Chelsea forward Joao Felix needs to take a deeper look at what may have caused his career to stall at Atletico Madrid.
That’s according to manager Rui Vitoria, the man who launched Felix’s career at Benfica and has continued to watch his struggles since, in an interview with Marca.
Felix is now at Chelsea, having made the surprise move in the summer transfer window when it was clear his time at Atletico had to come to a permanent end.
He joined them in a €127.2m deal in July 2019 after breaking through at Benfica, where he had established himself as one of the emerging talents in the entirety of Europe.
The 24-year-old was unable to live up to the hype or transfer fee, though, struggling to adapt to life under Diego Simeone and managing just 34 goals and 18 assists in 131 games.
That’s continued at Chelsea this season as Enzo Maresca has focused on other players and limited the 24-year-old to just 184 minutes in all competitions to date.
Questions continue to be asked about the player and Vitoria believes Felix may need a deeper introspection to work out what’s gone wrong.
“It’s difficult to know because I don’t know what happened within the team,” he said regarding his time at Atletico.
“I think that perhaps because of the culture of the club, Atletico is a team that runs, works hard and plays low and that distance from the rival area could be one of its problems.
“But I don’t know what happened to the player and his life, nor do I know what would have happened if he had had another coach. All professionals have to reflect on their capacity and their position; it cannot always be the problem of others either.
“I don’t have complete knowledge, at Barcelona and Chelsea he had more favourable contexts for the player’s characteristics, so there must be things that we don’t know.”
