Think currently Rudiger is our best center back he works alright with Luiz (or will work eventually). Luiz is good with the ball at his feet which isn't a quality that Christensen possess. However with the amount of players we currently have we can heavily rotate during a long season. What i mind about Luiz is that he has his moments of insanity where he makes sunday league mistakes which eventually lead to the opposition team having a dangerous chance or us conceding. Sarri will use him and Rudiger until one of them has a terrible game then Andreas will again get his chance.

Edited August 15, 20187 yr by TrueBlueBIH

I can't believe how much Christensen has regressed in people's opinions. At the start of last season he was Mr Cool in people's eyes. Composed on the ball and the future of our defence. Fast forward a season which included a few (big) mistakes and now he is "Mr Liability". The guy is 22! He needs games to be shown we can trust in him I think. 

4 minutes ago, rtwelch said:

I can't believe how much Christensen has regressed in people's opinions. At the start of last season he was Mr Cool in people's eyes. Composed on the ball and the future of our defence. Fast forward a season which included a few (big) mistakes and now he is "Mr Liability". The guy is 22! He needs games to be shown we can trust in him I think. 

I agree he was highly rated last season yet we had competition and club captain Cahill was judged by AC to be the better bet at that time.

This season he may struggle for game time yet hoping Sarri gives him a chance in the cups until injury gives him a chance again in  the league again.

Last season was his breakthrough he made some big mistakes but also showed great stability and saved us more than a few times, the big mistakes he made in some games were needed in order that he gets the experience he needs, after all he was 21 years old only and playing in CL and PL is the top level.

Sarri instantly got along with David Luiz and prefers him and overlooks Christensen which is a bit unfair I think but the season is long and I'm sure he will make around 25 games this season in total.

I think there are parallels with John Stones. He was a highly rated young player. Big sides wanted him and when City got him and he struggled a bit we felt we'd dodged a bullet. And when City went for Laporte it was felt that his days at City might be numbered. But now he had a good end to the season, a good World Cup and now he's starting alongside Laporte with Otamendi on the bench.

If he trains hard and does well when he gets on the park and if (when) Luiz messes up he's more than capable of getting into the regular first eleven. That's what I think anyway.

Solid but unspectacular from the Dane last night. 

Lots of completed passes but plays it very safe, often goes backwards with his passes. Rudiger was the one playing us forward mainly from defence. 

Was his first start of the season and didn't look particularly rusty so it's good to know he looks ready to step in if needed. 

1 minute ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Solid but unspectacular from the Dane last night. 

Lots of completed passes but plays it very safe, often goes backwards with his passes. Rudiger was the one playing us forward mainly from defence. 

Was his first start of the season and didn't look particularly rusty so it's good to know he looks ready to step in if needed. 

Tbf in that sense, he's exactly what we need. If Rudiger is the CB that drives forward from the back, we need someone to stay back and I think Christensen is perfect in that sense. A true classic CB. Just needs to work on his strength a little and he'll be a world class CB soon

3 minutes ago, JJP said:

Tbf in that sense, he's exactly what we need. If Rudiger is the CB that drives forward from the back, we need someone to stay back and I think Christensen is perfect in that sense. A true classic CB. Just needs to work on his strength a little and he'll be a world class CB soon

He did nothing wrong last night but I would love to see him up his game a bit, add something a bit extra to his passing. 

If he can improve his vision/confidence playing the ball into midfield he has the potential to become a really quality centre back. At the moment he plays it really safe the vast majority of the time. There's nothing wrong with that as such but for him to kick on and take his game to the next level I think that's where he needs to improve. 

3 hours ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Solid but unspectacular from the Dane last night. 

Lots of completed passes but plays it very safe, often goes backwards with his passes. Rudiger was the one playing us forward mainly from defence. 

Was his first start of the season and didn't look particularly rusty so it's good to know he looks ready to step in if needed. 

I noticed this too, it reminded me of Cahill on the ball. He took a while to make his mind up where to play a pass and eventually would just turn around and play it backwards. Ball playing CB's are crucial to our style of play, Christensen will have to get good at it if he wants to get in ahead of David Luiz. He may be more solid defensively than Luiz, but it's clear that Sarri wants more than just a good defender.

Another very disappointing performance for Christensen, he is not doing himself any favours. He just doesn't have the confidence to play out how Sarri wants, every time he gets the ball his first thought is either across to his CB partner, or back to the GK, as we saw with his gift to Sturridge. I keep thinking he'll learn from his mistakes, but he seems to have a big mistake in him every game.

6 minutes ago, Zeta said:

Another very disappointing performance for Christensen, he is not doing himself any favours. He just doesn't have the confidence to play out how Sarri wants, every time he gets the ball his first thought is either across to his CB partner, or back to the GK, as we saw with his gift to Sturridge. I keep thinking he'll learn from his mistakes, but he seems to have a big mistake in him every game.

I didn't see the game last night so its disappointing to see what you've said. He was coning along fine last season until he dropped that clanger in the CL and a few more after. Sadly, he could be like one of those talented young boxers who get knocked out and never mentally recover from it. Football/sport is a tough world and if he isn't string enough to get over this clear mental problem, then his chances at Chelsea will come to an end and pretty quickly as well. I hope he sorts it out because he does have talent!

Ampadu should be getting minutes over both him and Cahill at the moment tbh.

I didn't think he was that bad last night, but that one glaring error was inexcusable.

Could just be he is lacking match sharpness and every defender has mistakes in them, but he needs to eradicate the big mistakes from his game. He was still better than Dave last night though!

6 minutes ago, Nibs said:

I didn't think he was that bad last night, but that one glaring error was inexcusable.

Could just be he is lacking match sharpness and every defender has mistakes in them, but he needs to eradicate the big mistakes from his game. He was still better than Dave last night though!

The thing is at the moment he looks like he has a bad mistake in him every game, which was always the criticism leveled at Luiz. 

But the difference his, Luiz is just as likely to contribute to a goal as to cost you one.... At the moment Christensen's conservative playing style means that unless he can be defensively solid he's not going to be claiming a spot in the starting XI. 

This is what I've been saying, his distribution from the back is poor by Chelsea standards. He keeps making these mistakes with his passing, it's not the first time he's made passes like this and likely not the last. I'm not sure why so many people disagree with me on this after watching him play again. 

3 minutes ago, Slojo said:

This is what I've been saying, his distribution from the back is poor by Chelsea standards. He keeps making these mistakes with his passing, it's not the first time he's made passes like this and likely not the last. I'm not sure why so many people disagree with me on this after watching him play again. 

I don't want to jump on the bandwagon and bash the boy either, but that back pass was something that defenders should know not to do........do not make a blind pass back to your keeper.

Last night's back pass and the ball across the box against Barca, are his worst 2 mistakes and IMO you should not be attempting these kind of passes, full stop. Unfortunately last night he still looks shaky.

I think Sarri will buy another defender, possibly in Jan, and push him further down the pecking order. A shame because he does have great potential, but needs someone like JT to mentor him. 

2 hours ago, Nibs said:

I didn't think he was that bad last night, but that one glaring error was inexcusable.

Could just be he is lacking match sharpness and every defender has mistakes in them, but he needs to eradicate the big mistakes from his game. He was still better than Dave last night though!

I counted two. 

Passed it to a Liverpool player on the edge of our box, and then there was the back pass that 99 times out of 100 would have resulted in a goal. 

I like him, and hope he has a future for us, but the big individual errors are becoming very frequent. 

Generally, we shouldn't be judging any player for one or two mistakes. But ever since he helped Messi broke the curse "Chelsea", he's made at least one crucial mistake each time he's on the pitch. And this is half a year we are talking about. this should not be tolerated. Yes, he has some positioning, some pace  and he clearly isn't Phil Jones, but let's be honest his contribution the first half of the last season wasn't that impressive either. 

So I'd be happy if we get 25-30 mils for him while we still can. 

Edited September 27, 20187 yr by Giordano_Bruno

He was really good last season up until that mistake against Barcelona. No mistakes, steady as a rock and lead our defence but since that game he's looked like he has a mistake in him every game he plays in unfortunatly.
I'm thinking its a mental thing, he's a good and classy defender but he's not been himself lately.

24 minutes ago, mclovin83 said:

I counted two. 

Passed it to a Liverpool player on the edge of our box, and then there was the back pass that 99 times out of 100 would have resulted in a goal. 

I like him, and hope he has a future for us, but the big individual errors are becoming very frequent. 

It is a bit concerning but he is bound to be a little rusty and lacking match sharpness. Unfortunately you have to hit the ground running at this level and no room for errors.

That said, there were others equally culpable last night - Moses, Fabregas, Dave and worst of lot for me was Barkley who made some shocking decisions around our box. He really has to learn he isn't playing for Everton now.

1 minute ago, Nibs said:

It is a bit concerning but he is bound to be a little rusty and lacking match sharpness. Unfortunately you have to hit the ground running at this level and no room for errors.

That said, there were others equally culpable last night - Moses, Fabregas, Dave and worst of lot for me was Barkley who made some shocking decisions around our box. He really has to learn he isn't playing for Everton now.

Agree. 

I thought Barkley was decent last night though, but perhaps I missed his errors because a few people have said similar to the above. 

There were various culprits last night as you say, and I didn't even think Kante was his usual faultless self when he came on. 

Unfortunately Christiensen's errors were the most high profile, when you are trying to stake a claim in the back 4, you can't be making a habit of having that tag..

 

34 minutes ago, enigma said:

 

Must have been infectious, thousands of Chelsea fans felt sick a minute after the break with that back pass.

4 hours ago, Giordano_Bruno said:

Generally, we shouldn't be judging any player for one or two mistakes. But ever since he helped Messi broke the curse "Chelsea", he's made at least one crucial mistake each time he's on the pitch. And this is half a year we are talking about. this should not be tolerated. Yes, he has some positioning, some pace  and he clearly isn't Phil Jones, but let's be honest his contribution the first half of the last season wasn't that impressive either. 

So I'd be happy if we get 25-30 mils for him while we still can. 

Sadly you're right.

Currently we only have one centre-half that has looked like he can defend consistently well, has a decent sense of positioning, more than a bit of pace and generally looks good enough for where we want go.... And that's Rudiger.

Another proven quality centre-half to play alongside him is as badly needed as a quality centre-forward IMO.