Chelsea brought in Thiago Silva on a free transfer in order to strengthen their backline but according to Craig Burley, the former PSG man could be in for a disastrous time in the Premier League.
The pundit has claimed that Frank Lampard might just have accumulated a top-heavy side and Thiago Silva will have to be on his toes all the time in order to make sure that things don’t get out of hand.
‘Thiago Silva is going to need an oxygen mask because there is only N’Golo Kante in there who has got any defensive qualities,’ Burley told ESPN FC, via Metro.
‘That’s going to be the difficulty for Lampard, striking the balance.
‘Mason Mount, who really flourished in his first season in the Premier League, is an attacking player, Kai Havertz played a lot of the season at Leverkusen as a striker, and then you add the front three [Timo Werner, Hakim Ziyech and Christian Pulisic] in and it’s ‘over to you N’Golo Kante’ because nobody else is going to be defending.
‘Striking a balance with [Mateo] Kovacic or somebody else in there is going to be key.
‘Chelsea had one of their worst seasons defensively last year, they lost a heck of a lot of goals, so Lampard knows that he needs to make sure he solidifies his backline, which was a big problem for them.
‘Chelsea are going to be great to watch, you just don’t know which way.’
The Blues have spent an extraordinary amount of money to bring in new recruits but like Burley, many pundits feel that Lampard is yet to properly solve his defensive issues.
If the manager cannot bring in a new keeper before the transfer window shuts, then Chelsea might have to rely on the philosophy of scoring one more goal than the opposition in order to pick up wins.
While Thiago Silva has been one of the best players for PSG ever since he moved to France but the English top division is another beast alltogether.
