'He's done nothing!' - Chelsea warned Estevao Willian could end up like Jadon Sancho amid intense competition for places at Stamford Bridge

Former England winger John Barnes has delivered a stark warning to those already labelling Estevao as the next big thing, insisting that the youngster risks following the same path as Sancho, who burned bright early before fading just as fast.

Speaking to Video Gamer, Barnes said: "Estevao is a young player who has come into the team and is doing well at the moment. However, 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 can’t start putting pressure on him yet.

"In reality, he’s had 10 good games… he’s done nothing! He’s got lots of potential, but we’ve seen that at Chelsea before and there’s lots of examples where it hasn’t worked out. He’s 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. He 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."

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Maresca, however, couldn’t disagree more. The Italian manager, who has overseen Estevao’s integration since the summer, believes Chelsea have landed one of the most gifted prospects in world football.

"You can see his talent," Maresca said after Chelsea’s 3–0 win over Wolves, where Estevao once again caught the eye. "We are trying to help him to adapt and give him the right minutes. "He arrived from Brazil, he needs time to adapt, but he's going to start games for us in the future. He arrived from a club where he was not training 100 percent so his physical condition was not good. Slowly, now he is better. He knows that to play with us he needs to be good on the ball and off the ball otherwise, he's not going to play. We are very happy with him."

Maresca went even further, comparing Estevao’s development trajectory to that of Chelsea star Cole Palmer. "For me, it’s very, very similar to Cole," he said. "I had Cole at the same age as Estevao at [Manchester] City Under-23 and they are very similar. Cole started playing wide because he needed a bit [more] physicality; now he’s playing inside. And Estevao, they are quite similar, now he’s playing wide but in the future I think he’s more of an inside player.

"I feel very lucky to be his manager because it's exciting, you can enjoy. We said many times, I think the fans at the end, they paid the tickets to see players like Cole, like Estevao, this kind of player. So it's nice that we can have players like Estevao, like Cole, like them."

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