A liability or a linchpin? It is doubtful whether there is a footballer playing in England who has divided opinion like David Luiz.
A liability or a linchpin? It is doubtful whether there is a footballer playing in England who has divided opinion like David Luiz.
Alan Hansen and Gary Neville, two distinguished defenders with 16 league titles between them, were hardly sitting on the fence earlier this season. Neville accused him of performing like he was "controlled by a 10 year-old on PlayStation" while Hansen noted that he wouldn't know what a good position is if it was
staring him in the face.
His appearance, with that wonderful curly mop of hair and nickname of 'Sideshow Bob' somehow cemented a suspicion that, at pounds 25?million, he was a bit of a clown who might even be a bigger waste of money than Fernando Torres. Yet while Torres has been gradually asserting himself in attack, another central plank of Chelsea's revival this season is the emergence of Luiz. His improvement has been sufficient to ensure that Gary Cahill, widely expected to start alongside John Terry, is consigned to the bench when Roberto di Matteo has his best team available.
Perceptions are gradually changing. Luiz was arguably Chelsea's man of the match both in the victory against Napoli but also when Chelsea ground out their 1-0 first-leg win over Benfica. When he went down after 19 minutes last night, clutching the same ankle that was injured in Saturday's 4-2 win against Aston Villa, it was noticeable that there was genuine concern on the faces of Chelsea supporters. Praise must go to Di Matteo.
Although Andre Villas-Boas was a great supporter of Luiz there was also a sense that he was too forgiving of his foibles. Di Matteo quickly made his expectations clear. "I ask my defenders, first and foremost, to defend - that's their job," he said.
When Luiz does concentrate on defending, we are now discovering that he is quite good at it. Indeed, there is a suspicion that his greatest challenge is actually controlling an inbuilt desire to entertain. Technically superb, physically powerful and with good anticipation, he has all the attributes of a world-class defender.
Yet it was as if quietly going about his job, unnoticed but highly effective in the manner of a Hansen or a
Neville, was not enough. His wandering forward seemed almost like an expression of boredom. It remains a high-wire act with Luiz but last night was the latest example of a match when he tempered his more carefree instincts.
He began by effortlessly dispossessing Pablo Aimar as Benfica put Chelsea under early pressure and he then almost volleyed his team into the lead. Although he seemed to switch off for Benfica's equaliser he was not the only one to blame and apart from that, his lapses, notably when he was dispossessed by Nemanja Matic inside his own half, were relatively minor.
So to return to the original question: A liability or a linchpin? The truth is that David Luiz remains an improving mass of contradictions but, for now, the scales have tipped from liability to linchpin.
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