Andreas Christensen’s late-game injury was the latest reminder of how Chelsea’s starters have become their depth. David Luiz, like Eden Hazard, may not have a day off until May.
On paper, Chelsea have five centre-backs at the club, six if you count Cesar Azpilicueta. On loan, they have one centre-back with significant Premier League experience; one with nominal Premier League experience but two strong seasons at Vitesse; and two with years of experience in the Championship. In order, those players are: Antonio Rudiger, David Luiz, Andreas Christensen, Gary Cahill, Ethan Ampadu, Kurt Zouma, Matt Miazga, Tomas Kalas and Michael Hector.
This platoon of centre-backs should be enough to cover any tactical or injury rotation needs that could arise over the course of four competitions without over-using any one player. You would think. But you would be wrong.
Maurizio Sarri named David Luiz to the bench for the Carabao Cup tie against Bournemouth, with Andreas Christensen taking his spot alongside Antonio Rudiger. Like his fellow best XI starter turned Carabao Cup substitute Eden Hazard, Luiz could not enjoy a full night off.
Christensen left the pitch in the 81′ with some sort of hamstring injury, walking straight from the pitch down the tunnel. He did not have his best performance up to that point. He committed a few errors and made one Luiz-esque lunging tackle that could have ended just as easily in a yellow card or a Bournemouth goal. As it happened, it led to nothing.
Luiz came on at the worst time for Chelsea. Bournemouth were laying on all sorts of pressure, piercing the Blues’ complacency and challenging for extended periods in Chelsea’s defensive third. Even after Eden Hazard’s go-ahead goal, the result was not certain until the final whistle.
Perhaps because he had minimal time to warmup, perhaps because he can barely stay focussed and disciplined after 81 minutes on the pitch let alone 81 minutes joking and jesting on the bench, Luiz was a debacle. His positioning was wrong at just about every moment, he misread players and the play at every turn and was careless (at best) in his challenges.
But let’s set all that aside, and let’s just view David Luiz through the same lens as Eden Hazard. Luiz has played the entirety of 16 of Chelsea’s 17 Premier League games. He has come on as a substitute for all three Carabao Cup games. He has yet to be involved in the Europa League.
Hazard, just for comparison, has played in 16 of Chelsea’s 17 Premier League fixtures, starting 13 and putting in a complete game in 11. He has two appearances in each of the lesser competitions, with one start in the Europa League. In terms of total minutes played, Luiz has the seventh-most among outfielders, and Hazard the eighth-most.
These are the players Maurizio Sarri turns to – the players he has to turn to – because he has put no others at his disposal.
Hazard, yes, is a game-changer. The great responsibility that comes with his great power is knowing he always has to be available to give Chelsea a win they should have been able secure without him (that’s for another article).
Luiz, though, is not. No centre-back – not John Terry, not Giorgio Chiellini, not John Stones, and not David Luiz – is someone who a coach needs to keep on ready-one to take over and rescue a game. As centre-backs, if they were that vital, they would start. Otherwise, that would have their day off and someone beneath them in the depth chart would be standing by in case of injury or red card.
Andreas Christensen stood alone on that depth chart. When your depth is one deep, your starters become your depth, and no one ever gets a day off again.
If one of the centre-backs goes down with prolonged injury, Maurizio Sarri will have to do a senseless amount of shuffling to reform his backline. Let’s assume Andreas Christensen stays through the next transfer window, and then is unavailable for a few weeks – not a far-fetched scenario given his physical fragility. Sarri will not have a back-up centre-back on his bench. If, then, David Luiz or Antonio Rudiger are injured or receive a red card, Sarri will have to bring Cesar Azpilicueta in the centre and bring Davide Zappacosta in at right back.
That is obviously no one’s preferred scenario as Zappacosta has 18 minutes in the Premier League this season. But that’s 18 minutes more than Ethan Ampadu has. Ampadu has not even made a Premier League bench this season. But the Welshman now has 27 minutes in Zappacosta’s position, coming in the Europa League tie against PAOK Salonika. So maybe Ampadu would come on for Azpilicueta.
All this uncertainty and shuffling because Sarri has eliminated all but one like-for-like substitution at centre-back. And that one is just as likely to leave in January as he is to pick up a series of injuries that keep him out for weeks or months at a stretch.
In short, Sarri’s best option could be using a full-back who only learned to play centre-back two years ago as part of a three-man defence to come into a four-man backline while a teenager or rarely-seen fringe player defends the side that has Willian ahead on the wing.
These possibilities shift the burden to a 31-year old Muppet the club signed three years ago as a stop-gap. That, in turn, puts even more burden on Antonio Rudiger, because there is no day after tomorrow – let alone days off for anyone – if he gets injured.