Joao Pedro looks set to complete a transfer from Brighton to Chelsea, so who is the Brazilian striker making his way to Stamford Bridge?
Pedro impressed for Brighton last season, but is still relatively young and inexperienced, while he’ll also face plenty of competition for a place in Enzo Maresca’s team next season.
So, read on find out more about Pedro and how he might fit in at Chelsea…
Who is Joao Pedro? Background and early career
Pedro was born in Ribeirao Preto, Sao Paulo in 2001 and joined the youth system of Fluminense by the time he was aged just 10 years old.
Pedro was with Fluminense for eight years in total, but didn’t spend that long in their first-team, appearing 37 times in total, scoring ten goals.
Considered a real prodigy at the age of just 17, Watford moved quickly to ensure they signed him before he’d even made his senior debut for Fluminense.
Pedro linked up with Watford in 2019, and went on to play 109 games for the club, scoring a total of 24 goals in both the Premier League and the Championship.
Pedro then joined Brighton in 2023, for a fee reported to be £30m by BBC Sport at the time, while the Athletic now report that he’s close to joining Chelsea.
Joao Pedro statistics and playing style
As we’ve seen from Pedro at Brighton, he can play a variety of attacking roles, but seems most at home as a central striker, or as more of a false-nine.
The 23-year-old’s best work seems to come centrally, but he’s also filled in on the left-hand side at times, so might end up being an option in that position as well.
https://twitter.com/CFCZeno/status/1939433482645614876
Pedro scored a total of 30 goals in 70 games for Brighton, which aren’t exactly earth-shattering numbers, but he’s still young and could find he gets even more service once he moves to Chelsea.
The Brighton style of play and all-round model is something that Chelsea have tried to emulate, so that should in theory make it quite easy for Pedro to fit in at Stamford Bridge, alongside other former Brighton players like Moises Caicedo and Marc Cucurella.
As the stats below show, Pedro is a real all-rounder, at least compared to Chelsea’s other forwards…
How will Joao Pedro fit in at Chelsea?
It’s not easy to know for sure where Pedro is going to play at Chelsea, given that they have so much competition for places in their current squad.
Pedro would probably have made the most sense as a signing to come in and play as the team’s main centre-forward, but Maresca already has Nicolas Jackson in that role, as well as new summer signing Liam Delap.
Pedro could perhaps be being brought in to play on the left-hand side of the front three following the departure of Jadon Sancho, while others like Mykhailo Mudryk and Raheem Sterling have flopped in recent times.
If Chelsea play more of a 4-2-3-1 than a 4-3-3, it could also mean there’s a central role for Pedro behind the main striker like Delap or Jackson, though it would probably make the most sense for the latter of those two to be sold this summer.