Pat Nevin was left really impressed by the individual performance from Chelsea’s Kalidou Koulibaly last night in the Champions League.
The £33million defender, who had not started the previous four games, was back in the XI for yesterday’s trip to Germany against Borussia Dortmund.
Unfortunately, the Blues now have a one-goal deficit to overturn when they play the second leg against the Bundesliga side.
Dortmund’s Karim Adeyemi scored a counter-attacking goal to gift the hosts a 1-0 victory in the first leg, but it was a game where Chelsea created a host of goalscoring chances themselves without providing a clinical touch.
Kalidou Koulibaly impresses
Nevin singled out Koulibaly after his European display in midweek:
“For all the difficulties he’s had, Koulibaly didn’t put a foot wrong. Well done to Koulibaly,” Nevin said, as quoted by the club’s official YouTube account.
In our view, Koulibaly delivered one of his best Chelsea performances to date during the trip to Dortmund.
The 31-year-old has had a fairly rocky start to his Stamford Bridge career, which is why he’s lost his starting position to Benoit Badiashile in the Premier League.
However, the centre-back put in a great reminder last night of his quality.
He was authorative and decisive with his defensive work, with Thiago Silva also impressing next to him at centre-half.
In addition, the Senegal international went very close to scoring himself, but the ball was cleared off the line by Emre Can.
Koulibaly looked really settled on the Champions League stage, which is one he knows well from his time at Napoli.
It still feels like he’s adjusting to the Premier League during his debut season in English football, but hopefully he takes huge confidence from his latest outing.
The Silva-Badiashile combination is one that has looked so formidable in the league. However, there should definitely be a shout for Koulibaly to get a recall when you consider the sheer amount of football Silva is playing right now.
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