‘I said Chelsea’s £62m signing wasn’t good enough – now I love him’

Frank Leboeuf has been forced to eat his words after declaring his ‘love’ for a Chelsea player he once claimed was ‘not good enough’.

Stamford Bridge hero Leboeuf was one of the biggest critics of Chelsea’s £62m move for Marc Cucurella, calling the transfer deal ‘crazy’.

Chelsea signed the Spanish left-back from Premier League rivals Brighton in 2022 but Leboeuf did not think he ‘belonged’ at Stamford Bridge.

‘Hopefully Reece James and Ben Chilwell will go back into fitness as soon as possible because we need them,’ he told ESPN midway through Cucurella’s first season at Chelsea.

‘We don’t want to see Cucurella anymore. With all due respect to a man that I don’t know, the player is not good enough for Chelsea. It’s as simple as that.

‘It’s crazy that they signed him for £60m, but we can see that he doesn’t belong to this level.’

Leboeuf regrets being ‘very harsh’ on Cucurella and says he has in fact developed into one of Chelsea’s most important players.

The 26-year-old has featured in all but two of Chelsea’s league games this season and scored the winner in Sunday’s narrow victory over Leicester City.

Cucurella’s rise has not been limited to club football, with the full-back also playing a starring role in Spain’s Euro 2024 win last summer.

Analysing Chelsea’s hard-fought win over Leicester, Leboeuf said on ESPN: ‘I want to mention somebody because I was very harsh, very hard on him about two years ago.

‘Cucurella. I call him Cucu the saviour! That’s what I call him. He’s become my idol! That guy is amazing: defensively, offensively.

‘Cucu the saviour, I love you. But everyone else has to work harder, come on guys! Go back to basics.

‘Chelsea are keeping hold of the ball but doing nothing with it. Then later in the game when they need the ball they give the ball away.

‘They looked completely lost against Leicester. They won, it’s okay, but I’m not very happy with the performance.’

Chelsea have dropped off alarmingly since emerging as Liverpool’s biggest rival for the Premier League title earlier in the season.

But the Leicester win was at least Chelsea’s third in a row and saw them climb back into the Champions League places, above Manchester City who lost to Nottingham Forest.

Chelsea goalscorer Cucurella told Sky Sports: ‘We know that we need to defend with everything and today the team showed a lot of passion.

‘I think Enzo passed me the ball and I see that I have the option to shoot. Normally I wouldn’t but I tried. We got the three points and we want to fight for the objectives.

‘I’m really happy. I think it’s a long process, I needed to work really hard in my bad moments. Maybe something I need to improve is being more clinical in the final third.

‘In the last minute we showed energy and the fans helped us in our tough moments when we’re a bit tired. We defend the same club and we need to stay together. The support is very important when things go not well.’

Blues boss Enzo Maresca added: ‘Don’t forget that Leicester against Arsenal was 0-0 for 80 minutes. It’s not easy.

‘We created enough to be one goal ahead of them. But we won the game, we are happy. We still have 10 games to go. We are there.’

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