Analysis

Zouma-Christensen Pair should be appreciated for their defensive displays

Chelsea has reshuffled their center-backs pair quite a number of times last season. Frank Lampard has been unable to find the perfect center back duo for his team due to the inconsistency of players. But as time passed, Christensen and Zouma have shown some promising performances. It is time for the Blues coach to reward their good performances this season.

The center back pair is the most crucial aspect for any team than any other pair or trio of a team. This pair of any team lives and dies off one another. Wingers can have good games alone with strikers too, really any position in the midfield or attack. But it is extremely rare for a pair of center backs to have completely different games. Generally, if one is great the other eventually perform better and vice versa.

Last season, Frank Lampard struggled to find a proper duo in his team’s backline. He started trusting Antonio Rudiger once he returned to fitness. At about the same time, Fikayo Tomori fell down the pecking order and Andreas Christensen grabbed the opportunity that was in front of him. The end games of the season seemingly had a new duo every week in and week out.

Rotation is important just like finding the perfect center-back duo of the team. Now, after performing better against Brighton, The Blues coach has to reward them by putting faith in the duo for the next match against Liverpool. He needs to stick with Zouma and Christensen although Thiago Silva is present.

In the season opener against Brighton, the pair didn’t put a foot wrong throughout the match. The only goal came seemingly from a soft shot which Kepa Arrizabalaga could have done better to stop it.

The fans were displeased as the shot got wound up in the net from outside the box and the keeper still didn’t dive in time to prevent the goal. This goal was totally on Kepa and the duo did fantastically by keeping Brighton quiet outside of that.

Zouma kept an eye on Tariq Lamptey who gave Chelsea a troublesome night and mostly stayed deeper throughout to keep a check on him. Christensen had a good game too as he kept things under control centrally and dropped deeper occasionally as it came down the flanks.

The center-back duo could have got a clean sheet if the Spanish keeper managed to save that one. This performance should earn them a position in the starting XI against Liverpool.

Although Silva is waiting to make his debut performance for Chelsea, Lampard can choose Rudiger too as he had done that in the past. Rudiger has been dropped due to his inconsistency in form. Lampard can give Silva and Rudiger a chance in the FA Cup and that will be the perfect decision.

Having a consistent pair should benefit Chelsea and it will eventually lead to more stable performances for both the players. If anyone of the duo has a horrible game, Lampard can consider replacing the with Thiago Silva for the following match. But priority should be laid on forming a partnership between two consistent pairs as it will bear fruit for Chelsea in the long run.

It is true that as a club Brighton and Liverpool are much different as opponents. The coach should make sure that he doesn’t change the operating of the center back pair so much that it messes up badly in the future just like the last season.

Zouma-Christensen pair should be trusted in the match against the Reds. If the duo suffers and Silva-Rudiger plays effectively in the FA Cup match, there will always be an option to change.

Christensen and Zouma performed exceptionally and deserve to feature together consistently. Until then, there should not be any reason to not see Zouma pairing up with Christensen in the Stamford Bridge match on Sunday.

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