Chelsea return? 

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A lot can change in one year in football. When Kendry Páez made his €10 million move from Independiente to Chelsea in the summer of 2025, many wondered whether the Premier League giants had unearthed a wonderkid from Ecuador. However, 12 months and two loan deals later, Páez hasn’t quite progressed as many may have thought. As such, on the latest Market Values podcast, Transfermarkt’s Argentina Area Manager Scott Christensen joined the show to give a full breakdown on how the Chelsea talent was doing at River Plate and whether his future lies in London or elsewhere.

How has Kendry Páez done on loan at River Plate?

After spending the first half of the European season on loan at Chelsea’s sister club Strasbourg, the English giants opted to move Páez back to South America. However, rather than going back to Ecuador, the 18-year-old talent was instead sent to Argentinian giants River Plate. “Yeah, it probably wasn’t the most usual move, but I could understand it at the time because when he arrived, Marcelo Gallardo was the coach of River and he is a great coach for getting the best out of young players,” said Christensen, when asked about the nature of the move. “Players like Julian Alvarez and Enzo Fernandez – they both played with Gallardo and became massive players. So it was kind of a reasonable choice in my opinion, like, if you came back to South America, River Plate sounded like a good option.”

However, since joining the club in January of 2026, River made a managerial change with Eduardo Coudet replacing Gallardo and as such Páez has featured in just five games. “He’s actually not played much, just 21% of the minutes possible in the league,” noted Transfermarkt’s Argentinian football expert. “He didn’t play Copa Sudamericana or Copa Argentina. So it’s kind of a particular situation because we all know he’s like a big talent, and I think his agents and Chelsea expected him to adapt much better. Over the last four games, I think he wasn’t even subbed in. He was just always sitting on the bench. I don’t think the coach likes the idea of playing an attacking midfielder because he likes to play with two strikers.”

Indeed, under their new head coach, River have gone from typically playing a 4-3-2-1 or 4-2-3-1 and having plenty of attacking options behind the main striker that Páez could have filled, the Argentinian giants now tend to play a more straightforward 4-4-2 system, which means Páez is either used as a back-up options on the right wing or, more likely, left on the bench and not used at all. So will Páez stay and fight for his spot in Buenos Aires for the remainder of 2026 (the season runs from January to December) or will he find himself at a third club in less than a year?

“As far as I know, if he doesn’t play 50% of the minutes for River, Chelsea can get him back, and it seems that he isn’t gonna play that amount,” added Christensen, when asked about Páez’s future in Argentina. “If he doesn’t work out at River, I wouldn’t be too surprised if he goes back to Independiente del Valle to motivate himself and gain more experience at a professional level, even though he’s been playing since he’s 15. But yeah, he seems to be stagnant. I don’t see Chelsea keeping him at the moment. If he doesn’t perform at River, maybe the next step would be to go back to his hometown, to his own league and try to get the best out of him again.”