Hello and welcome back to Chelsea News with me your host Jack. In todays episode we will be talking about potential left back candidates to fill in Ben Chilwell’s role as he is now out for the season.
This season, Chilwell has been Chelsea’s starting left back, performing to an extremely high standard and remarkably, had a rather large goal and assists return due to his great attacking movements. But recently Chilwell has become injured and is now subject of a season long surgery in order to try and help him get back to full fitness. And this leaves Chelsea with a major defensive problem in that they don’t have a top class left back to adequately replace him.
The current options the Blues possess is 31 year old Spain left back Marcos Alonso and currently on loan away from the club Italian left back Emerson Palmieri. Neither of these players, as they are right now are a high enough quality of player to be challenging for the Premier League title. SO, in order to not have to lower their ambitions. Chelsea are set to break the bank for a new defender. And in this episode, we will be looking at different defensive options and weighing up how good or not they would be for the Blues.
First and foremost we have Everton fullback Lucas Digne. He has recently had a fallout with current Everton manager Rafa Benitez leading some fans to speculate that he will never play for Everton again. This is brilliant news for Chelsea as it means that the Toffees are willing to sell off their world class left back for a cut price fee in January. Chelsea should take this and swoop in to sign the Frenchman. Digne also has experience playing at the highest level and in a possession based system thanks to his time at Barcelona. His time in Catalonia was a troubled one, as he moved to Everton in order to get into playing regular football seeing as he couldn’t break through the set in stone starter of Jordi Alba.
Digne is an extremely capable full back both going forward and back and I really think that even next season when Ben Chilwell comes back from injury he could really be a player to push him all the way, challenging him for his spot and helping Chelsea push forward and compete on all fronts. Because, lets not forget that due to Ben Chilwell’s injury struggles, he simply cannot be expected to play up to 6 competitions per year. That simply isn’t going to happen. So, ambitious Chelsea, in my eyes should sign a top quality player to not just deputise for Chilwell but to compete and challenge him for hist starting birth.
Digne is an extremely capable full back both going forward and back and I really think that even next season when Ben Chilwell comes back from injury he could really be a player to push him all the way, challenging him for his spot and helping Chelsea push forward and compete on all fronts. Because, lets not forget that due to Ben Chilwell’s injury struggles, he simply cannot be expected to play up to 6 competitions per year. That simply isn’t going to happen. So, ambitious Chelsea, in my eyes should sign a top quality player to not just deputise for Chilwell but to compete and challenge him for hist starting birth.
Next on the list we have AC Milan’s Theo Hernandez. Hernandez has been outstanding at AC Milan and has truly emerged as one of the finest young left backs on the planet. He would be a more than capable cover for Ben Chilwell and I truly believe that he could be such a player to push for a starting place should he stay. The main issue is that he may view his position in the team as secondary due to Ben Chilwell, even though that may not be true, with Chelsea in need of two starting left backs in order to compensate for the tremendous load placed upon football players due to fixture congestion. Hernandez may even see sharing a spot with Ben Chilwell a step down from the San Siro, as he is currently battling for a Serie A title against his neighbours Inter, where he is playing regular week in week out football.
There have been several other names thrown around as potential players for Chelsea to sign or even loan in January. If you enjoyed, there might be more, but regardless, feel free to follow or listen to more episodes.
I’ve been Jack here at the Chelsea News Podcast. Goodbye!
