We put it to you that there is no Premier League player right now who can raise the energy of a home crowd like Estevao.
Heās a throwback; could even be considered something of a maverick if it werenāt for his work off the ball, what we assume are some hard yards in training and a refusal toĀ treat his body with contempt.
Bums lift from seats when he gets on the ball. Heās electric; capable of making something happen from nothing and therefore able to turn games at the drop of a shoulder, through a nutmeg, a tight turn or a moment of twinkle-toed genius to diddle a defender.
āPeople love that kind of player,ā Enzo Maresca said, hailing the 18-year-oldās ability to lift the crowd as well as his impact on the team after he came off the bench against Wolves on Saturday to immediately create the second goal.
READ MORE: Enzo Maresca not getting the Chelsea credit he deserves from you, us or anyone else
There are few sounds better than that hum of expectation when a talented footballer gets on the ball, and itās hugely powerful, in lifting Estevao, Chelsea as a whole, and putting the willies up opposition defenders who are well aware that the crowd is waiting for them to be turned inside out by the boy with the ball at his feet.
Widely regarded as one of the best England wingers of all time, quite possibly the very best, John Barnesā opinion might very well be one we would seek out on Estevao, whoās now the second-most valuable teenager in the world at Ā£104m, behind Lamine Yamal (Ā£308m), according to CIES Football Observatory.
Colour is surprised therefore to hear Barnes not only refuse to board the Estevao train but put him in the same bracket as Jadon Sancho at Stamford Bridge.
āEstevao is a young player who has come into the team and is doing well at the moment,ā he toldĀ Video Gamer.
āHowever, I remember Jadon Sancho doing the same thing and based off that I tend to leave opinions on young players alone and wait for them to grow. We canāt start putting pressure on him yet.
āIn reality, heās had 10 good gamesā¦ heās done nothing! Heās got lots of potential, but weāve seen that at Chelsea before and thereās lots of examples where it hasnāt worked out.
āHeās not going to be a starter every week because they have so many players and all of a sudden, if he has a few below-par performances, we could be writing him off after another 10 games.
āHe has good potential, lots of ability and he can be a very good player, but at this moment in time he has done nothing and achieved nothing.ā
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Itās hard not to feel sad at Barnes point-blank refusing to be swept up in the furore surrounding such an absurdly talented footballer ā its OK to feel joy, John ā and also to not be concerned by the state of mind of a man who can look at the respective performances of Estevao and Sancho for Chelsea and think them in any way comparable as footballers.
Sancho wasnāt bad for Chelsea last season. But his notable moments, like his brilliant goal in that madcap 4-3 win at Tottenham, were met with begrudging acceptance that āhe canĀ occasionallyĀ still make a differenceā from those watching a footballer whose far more obvious contribution at Chelsea was to endlessly receive the ball on the flank, take several touches to slow the game down and then pass it backwards.
The groans that would often greet Sanchoās safety-first approach could not be more different to the reaction when Estevao gets the ball. āThe fans can be happy,ā Maresca said, and hereās hoping John Barnes can be too some day.
