Why Chelsea must remember Disasi mistake as they pursue €30m La Liga unit | OneFootball

Physicality and duels have been the talk of the town in Chelsea circles this week. Enzo Maresca was asked whether his team lacked in those areas in the buildup to yesterday’s game and said “absolutely,” and was proven right by events on the pitch, which saw only Cole Palmer beat a 50% success rate in aerial or ground duels.

Especially at the back and in midfield, Chelsea need to impose themselves more. Tosin Adarabioyo and Levi Colwill are not small, but neither really puts the fear into opposition players, and they’re too often playing pretty rather than playing nasty.

It’s natural, then, to see us linked with moves for players who could change that, and today CaughtOffside suggest we could be interested in Loic Bade of Sevilla. The 24 year old has slowly established himself in La Liga, and has become a rock at the back for the Andalusians.

Chelsea have a full complement of central defenders, but the endless injury issues of Benoit Badiashile and Wesley Fofana make change seem likely.

Chelsea must avoid Disasi mistakes when finding new defensive solution

Axel Disasi passes the ball against Ipswich.

At a suggested price of €30m, he’s hardly too expensive. It’s significantly less than what we paid for Axel Disasi. But Disasi is perhaps an interesting guide here. We bought him in large part because he’s big and strong and would provide a good complement to our more technical defenders.

But in the end he just didn’t have the quality on the ball or defensively, and he’s already been shipped off to Aston Villa (who are another team linked with Bade in this same piece). That just shows that this is far tricker that it looks – you can’t just sign a big buy and expect it to work, they have to be good enough as well as physical enough.