Chelsea the best place for David Luiz to improve his game
Published:Chelsea’s David Luiz continues to be linked with moves away from Stamford Bridge – with Barcelona and now Bayern Munich reportedly interested in the Brazilian international – but staying in West London may help him develop into a more complete player.
If there’s one thing that is associated with the way Jose Mourinho’s teams play their football – beyond winning league titles – it’s discipline. Not in terms of keeping the two-footed challenges and bouts of handbags to a minimum, but in terms of organisation and subjugation to his meticulously researched tactics.
Over the course of the last campaign, Luiz has looked a player for whom the word ‘maverick’ was invented, sometimes a brilliant match-turning presence with or without the ball, sometimes equally guilty of poor decision making or naïve positioning.
The pair don’t seem like the most obvious fit it’s true, but given the Portuguese’s unique motivational gifts, staying with the Blues – who are 3/5 to keep a clean sheet in their season opener against Hull – could see Luiz take his game to an entirely new level.
If Mourinho can imbue Luiz and – equally importantly – his colleagues with an awareness of how the team must re-shape to accommodate the Brazilian’s sorties forward, then the defender could become a more complete player without the loss of his unusual dynamism.
Barcelona and Bayern, the two clubs reportedly vying for the ex-Benfica man, are seemingly in the process of passing the footballing paragon baton from one to another, but equally both sides are in states of flux with new managers arriving to alter their winning formulas.
As such they may not be ideal for places for an experienced defender who nonetheless has much to work on within his game.
Chelsea, whilst technically in the same boat after Mourinho’s arrival, still have many players who featured under the Portuguese during his first spell at the club and are steeped in his methods as well as the cult of his personality, looking better equipped to move forward as a result.
Furthermore, the make-up of their squad bares a strong similarity to when the manager succeeded Claudio Ranieri, with a collection of exciting attacking players that gave him the fire-power to channel into a title-winning machine.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
