17 minutes ago, just said:

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.

Ampadu?

Andreas Christensen - 

“It has been a hard season. I cannot stand to have so much patience again. Now I’m 22 years old and I really want to play. It’s too early to talk about when to change if I’m going to change. But it is clear that it is not a good situation for me”.

Given Luiz's resurgence and good form and Rudiger looking an absolute tank at the back I think Christensen is going to have to bide his time for minutes, especially as he's looked a bit suspect when he has started this season. 

I don't think we can rule out the idea of him leaving and us returning for Rugani or another centre back come the end of the season. 

Well if he didn't keep making mistakes every time he plays, he might get more chances.

It has also been hard to watch week in week out making silly mistakes but c'est la vie, mon amie. 

Sell him while he's still worth 30 millions and bring in Zouma. Making constantly mistakes as a CB might be everything but not a bright future. 

Completely understand his frustrations. At 22 he needs to play and we have a manager who seemingly does not favour younger players.

Unless anything changes he will surely have to leave.

I agree he's made a few mistakes - however I think this can be expected given his age.

If he remains unhappy and we have to sell, hopefully he won't turn into a future world class defender.

Unfortunately if he is not prepared to force his way into the team by making himself better than the players in front of him, then the only thing is for him to leave. He can't say he hasn't been given an opportunity.

29 minutes ago, Nickcook26 said:

we have a manager who seemingly does not favour younger players.

I think this is a matter of fit than age. Luiz brings the ability on the ball that Sarri loves. His vertical passing game is a weapon out of the back. I think Christensen is marginally better defender right now, with huge upside, but I think Luiz is way ahead with the ball at his feet. That’s the difference right now, not age. 

 

3 minutes ago, Skinnedy said:

I think this is a matter of fit than age. Luiz brings the ability on the ball that Sarri loves. His vertical passing game is a weapon out of the back. I think Christensen is marginally better defender right now, with huge upside, but I think Luiz is way ahead with the ball at his feet. That’s the difference right now, not age. 

 

It wasn't really Luiz I was referring too with that comment.

More the fact Cahill has taken his place on the bench so not even in the matchday squad in recent times.

I understand him and RLC are good friends from years in the academy. They are all struggling for game time while Hudson Odoi and Ampadu are yet to feature. I think it would be a fair to say he doesn't like youth too much based on what we have seen so far.

He's probably done here.
He very much got his chance to be a Chelsea-starter last season but he fell off a cliff after Barcelona at home and has never been able to recover from that really.
 

1 hour ago, Nickcook26 said:

More the fact Cahill has taken his place on the bench so not even in the matchday squad

I get that. I guess I see Christensen as the #3 center back, so he’s first choice on the second team, where Cahill is #4, and gets picked for the bench in spots where he likely won’t play. I think Christensen ends the season with more minutes than Cahill, but we’ll see. Hopefully everyone stays healthy and we won’t have to find out. 

And I’m as disappointed as anyone with the exclusion of CHO and Ampadu in Europa so far, especially when doubled down with my opinion of Willian, which isn’t overly flattering of the Brazilian. 

I understand his frustration. He said the same thing when he came back from Monchengladbach that he wanted to play and not sit on the bench. With that being said, he has to take his minutes and play well when he does get his time to play. He had some howlers lately. Last season he was absolutely solid for the first half of the season and then you could see he got tired or something as he started making mistakes. 

He is young and obviously there are going to be growing pains.

It will be interesting to see how everything plays out. Especially around Christmas and throughout January when we play 598465168 matches in a month in a half (Ok, a bit of an exaggeration there). I think if he takes his chances well and performs up to his ability he will see his playing time increase. But with how much Sarri likes Luiz, and also how little Sarri seems to be willing to rotate, I'm not sure how much time he is going to get. 

3 hours ago, Sindre said:

He's probably done here.
He very much got his chance to be a Chelsea-starter last season but he fell off a cliff after Barcelona at home and has never been able to recover from that really.
 

Exactly. You can’t be a starting centre back at a top club when you make a mistake leading to the oppo having a good scoring opportunity every game. 

I think if JT was still around to act as a mentor to him he’d have been fine after that Barca game. 

36 minutes ago, Munkworth said:

Exactly. You can’t be a starting centre back at a top club when you make a mistake leading to the oppo having a good scoring opportunity every game. 

I think if JT was still around to act as a mentor to him he’d have been fine after that Barca game. 

To be fair, David Luiz have almost been doing that as well this season and the last. Christensen should atleast be third choice, way ahead of Cahill.

That Barcelona game I think really affected him mentally

He's probably done here.
He very much got his chance to be a Chelsea-starter last season but he fell off a cliff after Barcelona at home and has never been able to recover from that really.
 

I think we should show some faith with him, in terms of centre backs he's still very young, John Stones has made some bad errors as well, but he now looks very good for England and city. 

He needs to start helping himself though, when he does come in, he needs to produce. So far this season, he's played 3 games, did okay in the Europa league, but made an awful error at anfield. 

Sarri obviously wants a settled a back 4 to give us something to build on, if christiensen can be patient, I'm sure he will get a few chances in the league around Xmas, and he's got to be perfect in those games to win the confidence of the manager. 

It would be a shame to lose him, when he was showing so much promise 12 months ago.

Need to go for De Ligt and sell Christensen. Only problem would be, De Ligt would need to come and phase out Luiz because he's too good not to play in the first team. 

It's only a matter of time before Luiz cost a game or 2 for us with his casual defending, the next in line will be Christensen. I'm pretty sure he will play lots of games until the season ends. I like Zouma, but he didn't cover himself in glory with his loan spells over the last 15 months.

I think we will regret it if we sold him. I love Luiz but it would be very short sighted to rely on him. 

Problem is we, in general, don't rotate enough. There should be more than enough games for Christensen here. 

16 hours ago, enigma said:

Need to go for De Ligt and sell Christensen. Only problem would be, De Ligt would need to come and phase out Luiz because he's too good not to play in the first team. 

Enough of this De Ligt obsession, hes not even all that and has a very high chance of becoming another overrated chump in the future.

That being said, I did have high hopes for Christensen a few years ago, and he did look class. But ever since that Barca game he has been making mistakes in almost every game he's played in and it just isn't good enough. I know he's only 22, but he needs more game time, I think the best option would be to sell him to another league with a buyback clause, so if he improves we can snap him back up relatively cheap. In the meantime (if Cahill was to leave also) I think we should look at bringing back Zouma and also try and get Rugani. With that I think we'll be well sorted in the CB department

If the paper talk is true we will bid for Rugani in the Jan window. As for Christensen, he needs to get his head down to improve, and tbh, he needs a JT to guide him, just as JT had Desailly.

3 hours ago, icecoolguy22 said:

It's only a matter of time before Luiz cost a game or 2 for us with his casual defending, the next in line will be Christensen. I'm pretty sure he will play lots of games until the season ends. I like Zouma, but he didn't cover himself in glory with his loan spells over the last 15 months.

I think Luiz defensively has been very good in recent games. I'm sure he will make a mistake again eventually, but he won't be getting dropped for Christensen. David Luiz ball playing abilities is vital to Sarri's system, so unless Christensen massively improves in that area, then he isn't going to get in ahead of Luiz. I also think Christensen in recent times has been making far too many defensive errors. Even if Luiz makes a big mistake soon, I don't think he will get dropped for Christensen because Christensen has been error prone himself in recent times.

Maybe another 6-month loan in Jan for CHristensen, to give him more game time and get the mistakes out of his system? Then we can keep Cahill until the summer and switch him our for Christensen.

The thing is, if Christensen were to leave for first team football, where is he going to go? 

Sure he's quite highly regarded and I'm sure a lot of teams would be interested but how many big clubs would be looking to recruit him for their starting XI? Not many. 

He's still a work in progress and, in my opinion, needs to show a bit of patience if he wants to be playing regularly for teams placing in the top 4 or competing for the title. 

I think we have to be realistic and although he's a good player, does he suit Sarrismo? 

Christensen's passing is good, but its a bit too safe. Unless he can be more adventurous with his passing i'm not against selling him for £35m+ and getting someone Sarri wants in. 

His home grown status would be the biggest loss imo. Its not bigger loss than when we sold Ake.

37 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

The thing is, if Christensen were to leave for first team football, where is he going to go? 

Sure he's quite highly regarded and I'm sure a lot of teams would be interested but how many big clubs would be looking to recruit him for their starting XI? Not many. 

He's still a work in progress and, in my opinion, needs to show a bit of patience if he wants to be playing regularly for teams placing in the top 4 or competing for the title. 

Pep is a big fan, and Kompany is on the way out.