David Luiz’s dissatisfaction at his place in Frank Lampard’s depth chart is apparently behind his attempt to force a deadline day transfer to Arsenal. Chelsea have parallels to this situation, but Gary Cahill’s last August is not one of them.
David Luiz and Gary Cahill are both centrebacks. That’s about the only thing they have in common viz. how they reacted to finding out their place in the pecking order under a new Chelsea manager. Here are some of the key differences.
1. Gary Cahill wanted to stay, David Luiz wants to leave
It’s as simple as that. Gary Cahill wanted to stay at Chelsea, and was willing to start the season on the bench if that’s what it took to remain a Blue and not abandon the team he captained. Note I said “start” the season on the bench, as we’ll return to that shortly.
David Luiz, on the other hand, responded to the first hint of adversity by becoming a “disruptive” presence on the training ground until his manager and former teammate Frank Lampard ordered him to train away from the rest of the squad.
Luiz, prizing his ego over the club and not giving any more respect to his long relationship with Lampard than he did to his short relationship with Antonio Conte, phoned his agent to start the transfer process.
2. Cahill never stopped trying despite futility, Luiz refused to start trying despite possibilities
Gary Cahill’s career at Chelsea was supposed to be over several times before this season. Each time, a combination of grit and opportunity brought him back into the starting XI. He expected, based on his decade plus of professional football, that he could earn his way into Maurizio Sarri’s squad if he worked hard enough and made the necessary adjustments to his game. Like most people who have a basic sense of managerial competence, he could not have imagined the brick wall that is Sarri’s psyche.
Cahill, at some point, had to realize that no matter what he did, no matter how exhausted or injured his teammates were, that Sarri was not going to bring him back into the squad. But nevertheless he persisted, working, setting the example and being the professional, captain and leader he is until his last day in Blue.*
David Luiz, on the other hand, pulled the rip cord at the first sign of adversity. Rather than accept his place as fourth on the depth chart to start the season and commit himself to work as hard as he could to climb back into the starting XI, he bailed. He quit. He took the lazy man’s way out, or perhaps the coward’s, maybe the spoiled brat’s.
He expected to be in the starting XI this season after getting his unprecedented over-30 two-year extension and after charming the ill-fitting track pants off of Maurizio Sarri. Luiz probably expected his new manager and old buddy to be a pushover. When he found out he was wrong, he bailed.
Whereas Cahill never stopped trying, Luiz never stopped. Cahill’s situation was hopeless, Luiz’s is just slightly uphill. Look at how they reacted.
By the way, you know who else quit Chelsea at the first sign of trouble…
3. Gary Cahill was a leader, Luiz is a mascot
Gary Cahill was a captain and a leader in the mould of his mentor and predecessor, John Terry. He sacrificed his body for the team at every turn, set the example for the younger players and showed respect for the game, opponents, officials and managers. His social media was drier than the sands of west Texas, but that is far better for a captain than the emoji-laden juvenalia of one of his teammates who helped bring out the worst in Luiz in May 2018.
He was the kind of player every manager wants to have, even if he is only played in a reduced role because of his age or abilities, as Terry was under Antonio Conte.
Cahill and his type provide indispensable leadership and true unity in the locker room, often times not only bridging the gap between manager and players but smoothing out relations between the two. Cahill would jump on a manager’s grenade just as readily as he’ll dive head first into an opponent’s foot to keep his side safe.
Luiz is mistaken for a leader because everybody likes him. He gets on well with the younger players because he is a lovable goof. He takes time to sign autographs and pictures with kids during the preseason tour, and probably is a proper fun guy to hang out with. These are all great traits in a player.
But you wouldn’t follow him into water. His “disruptions” in the last week are the sort of behaviour you would never get from a leader like Cahill. They undermine any claim his fans make for his stature in the locker room. There’s a lot of charisma in a Premier League locker room. It’s hardly a unique value prop.
4. Personal vs. tactical
Maurizio Sarri did not initially favour David Luiz. But Luiz, by his own admission, sweet-talked his way onto Sarri’s favourites’ list, which kept him in the starting XI for the entire season. Cahill has no such charm, and if he did, he would not have used it in such a way. Cahill’s essence is graft, not pull.
Make no mistake: personality won the day for Luiz last August. Yes, David Luiz is much better with the ball at his feet than Gary Cahill. But you can decide what’s worse: the idea that Sarri was making excuses when he said he wouldn’t play Cahill because Cahill can’t make 50 or 70 or 100 or whatever the magic number of passes per game, or thinking that Sarri meant it, and that that is his standard of judging centre-backs. Would you rather he be a poor man’s bulls**t artist or an overt fool?
Sarri never made any tactical adjustments for Luiz’s glaring defensive deficiencies. Sarri had more than enough skilled ball handlers to “compensate” for Cahill’s mediocre passing range, but Sarri did nothing to cover for Luiz.
And on the subject of poor man’s bulls**t artists, how long ago was it that David Luiz was praising Lampard’s understanding of Chelsea’s DNA? Days or weeks? (Just under a month)
Frank Lampard understands that Luiz needs to be covered and compensated for. He recognizes that Luiz’s best seasons at Chelsea were when he was surrounded by defensive coverage. Antonio Conte, for example, made good use of Luiz by playing him with – dilly ding, dilly dong – Gary Cahill and Cesar Azpilicueta, two of the Premier League’s most defensive defenders.
Lampard did not try any set ups in preseason built around covering one of his centrebacks. It’s one thing to build a team around an indispensable talent, like N’Golo Kante or Eden Hazard. It’s another to alter a team’s organization around a disposable risk. Lampard either does not care to or does not have the personnel necessary to cover for Luiz, which makes Luiz not worth carrying, at least not in a starting role.
Nothing personal, strictly business.
5. Frank Lampard is a genius and Maurizio Sarri is an abject hack
No, really, he literally is. And, no, really, he literally is.
*Don’t embarrass yourself any further by saying “But that interview on the last day of the season.” Just stay in your mom’s basement, record your little rant and post the vid on Twitter, have some warm milk and you’ll feel all better, sweetie, I promise.