Marc Cucurella makes Chelsea Premier League title claim as feelings on Estevao Willian clear

Marc Cucurella played down talk of a Chelsea title push before heaping praise on teenager Estevao Willian.

The Spaniard started in Friday night's 5-1 win at West Ham, with the Blues bouncing back from a lacklustre 0-0 opening-day draw with Crystal Palace last weekend. Enzo Maresca’s side won the Conference League and the Club World Cup as well as qualifying for the Champions League last term.

But Spanish defender Cucurella believes it is too early to talk about challenging for the title just yet. When asked about Chelsea potentially challenging the likes of Man City, Arsenal and Liverpool, Cucurella said: “It’s the second game of the season – we drew the first one and all the people said we didn’t play well.

“Now we won and all the people say we need to fight for the trophy. We need to take it step by step, game by game.

“We need to continue in the way we finished last season. I think we have a good team, new players that bring a lot of energy, a lot of quality. Hopefully if we continue this way it could be a good season.”

Chelsea’s thumping win in east London was all the more impressive after Cole Palmer pulled out injured just five minutes before kick-off. They fell behind to Lucas Paqueta’s wonder-strike but hit back through goals from Joao Pedro, Pedro Neto, Enzo Fernandez, Moises Caicedo and Trevoh Chalobah.

But the star of the show was 18-year-old Brazilian winger Estevao Willian, who was called up to replace Palmer at the 11th hour. “We have a big squad. All of us need to be important,” added Cucurella. “Estevao had a good game, made an assist – and we had five different goalscorers.

“This shows we are ambitious and have a lot of quality and hopefully we can continue this way. Estevao showed he’s very mature, even though he’s very young. He thought he was going to be starting on the bench and then in five minutes he had to get ready.

“He needed to listen and learn the tactics and everything and he had an amazing game. He has a lot of quality and can improve a lot.”

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