Micah Richards heavily criticised Chelsea’s Kalidou Koulibaly after his performance in midweek against Manchester City.
The Blues suffered a 2-0 away defeat last night against Man City at the Etihad Stadium, which meant they exited the Carabao Cup in the third round.
Graham Potter’s side now have three defeats in their last four games across all competitions, so there’s no doubt the pressure is starting to increase around Stamford Bridge.
Hopefully, Chelsea can sign off with a win against Newcastle United on Saturday before the World Cup break.
Koulibaly performance
Unfortunately, Chelsea’s centre-back can be highlighted for a couple of errors in his latest performance.
Koulibaly, 31, was the only standing member of the Blues wall that failed to jump at the Mahrez free-kick, which ended up in the back of the net.
Also, the Senegal defender perhaps could have done better to prevent the second goal from Julian Alvarez, who reacted quickest in the box to tap in.
“I rated him at Napoli. I thought he would really come and take the Premier League by storm. Today’s performance, he wasn’t at the races,” Richards told Sky Sports’ Main Event channel (10:20pm, 9 November).
When discussing Alvarez’s Man City goal, Richards added: “He (Koulibaly) tries to win it there and just jogs back into position…. The first thing you have to do as a defender is get back in and he reacts too late. It was poor defending from what I thought was one of the world’s best defenders.”
Chelsea fans are still waiting for Koulibaly to put in the kind of dominant performances he was turning in every week for Napoli.
In fairness, his first campaign in English football has been disrupted so far with spells in and out of the side because of injury.
However, this Blues outfit really needs the centre-half to sharpen up and get back to his best. Perhaps playing in the World Cup for his country can be the perfect catalyst for that.
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