Player Focus: Oriol Romeu

What the new season hold for Romeu?

When Oriol Romeu signed for us as a 19 year old in the summer of 2011, very little was known of him. He was introduced to the press along with the signing of Romelu Lukaku. At the time, people thought Lukaku would make a bigger impact and would feature more for the first team. However, Romeu quickly showed promise which got him starts in the team, even in the Champions League. He made his CL debut in a 5-0 drubbing of Genk at the Bridge. AVB became found found of him and preferred to him to the more experienced Mikel.

When AVB was sacked in March, Romeu became less used and in most occasions even failed to make the subs bench. But hopefully this season, Romeu gets more chances under RDM but it'll be hard considering the strength in depth we have in that position. He played 22 times last season but we can expect him play quite a bit more this season. His height is an advantage of his and he has been previously deployed as a late substitute to help with set pieces.


There has been speculations recently linking Romeu to a move back to Barcelona but coach Tito Vilanova has denied the rumours but the player himself has said in the past he would welcome a move back to his childhood club. Us Chelsea shouldn't be too worried about his leaving, Barcelona currently have a few players in his position better than him so I don't expect them to make a move any time soon.

Being a product of Barcelona, he is an excellent passer and very composed for his age (20 now). Last season, he had a pass success rate of 89.38% which was one of the best in the team. Romeu also had one of the best tackle success rate in the team with 78.38%, he was only dribbled on 27 occasions. These stats point him out as a good defensive midfielder, the more experience he earns, the better he will get in my opinion. He is one for the future.

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