The £106.8m star of the midweek thrashing of Noah will be on the bench when Chelsea host Arsenal

On Thursday night, Enzo Fernández caught the eye with a hat-trick of first-half assists during Chelsea’s 8-0 win over Armenia’s FC Noah in the Conference League. The midfielder delivered corners for Tosin Adarabioyo and Axel Disasi to score, produced the pass for the first of João Félix’s goals and generally looked entirely out of place in Europe’s third-tier competition, which is perhaps not a huge surprise given that Fernández is a World Cup winner and was briefly the most expensive player in England.

However, it remains to be seen whether Enzo Maresca was thinking about managing the Argentina international’s workload when he decided not to send him out for the second half against Noah. The likelier scenario is that Fernández, the £106.8m Thursday-night footballer, will be on the bench when Chelsea host Arsenal on Sunday. He has, after all, not started the past three league games and it is surely not a coincidence that Maresca’s side have had more balance with Roméo Lavia partnering Moisés Caicedo in central midfield.