It doesn’t seem to matter how many times we count David Luiz out, the Chelsea defender seems to dust himself down and comeback with some scintillating performances.

Don’t get me wrong, he still has a clanger in him but he doesn’t shy away from it either.

People discounted him this season when Chelsea started to slump during the middle of the campaign. It’s also always been said that the Brazilian can’t play in a back four and needs to be protected in a back three.

Yet Luiz has been a big part in getting The Blues to finish in the Premier League’s top four and he’s also now helped them reach the final of the Europa League.

David has always been praised for his ability on the ball, especially his passing ability. That has continued once again this term with him having an 87% passing success rate in the league.

While he makes just 1.2 tackles per game, he is averaging a strong 4 clearances per league outing and wins 2.3 headers too (Stats taken from Whoscored).

He’s a defender that anticipates and sweeps up. He doesn’t lunge into challenges and that’s fine as long as you’ve got that coming from someone else like Cesar Azpilicueta, Marcos Alonso or N’Golo Kante.

Blues boss Maurizio Sarri is a very determined coach and he’ll stick to his guns. We know the Italian coach likes to see his teams playing from the back and his players being strong when it comes to passing. David Luiz fits his system perfectly.

The player himself has stated that he loves the Sarri philosophy (From The Metro):

‘It’s a philosophy to have a lot of possession, create a lot of opportunities and he has tried to introduce that to us,’ .

‘I think he has already done amazing as in the past people were saying ‘Chelsea don’t control the game, Chelsea don’t play with a lot of the ball, Chelsea just plays counter-attacks’ everyone was criticising Chelsea.’

‘Now we control the games and sometimes they criticise us because we don’t win the game with a lot of possession. I think his philosophy is amazing, it’s trying to play football.’

Last night the Brazilian internationalist was pivotal in helping his side reach the Europa League final in Baku.

The central defender helped settle his side’s nerves as he had over 100 touches of the ball. No Chelsea player won more aerial battles than the centre-back and only Jorginho made more accurate passes than David.

In the extra time period of the tie against Eintracht Frankfurt, Luiz saved his club from elimination when he cleared a Sebastian Haller chance off the goal-line!

The defender than calmly stepped forward and stuck away his penalty during the shoot-out, making up for the one he missed earlier this year in the League Cup final against Manchester City. This shows courage on Luiz’s part to step up and be there for his club again.

A recent report in The Independent suggests that the thirty-two year old is about to ink a new deal at Chelsea.

For me, it makes complete sense. The club are facing a transfer ban and might be losing some key personnel in the summer. So they need to keep resilient veterans that know how to win trophies and fit into Sarri’s style.

David Luiz keeps coming back and showing that he really is a top class player.

Posted on May 10th, 2019 by scott
Filed under: Article