(Video): Chelsea’s world class superstar looks back to his best on international duty in correct position | OneFootball

Reece James scored a brilliant free kick for England last night against Latvia, but his performance overall was so much more than that.

Playing back on his favoured right hand side in a game where he had plenty of license to get forward, James was a menace in his first appearance for his country since September 2022.

The highlights from the game show him constantly getting into really dangerous positions, putting in clever balls between the lines as well as swinging in crosses. The free kick was just the icing on the cake.

He explained to TV cameras after the game how he had managed to get to the front of the queue to take it.

You can see his highlights in the clip embedded here:

James performance makes Maresca’s decision even harder to understand

Reece James declines to celebrate his goal for England. (Photo by Michael Regan/The FA via Getty Images)

James thriving in this position does bring us back to one of the big questions of the last couple of months at Chelsea – why does Enzo Maresca want to play him in midfield so much? The Blues boss has

England manager Thomas Tuchel, who knows “Reecey” so well from their shared time at Chelsea together, clearly doesn’t agree. He mentioned in the press conference announcing James’ call up that he sees him as a right back and not as a midfielder, and doubled down on that post-game last night.

When you see James play like this, you can understand why Tuchel is so determined to not mess around.

Meanwhile Maresca has taken the opposite approach, insisting that he really does forsee James playing in central midfield. He’s now put him there to start games on 3 occasions, and we suspect we will see it more before the end of the season.