On 30/09/2018 at 16:56, Scott Harris said:

Yesterday was the best I have seen of Luiz since Conte's first few months in charge. He was excellent yesterday, a proper big game performance from him.

In a peverse way it can be frustrating when he performs like that (obviously not in the heat of the battle but when you access things tactically), this guy could have literally been anything he wanted to be but he never shook off his inconsistentcy's.

Just catching up on comments from over the weekend, and I know its late but I feel compelled to post about Luiz's performance on Saturday. What a brilliant and dominant performance! John Terry-esk! He gets quite a bit of stick on here, but credit where it's due - he was fantastic.  A 9.5/10 performance from me, the only thing that slightly let him down was too many 'hollywood' pass attempts, then they weren't on. Keep up the good work David!

From Barney Roney's recent article. Quite fitting, I thought:

 

Chelsea’s attacks come in swift, short-passing waves with the whole team shifting upfield. David Luiz is vital to this, never happier than when encouraged to gambol about the pitch with his head in the air, ears flapping, like a prize terrier with a surgical cone on its neck haring the wrong way round the Crufts ring.

1 hour ago, PloKoon13 said:

From Barney Roney's recent article. Quite fitting, I thought:

 

 

 

Ha ha, thats fantastic, and just so right.

On 02/09/2018 at 20:20, atomis said:

As we say in my country, its all fun and games until someone Looses an eye..........

no eyes lost yet.......  :)

2 hours ago, Bigthrobberus said:

no eyes lost yet.......  :)

Lets hope it stays that way ha.......

Looked a cracking header that led to the equaliser, football365 said that Giroud did some special positioning to give DL the space and he certainly went for it.

16 minutes ago, Strider6003 said:

Looked a cracking header that led to the equaliser, football365 said that Giroud did some special positioning to give DL the space and he certainly went for it.

Yeah he flew like a bullet for that header......

I think Luiz is having a good season. Sarri is no mug, that should be abundantly clear to everyone. He has Luiz in the team for a reason. Luiz and Rudiger have the potential to be a very good partnership.

 

There are negatives with Luiz but there are also positives. He's tough. Look at that header against Utd at the death. The one that hit the post and lead to our goal. That was a tough player, right there. He has personality on the pitch. He has ability on the ball. The negatives have been covered a million times but there are less and less negatives as the season develops under Sarri. Our manager could improve him a lot I reckon because the raw materials are there and this is a manager that improves players.

 

We have the ball a lot. Luiz needs to stay focused. This has always been his problem. He likes to be involved. He has to get used to being a spectator a lot of the time. We saw against Newcastle this is where he falls down. This is the challenge for Sarri.

 

We have 5 CBs at the club. Ampadu is clearly going to be a player but right now it looks like Sarri has made the right choice. Luiz is in the team on merit.

He has had a decent season so far, not great, decent IMO. He still has the capacity to make totally rash decisions, such as the one that led to Man United's 2nd goal, and that will never be irradicated from his game no matter who the manager is. As we have seen throughout his career, thats how he plays.

Personally I would still rather have a more defensively gifted centre-half in that position but there is no doubt his long ball ability is very good and suits this system.

1 hour ago, just said:

He has had a decent season so far, not great, decent IMO. He still has the capacity to make totally rash decisions, such as the one that led to Man United's 2nd goal,

OMFG!  @just said that about Luiz!!!!!! I am stunned, completely stunned and speechless.  Well, not speechless, obviously, but stunned.

Oh, and I'm not sure that a player getting beat by Mata in a one-on-one is necessarily a rash decision given that he was the last man in defence.  I'd rather he had tried to win the ball and lost than let Mata attack unchallenged , which would most likely have led to a goal anyway, given the Manc attack and our paucity of defenders at the time.

But I'm still f**king stunned.

34 minutes ago, yorkleyblue said:

OMFG!  @just said that about Luiz!!!!!! I am stunned, completely stunned and speechless.  Well, not speechless, obviously, but stunned.

Someone has been messing with his desk calendar and left it on April 1st.

14 hours ago, Davey Baby said:

I think Luiz is having a good season. Sarri is no mug, that should be abundantly clear to everyone. He has Luiz in the team for a reason. Luiz and Rudiger have the potential to be a very good partnership.

 

There are negatives with Luiz but there are also positives. He's tough. Look at that header against Utd at the death. The one that hit the post and lead to our goal. That was a tough player, right there. He has personality on the pitch. He has ability on the ball. The negatives have been covered a million times but there are less and less negatives as the season develops under Sarri. Our manager could improve him a lot I reckon because the raw materials are there and this is a manager that improves players.

 

We have the ball a lot. Luiz needs to stay focused. This has always been his problem. He likes to be involved. He has to get used to being a spectator a lot of the time. We saw against Newcastle this is where he falls down. This is the challenge for Sarri.

 

We have 5 CBs at the club. Ampadu is clearly going to be a player but right now it looks like Sarri has made the right choice. Luiz is in the team on merit.

Good to see you back posting DB. They let you out for good behaviour?

10 minutes ago, Nibs said:

Good to see you back posting DB. They let you out for good behaviour?

 

No they just got sick and tired of me.

11 hours ago, yorkleyblue said:

OMFG!  @just said that about Luiz!!!!!! I am stunned, completely stunned and speechless.  Well, not speechless, obviously, but stunned.

Oh, and I'm not sure that a player getting beat by Mata in a one-on-one is necessarily a rash decision given that he was the last man in defence.  I'd rather he had tried to win the ball and lost than let Mata attack unchallenged , which would most likely have led to a goal anyway, given the Manc attack and our paucity of defenders at the time.

But I'm still f**king stunned.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pUFM3URskVI

1.25 in the video. It doesn't get much rasher than this!!!

Edited October 31, 20187 yr by just

How poor must Christensen have been that Sarri was forced to bring on Luiz to shore up the defence?

 

6 hours ago, PloKoon13 said:

How poor must Christensen have been that Sarri was forced to bring on Luiz to shore up the defence?

 

I think it was clear we were having trouble at central defence, with Luiz being the cover maybe Gaz was thought to being the better foil to him. If Rudiger had been on the bench I'd be pretty sure Cahill( who was probably having one of his poorest matches in a Chelsea shirt) would have got the hook. 

Christensen though wasn't good, he and Cahill don't make a good partnership neither being comfortable on the ball. Add a keeper who is unpredictable, two full backs who aren't very good defenders and place Fabregas just in front of them and you have a recipe for the poor performance we saw last night. My guess is that Bournemouth will go full strength next round and we should probably go considerably stronger if we are serious on progression. Next weeks game against BATE needs to be a win so we can use the remaining Europa League matches for rotation.

 

6 hours ago, PloKoon13 said:

How poor must Christensen have been that Sarri was forced to bring on Luiz to shore up the defence?

As @charierre said the whole defence looked out of sorts and Christensen just happened to be the one hooked to shore things up. That two of our three subs were used on the backline speaks volumes about just how poor the defence was. 

None of the four who started last night are banging on the door for starting place in my opinion. 

22 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

As @charierre said the whole defence looked out of sorts and Christensen just happened to be the one hooked to shore things up. That two of our three subs were used on the backline speaks volumes about just how poor the defence was. 

None of the four who started last night are banging on the door for starting place in my opinion. 

To be fair Zappacosta wasn't that bad, he has been good when he played this season and has been a threat going forward. If Alonso was on the bench i reckon Emerson would have been more likely to be subbed off.

4 minutes ago, jack_super_class said:

To be fair Zappacosta wasn't that bad, he has been good when he played this season and has been a threat going forward. If Alonso was on the bench i reckon Emerson would have been more likely to be subbed off.

Zappacosta is alright when he's in the opposition half but has a nasty of habit of trying to dribble the ball around his man and then just running straight into him. He does it in our own half way more than makes me comfortable. 

If he could just improve his ball he'd be quality (irony being that two poorly hit crosses lead to own goals last night). 

Both the fullbacks decent enough players as reserves, probably better than we've had for a few years now. 

To be honest, I didn't see them as poorly hit crosses at all.  All you can ask of a wide player is that they get the ball into the centre, ideally at pace.  And that was what he did, several times.  At a very minimum, on the second own goal, if the carthorse hadn't sliced it,  Morata was right behind in an excellent position.

Now, I know that probably means that the ball would have ended up in Row Z, or gone through his legs, but the cross was actually excellent,  and what we are missing a lot of the time.  I notice that Ruben works towards getting crosses into that area a lot, as well.

I don’t think Luiz coming on for Christensen did much to shore up the defence really. Literally one minute after he came one they were through on goal on his side and almost scored. They didn’t actually find the net in the second half but it wasn’t for a lack of chances.

Christensen wasn’t great but often you need to allow centre backs some time to develop an understanding. Derby may be a championship side but they are decent going forward and throwing Cahill and Christensen together, who have hardly played under Sarri, was unlikely to work out well. Considering how differently we play this season compared to last, it shouldn’t be a surprise if they look like fish out of water.

I think Luiz deserves to keep his starting spot for now but there’s always a nagging doubt that he can’t keep it up and eventually he will return to his erratic ways.

 

4 hours ago, bluedave said:

I don’t think Luiz coming on for Christensen did much to shore up the defence really. Literally one minute after he came one they were through on goal on his side and almost scored. They didn’t actually find the net in the second half but it wasn’t for a lack of chances.

Christensen wasn’t great but often you need to allow centre backs some time to develop an understanding. Derby may be a championship side but they are decent going forward and throwing Cahill and Christensen together, who have hardly played under Sarri, was unlikely to work out well. Considering how differently we play this season compared to last, it shouldn’t be a surprise if they look like fish out of water.

I think Luiz deserves to keep his starting spot for now but there’s always a nagging doubt that he can’t keep it up and eventually he will return to his erratic ways.

 

There may be a nagging doubt in your mine, but the way Sarri has improved a team performance & playing style in a limited time frame it has not been nagging in his mind, if Luiz does start playing erratically I'm sure Sarri will be quick to show him the correct path to follow, have no doubt about that.

Made over 100 passes against Everton. 

With Jorginho's influence being blunted looks like the initial creative burden falls to Luiz which shows just why the centre backs are so central to the system and why, in my opinion, performances have looked a bit more flat in the Europa League matches as neither Cahill or Christensen have the passing range or confidence to drive the team forward from the back. 

1 hour ago, ForeverCarefree said:

Made over 100 passes against Everton. 

With Jorginho's influence being blunted looks like the initial creative burden falls to Luiz which shows just why the centre backs are so central to the system and why, in my opinion, performances have looked a bit more flat in the Europa League matches as neither Cahill or Christensen have the passing range or confidence to drive the team forward from the back. 

Agree and think the changes are made to keep the rest of the squad match ready in case of injury. The test or change will come as we progress to the later stage of the tournaments.