Pedro Rodriguez only completed his transfer from Barcelona to Chelsea on Thursday, but the Spanish attacker went straight into his new side’s starting XI on Sunday and began to win lots of new fans with a goal and an assist on his Premier League debut — including his manager, Jose Mourinho.
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Mourinho, speaking in his post-game television interview (above video), on Pedro’s debut:“We know he’s a good player — more than good. We have lots of examples of players — top players — coming to the Premier League and [it’s] not easy to adapt, it takes time. It looks like he’s been with us for a long time, because straight away he was in the game, he was important in the game.”
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On Pedro being a hard worker for the team:
“This is Pedro. I [managed] in the same league as him for three years, so I know him obviously very, very well. This is why for so many years he wins Cups, he plays for one of the top teams in the world and everyone that speaks about him … everybody speaks so well about him, that doesn’t surprise me.”
As I said on Thursday, there’s a very, very good chance we’re all about to find out that Pedro is very much a world-class player himself, who just happened to be overshadowed by lots of really, really, really good players at Barca. As Mourinho points out, to hit the ground running on his debut is a huge, huge ask in the Premier League.