8 hours ago, Charles Ryder said:

That joke isn't funny anymore.

Last Sunday, as Chelsea confidently dispatched rivals Tottenham to put the final touches to their now-somehow-legitimate title chase, one man stayed on the pitch longer than any other. From the final whistle he headed straight to the Shed End to celebrate with the fans after anchoring his team to their seventh straight win.

Eighteen months prior, the same man was celebrating wildly at the same end of the same pitch, scoring the goal that knocked Chelsea out of the Champions League, setting in motion the hilarious run of form and abyss of confidence that cost them their title, their dignity, and their most iconic manager.

His eccentric return to embracing these fans epitomises his role in turning around Chelsea's fortunes. Just a year ago Stamford Bridge was in revolt, labelling half the squad 'rats' and spreading the toxic vibe towards even the quieter, more kindly squad members, who'd just kept their heads down through the worst championship defence in living memory. Now, the fans love them; and they especially love him.

David Luiz defies easy categorisation, and always has done. A hero, icon, and future captain to some? Yes. A fraud and a d**khead to most? Absolutely.

The Chelsea fans who were delighted at the £50m the club got for his transfer to PSG would have paid double that to have him back in the cold, leaderless slump of their impotent title defence. Rival fans who laughed at the £32m the club paid to retrieve him from exile in Paris will now be looking at their own marquee signings and wondering what they’ve paid for.

 

To say David Luiz has been a revelation since he came back to Chelsea plays too easily into the hands of those who unfairly savaged him in the past. He plays like a “10 year old on a Playstation”, said Gary Neville. “He is a liability for his team”, said Jamie Redknapp. “David Luiz,” said your Dad, poking his Carlsberg sloppily towards the TV, “is a useless twat.”

These same pundits, now forced to joylessly praise him every week, are waiting with baited breath for the price of admission - the David Luiz Glaring Mistake. A howling lapse in concentration. A stray backpass. An alert striker - Aguero, probably - taking advantage of the moment and rolling the ball easily into the net.

But it hasn't happened yet. Five games pass; ten, fifteen, still no mistake. Six clean sheets in a row. Still no mistake.

 

Obviously, this ‘has-a-mistake-in-him’ cliché hasn’t come from nowhere. Luiz has made costly mistakes in his career. Watching him chase German players around the pitch like a wide-eyed sixth former who heard someone at the party has weed remains one of the most harrowing sights most of us have ever witnessed in football.

The 7-1 final score is remembered not as the flourish of a truly great Germany team, but the total collapse of a Brazil side which put an unreliable, overrated clown at the centre of their plans.

But what of the clown?

Twitter banter merchants and your mate Joel, definitely-coming-up-with-this-on-the-spot, reckons he looks like Sideshow Bob, from The Simpsons. And it’s funny, because much like Sideshow Bob, David Luiz is a clown, and a laughing stock, and a fool.

These people don’t know their Simpsons at all. It’s worth bearing in mind that Sideshow Bob went from clown to killer after one brutal national humiliation too many, leaving him deadly motivated to prove everyone wrong.

That brutal night in Belo Horizonte fixed David Luiz, and it fixed him by breaking him.

Gone is the Playstation controller that sent him launching out of position chasing air, leaving his partner stranded at the back; in its place stands a mature and calm defensive presence. This is what Chelsea paid for.

 

Everyone knows all stats are completely useless, but here's some that make him look really, really good: his average pass length is 24.44 metres, compared to John Stones' 18.36 and Joel Matip's 18.92. His pass completion percentage is only bettered among Premier League centre backs by Stones, who completes almost double the amount of passes backwards - 18.82 to 10.22.

Whatever a "Key Pass" is, Luiz hits a lot of them - 0.33 per game. Laurent Koscielny sprays out a big fat zero. Pathetic.

There are loads of reasons why stats are even more pointless than usual here; all the top teams play differently, expect different things from their defenders, and most good defending happens off the ball.

The main reason, though, is that this is David Luiz we are talking about - you can't put a number on what he brings to the team. An attacking focal point and defensive stability, yes, but also some form of on-field passion and leadership that hasn't been abstracted through several jarring layers of weird idolisation and a decrepit, creaking pair of legs (Apologies to Mr. Terry, J).

Luiz is agony, patience, and ecstasy bound to flesh. He'll smash a free kick straight into the wall and shut down the resulting counter attack in the same leap. He'll elbow someone square in the face and sprint off to make a vital interception before trotting remorselessly back to accept his yellow card. He'll carry you to your first ever Champions League title with his hamstrings hanging on in a state somewhere between 'devastated' and 'f**ked', then leave for Paris so he can play with his mate.

Nobody will ever understand David Luiz; not statistics, not pundits, not the strained and bleeding achilles of any striker who ever dribbles past him. This is fine. You don't need to understand why he plays like a mad, unrelentingly beautiful bar steward to accept that he is brilliant - you're allowed to just enjoy it.

Open the curtains. Let a bit of light into your life. Stop hating David Luiz just because the man on the TV keeps telling you to.

 

https://www.joe.co.uk/sport/davidluiz/100798

 

Brilliant !

I was delighted when he left and gutted when we brought him back. 

Only last week Ray Wilkins on Talksport in the build up to the Spurs game, said he still felt Luiz wasn't a natural defender and always worries he has a mistake coming. In his previous spell with us there was lots of evidence and examples to back that opinion up. And that was my opinion too.

My opinion before Conte changed to a back three and performed a miracle in making the re-invented David Luiz a disciplined, concentrated, consistent centre-half. Make no mistake, this is all down to Conte's vision and his defensive coaches hard work. g3.7 is right IMO, the new system, and his role in it, makes the best of Luiz's strengths and nullifies most of his weaknesses, particularly his decision making on positioning. Gone are the forays to all areas of the pitch as was his wont. Gone are the mad challenges with no hope of winning the ball up by the halfway line. Given that Luiz's previous major failing was his complete inability to be aware of what was happening around him,  it is a truly, truly miraculous transformation. Made all the more miraculous from my sincerely held belief that Luiz was not Conte's preferred signing.

Long may it continue, because right now, today, David Luiz is a major lynchpin of this exciting Chelsea team. And that is something I never thought I would say.

And someone was saying Johnnie Evans would be better. FFS

surprised no one put up his touches vs Man City up yet - let me be the one then

 

Garth Crooks was massively impressed with his pass to Costa on Saturday:-

 

"What a ball for Diego Costa to score. I don't know what was better, Costa's movement in order to offer the invitation for David Luiz to attempt the 40-yard wonder ball or the sheer audacity and precision of the pass. I suppose the movement combined with the chest trap made it for me.

 

what a f**king idiot 

19 minutes ago, dkw said:

Garth Crooks was massively impressed with his pass to Costa on Saturday:-

 

"What a ball for Diego Costa to score. I don't know what was better, Costa's movement in order to offer the invitation for David Luiz to attempt the 40-yard wonder ball or the sheer audacity and precision of the pass. I suppose the movement combined with the chest trap made it for me.

 

what a f**king idiot 

It angers me that my TV license fee goes towards paying that spanners salary. 

4 hours ago, dkw said:

Garth Crooks was massively impressed with his pass to Costa on Saturday:-

 

"What a ball for Diego Costa to score. I don't know what was better, Costa's movement in order to offer the invitation for David Luiz to attempt the 40-yard wonder ball or the sheer audacity and precision of the pass. I suppose the movement combined with the chest trap made it for me.

 

what a f**king idiot 

Is that real? 

He needs glasses

4 hours ago, dkw said:

Garth Crooks was massively impressed with his pass to Costa on Saturday:-

 

"What a ball for Diego Costa to score. I don't know what was better, Costa's movement in order to offer the invitation for David Luiz to attempt the 40-yard wonder ball or the sheer audacity and precision of the pass. I suppose the movement combined with the chest trap made it for me.

 

what a f**king idiot 

Probably thinks all white people look the same lol. 

 

 

 

 

No offence intended im half carribean myself:)

1 hour ago, Bobbywoodhogan said:

Is that real? 

He needs glasses

Yep, BBC team of the week.

5 hours ago, dkw said:

Garth Crooks was massively impressed with his pass to Costa on Saturday:-

 

"What a ball for Diego Costa to score. I don't know what was better, Costa's movement in order to offer the invitation for David Luiz to attempt the 40-yard wonder ball or the sheer audacity and precision of the pass. I suppose the movement combined with the chest trap made it for me.

 

what a f**king idiot 

Aguero should be ashamed of that challenge on Fabregas, brought back memories of that stamp on Luiz in the FA cup

7 hours ago, dkw said:

Garth Crooks was massively impressed with his pass to Costa on Saturday:-

 

"What a ball for Diego Costa to score. I don't know what was better, Costa's movement in order to offer the invitation for David Luiz to attempt the 40-yard wonder ball or the sheer audacity and precision of the pass. I suppose the movement combined with the chest trap made it for me.

 

what a f**king idiot 

tool

5 hours ago, Bobbywoodhogan said:

Is that real? 

He needs glasses

Can't get a pair big enough for his eyes. 

Hasty rehashed rewrite up on the team of the week now.

Really funny to read it knowing what was originally written. 

Does anyone have a clip of the cross pitch curling pass Luiz made nearer to the start of the season with his left foot? I don't think that got anywhere near enough attention. I think it was to Batman who should have scored...

Edited December 8, 20169 yr by rtwelch

Found it... from 5:21 on this video
 

 

Seems Luiz may be carrying an injury from that dirty midgets tackle

http://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation.com/2016/12/10/13897442/david-luiz-chelsea-fc-injury-status-update-interview-quotes

Good interview with Ruud. I completely agree with his observations on Luiz and the changes Conte has made.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38240386

 

He wasn't very sharp yesterday and made some mistakes that could have cost us points. Fortunately WBA did not want to create chances. He played with a bandage so I guess that he wasn't 100% and I hope he recovers for the next match.

Edited December 12, 20169 yr by RMH

1 minute ago, RMH said:

He wasn't very sharp yesterday and made some mistakes that could have costed us points. Fortunately WBA did not want to create chances. He played with a bandage so I guess that he wasn't 100% and I hope he recovers for the next match.

He was definitely struggling yesterday. 

When the medical team came on after Hazard went down injured in the first half I saw him help himself to the medical spray for his knee/calf. 

He certainly didn't look comfortable with all of his movements. 

 

He certainly didn't look 100% yesterday, however aside from one error he was fine. He's a fighter though, as we saw when he played the CL final while unfit, perhaps we could give him a rest against sunderland in midweek and have Zouma return to the starting lineup, though with Defoe's current form i'd like to have a full strength defence playing

Looks like the Aguero challenge is still affecting him. Wish we could rest him for the midweek game but we can't take any chances right now. 

I don't think he should be risked being played in 3 games over 7 days, I would rest him for the Sunderland game 

 

Seems like a legit nice guy

Luis made it into both Gary Neville and Jamie's Carraghers teams of the season so far

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/10702839/gary-neville-and-jamie-carragher-pick-team-of-season-so-far-on-monday-night-football

What a turn around for him, I knew people who actually laughed when we re-signed him like he was Tal Ben Haim or someone. Well they're not laughing now.