‘He’s a complete passenger’, ‘You can’t play such player at Chelsea’ – Liverpool legend says 24-year-old who left Chelsea in summer is a complete ‘passenger’
Former Chelsea loanee Joao Felix got his name on the scoresheet in Barcelona’s 4-2 win against Real Betis over the weekend.
However, that did not stop Steve Nicol from launching a scathing attack on the player.
The Liverpool legend was discussing Joao Felix on ESPN after the game.
Felix is at Barcelona for the season after spending the second half of the last campaign at Chelsea.
During his time at Stamford Bridge, the 24-year-old made 16 appearances in the Premier League and scored four goals.
In a damning assessment, Nicol has labelled Felix a “passenger”.
On the Portuguese attacker, he said: “At Atletico Madrid, the reason he didn’t play was because when he wasn’t at it, he was a passenger.
“And I understand what Luis [Garcia] is talking about — he needs to change his mental attitude — but the fact is he’s now fallen into the same trap at Barcelona because he doesn’t contribute anything, nothing, other than when he’s assisting or scoring goals. And if he’s not doing that and your team’s struggling, you can’t play him.”
Passenger is quite harsh. We think describing Felix as a luxury player is probably more fair.
He is a forward who is arguably at his best when playing as a second striker, which is a bit of a redundant position in this day and age.
According to Transfermarkt, he has played there over 120 times in his career.