Chelsea’s Andreas Christensen is at a cross roads as the Blues search for his real form again. What questions need to be asked for next season?
Andreas Christensen led the charge for the youth revolution before the youth revolution was even a thing. Coming off two fantastic years at Gladbach, the Danish centerback was slotted straight into Antoino Conte’s XI. He played to his potential until Barcelona and Lionel Messi messed with his mind. The player has not been the same sense and he has approached a cross roads. What questions need to be asked ahead of next season?
1. Will he fulfill his potential again (finally)?
Before that game in Barcelona, Christensen looked like the real deal. After that game he became the occasionally brilliant but often lightweight defender he is now. Maurizio Sarri opted to have as little to do with him as possible, preferring a bumbling David Luiz instead. Even Frank Lampard hesitated to use him until the second half of the season, where Christensen then swung wildly between fantastic and laughable game to game.
It is very hard to deny that Christensen has the tools needed to be successful. He simply cannot put them together. That Barcelona game stands out so much in the memory because it has very much been like night and day before and after the match. For every glimpse of his promise, he almost always equals it with a moment of little to no concentration.
Christensen is 24 now and he is very much approaching a point in his career where he has to make it or break it. This season, should he stay, will prove pivotal for the Danish defender’s future in Blue. He has to fulfill his potential or at least move in that direction sooner rather than later.