Baleba or failing that, Mount.
 
criticalanalysis said:
Individually, Casemiro had great defensive stats and was fantastic in the air for us (defensively and offensively) and he absolutely did his part but in the open field it was 50/50 whether he would affect the ball. Carrick came in, made us cede the ball, go into a semi-permanent mid-block and had Mainoo and Bruno play more conservatively in the middle. This was both because of our structural issues and because of Casemiro's lack of legs.

The Hull game was a mess of unfit players and Carrick picking the wrong players in wrong positions. Santos and Tielemans didn't look great, although I thought they were both at least trying to midfield (i.e be in position, recycle the ball, be a passing option etc) but Bruno deciding he would high press and play as a second striker abandoning his midfield partners was the final straw. It was essentially a 4-2-4 with Dorgu and Bruno having horrific games out of position and whenever they got on the ball. Prime Kante and 24-25 Baleba in the middle wouldn't have solved that when you also had Shaw and Mazraoui offering nothing on the channels.
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Yeah Hull game was a mess because so many things went wrong, but the thing often discussed (and raised by you here) is our new high pressing tactics. Which make little sense with the squad that we have, as you mentioned even with Baleba we will struggle in 4-2-4 formation with slow backline. But add Baleba, Dalot, new LB and maybe Mainoo and we are much more mobile.

Santos and Tielemans definitely can't play high line/pressing though. I still think Santos looks a bit "unfit", what is strange considering he played every minute of preseason, but I hope it's fitness rather than him being that "slow". I don't think he looked that sluggish in clips I've seen him in.
 
Pointless talk adfter the game which was lost by a manager with a cowards tactics. Also having unfit Tielemans who couldnt pass the ball didnt help Santos. Think they will get another c chance next game together, but eventually Mainoo will be phased in instead of Tielemans to receive the ball on a half turn from Santos who will be our top3 player by the end of the season.

Tielemans was always brought as an experienced player to replace Casemiro and give us tactical options, You want a player like that in the squad building, he will become fitter and more familiar with other players and it will click. But also let's not forget that Case was useless in 50% of games too due to his lack of athleticism, which I think Tielemans will be about the same, slightly faster over short distance worse tackler but much better on the ball. Sort of like Eriksen but fitter.
 
Infra-red said:
There's no combination of those three that really works - they all have the same weakness. They all need, ideally, Baleba or failing that, Mount.
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We survived with Casemiro-Mainoo last season. Mainoo + Tielesman/Santos will work fine in a lot of games.
 
I think he's a steady player that can perform a role across the #6/#8 positions without being a specialist in either. Will likely give consistent 6.5 / 7 out of 10 performances. For a 4th choice midfielder that's not bad if that's what he ends up being.

He'll play a lot of minutes given his versatility and because I think Tielemans, Baleba and Mainoo all have greater deficiencies in their game which'll mean he'll be trusted in more game-states.
 
We have taken a young substitute midfielder from another team and made him first team player. That's huge pressure and expectations.
 
He was a bit worrying imo. My Chelsea mates who I trust on player skillsets said that they weren't fussed about him going. Essentially, they said he didn't have the athleticism to play in the PL as off the ball he is a bit of a liability as he can't cover the ground and his on the ball skills, whilst decent, don't compensate for the downside. Said they thought he was fine as a squad filler player but they wouldn't want to be starting him week to week.

It was only one game, so way too early to judge but I did see what they were talking about when watching him.
 
Tony247 said:
We have taken a young substitute midfielder from another team and made him first team player. That's huge pressure and expectations.
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He is one of 4 possible options for our midfield and he’s probably the 4th choice when everyone is fit and ready. That’s not a dissimilar position to the role he had at Chelsea and he’s effectively replaced Ugarte in our squad.

Now, due to injuries and the World Cup, he will get at least a couple of games as starter to claim a place, but the onus is on him to show he justifies that status. He’s not guaranteed it.
 
Fair to say that once everyone is fit, it'll likely be Baleba / mainoo as first choice with santos / youri as back up.

Plenty good as far as options in Midfield go.
 
zenith said:
Fair to say that once everyone is fit, it'll likely be Baleba / mainoo as first choice with santos / youri as back up.

Plenty good as far as options in Midfield go.
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I have the feeling that, if we assume everyone is playing the best they can, Santos complements each of the other three midfielders much better than any combination of them.
 
I get the impression that Santos has been brought I as a 4th choice midfielder, brought in as you a young potential who’ll develop rather than the starter. We have 4 players for two positions. Carrick clearly rates Mainoo. Tilemans is a top player and our only experienced player out the 4, Baleba is our DM first choice so where does that leave Santos?
 
Steve 007 said:
I get the impression that Santos has been brought I as a 4th choice midfielder, brought in as you a young potential who’ll develop rather than the starter. We have 4 players for two positions. Carrick clearly rates Mainoo. Tilemans is a top player and our only experienced player out the 4, Baleba is our DM first choice so where does that leave Santos?
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They'll be relatively similar with minutes I think and it's fair game for whoever plays best. Need a squad. Tielemans a bit older and has his injury history so his minutes will be managed a bit more though I think he'll be first choice when fit and fresh due to his passing. If I had to guess I'd say Mainoo will have the most minutes, Tielemans will be the most important but maybe not the most minutes, and then Baleba the one who comes in for balance in some games but might be eased in.

Santos probably agree that he'll be 4th choice. He seems fine, nothing stand out about him. Young and lots of space to grow, but it's hard to ever be a key player at a big club if you're just solid at most things.
 
He's a good player who played well for Chelsea when given the opportunity. A lot of you are a being a tad reactionary after just one game. Let's not forget how shite Caicedo was for Chelsea in his first 6 months. He'll prove his worth in time.
 
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