Chelsea centre-back Thiago Silva has talked about his partnership with Kalidou Koulibaly as he expects his new Blues teammate to be fully ready for next week’s Premier League opener against Everton.
The Blues failed to keep any clean sheet in any of their pre-season games, except for Saturday’s behind-closed-doors second match against Udinese, but Friday’s 3-1 win in Italy showed positive signs.
Their unsurprising dominant performance aside, Chelsea only conceded three shots on target throughout the game.
Koulibaly’s presence on the left of the back three had a huge positive impact.
Silva is even convinced that the Senegal international is ready for his full Premier League debut next week.
“It was good,” the Brazil international said about his partnership with Koulibaly during the (first) win over Udinese.
“He is a player with a lot of experience. He played in Italian football, which for me is the best defensive schooling you can possibly receive.
“He is ready for our ideas. He played 70 minutes [against Udinese], and on Saturday, he will be ready to play 90.”
Communication is key among defenders and having polyglot personnel certainly helps this Chelsea side.
“Normally we speak in French because Edou [Mendy] does too, and [Cesar] Azpi — it worked well,” Silva explained.
“The communication is not a problem, we can speak many different languages together.”
Aside from Koulibaly, Thomas Tuchel has also used Ethan Ampadu in defence a lot during the pre-season.
The versatile 21-year-old even impressed the manager during their tour in the United States, which may lead to his securing a first-team spot ahead of the new season.
However, Tuchel previously also insisted that he wants another new defender this summer and according to Italian transfer expert Fabrizio Romano, Chelsea are working on two centre-back targets at the moment.
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