David Luiz

[The only place to be 11,313]

Ultimately I think what we need to do is build a spine again. Under Jose we had;

Cech - Terry - Makelele - Lampard - Drogba.

Now we have Cech and Mata and that's about it. If Luiz isn't part of the spine then he's not untouchable and a big bid should be considered. That doesn't mean I don't like Luiz or want to sell him, but to me he's the guy who plays next to the rock.

[robsblubot 3,567]

Football has changed a lot--just look athe the CL finalists and how they play; and whatever Mourinho did at Real did not work very well.

To be entirely honest I understand the reasons for wanting a 30M. However, I'm actually concerned about David giving Barcelona one of the few things they lack. David Luiz could become a scary player in Barcelona's system. IMO he can be a lot better than Puyol was--far more technically gifted.

[DDA 9,703]

How the hell did CFC net get a live telephone call with SSN?? Is that the unofficial forums? I'm confused!

[Pacquiao 1,834]

Mourinho said he is looking forward to work with Mata, Hazard, Luiz and the other new players

All them media stories were complete nonsense! Luiz aint going no where!!!

[lucio 5,418]

judging by joses interview he has no issue with luiz. if luiz goes its because of himself.

[diskoviolente 425]

Fans Favourite?.. Fuck Luiz

No proper Chelsea fan favours Luiz over Jose-Fucking-Mourinho.

What is it with you and deciding who is a proper Chelsea fan ?

Did I say I favour Luiz over Mou ? I certainly don't, because they don't compare. I would just be sad to see Luiz go.

[Mceachran 109]

The ridiculousness... If you think we need to sell Luiz (sure if he wants to go then good riddance) then we need to sell Cahill, Ba, Torres, sign a striker, sign one or two CM, and then sign some replacement backs. This isn't goin to happen. Our back four and attacking midfielders are the least of our worries for next season.

[Henrique 9,133]

Fuck Tx. Luiz is a fan favourite and is going nowhere. He will be even better under Mourinho.

[Joe Cool 388]

Ivanovic costs us the Carling Cup.

Overall, there is no need to write a list of DL4 errors, he made mistakes and others CB also, we need to rebuild the back and the midfield to have the shape of champions; like we had in 2004.Mourinho will fix the defence,he always do everywhere.

And Tony Blair got us into that mess in Iraq, what's your point?

Anyways, I don't think selling our best centre back who looks like he will only get better to buy two new (and possibly unproven in England) defenders is the smartest path to building a strong defense, which we have yet to do. If you ask me, Luiz should be the base from which we build our defense on. Obviously, he still needs to cut out the occasional error (Everton last game), but sell him? £35 million minimum for me.

[jmarlow 458]

Is it me or is his English pretty much superb now!

[Gilvorak 3,734]

Uh oh they've already turned on Luiz.

Burn him!!!!

Fact is once you've developed a certain reputation it takes years to shake it off.

Ivanovic's positioning is utterly shocking but everyone thinks he's a great defender, Cahill doesn't have the cojones to take charge of a situation but he's a lion at the back. Luiz who's come leaps and bounds defensively this year is the worst of our defenders and obviously better at DM though. A position where he's clearly useless in despite scoring a couple of worldies from there.

[The only place to be 11,313]

Uh oh the cronies have already turned on Luiz just like Torres.

Burn him!!!!

What the fuck are you talking about? I haven't seen any 'cronies' nor have I seen anyone 'turn on him', so I really don't know what it is you're getting at.

[haranr 485]

Luiz will only move to Barcelona if he wishes. I don't think he wants to move but if he does, he is gone.

[Heisenberg 1,824]

And Tony Blair got us into that mess in Iraq, what's your point?

Anyways, I don't think selling our best centre back who looks like he will only get better to buy two new (and possibly unproven in England) defenders is the smartest path to building a strong defense, which we have yet to do. If you ask me, Luiz should be the base from which we build our defense on. Obviously, he still needs to cut out the occasional error (Everton last game), but sell him? £35 million minimum for me.

Every member pointed at some errors of our CB, for me Ivanovic with two big assists are obvious to mention.You should reply better by the way.

[BOSS 372]

I really really hope that Mou turns him into a great DM.

[zolayes 14,489]

watching Luiz playing for Brazil I noticed how disciplined he was in holding his position and not bombing forward, Could it be that for Chelsea

the lack of drive out of defence is what causes him to do it.?? Incidentally Ricky was also adventurous at times . I am not convinced

Jose will want to sell him at least I hope not.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

It depends what happens around him, it's always easy to blame a center back to carry the ball out from the back, easy to blame Lampard for being caught out of position, easy to blame a striker who drops deep... the issue when those player lose the ball isn't the fact they actually took a risk, the issue is that there wasn't any passing option around, no one to fill their position or dropping level to them

One expects Mikel to drop when Luiz drives out from the back, but Mikel can only do that when the AM drops as well to fill Mikel's position... Oscar did.

Same when Lampard or Ramires drives forward, Oscar has to drop back several yards.

The issue to resolve is the space between the lines, find a better compactness to work and carry the ball out as a unit. Otherwise we would be exposed and forced to expect from Luiz, Oscar, Ramires, the duty to carry the ball forward between lines of players with 20 yards in between its

Luiz has had a great season because he played most of the season really exposed, without a proper DM ahead of him nor an efficient collective process to regain the ball (others couldn't press as the season went on and they couldn't be rested)

You're alive!

[The Skipper 20,593]

Oscar's had one season in the league and is a young player.

Luiz has had two full seasons with us, and half of another. We signed him at the same time as Torres (I'm happy to write Torres off too, I wasn't last summer).

Torres has actually declined massively. I was in the same boat as you last year, thought we should give Fernando his final chance to prove he's good enough to lead the club as the number 1 striker but he's obviously failed at that so naturally I'd be happy to see him off. Luiz's case is different - he's steadily improved this whole season to the point where he's considered as one of our best players now - and it's clear that he still hasn't reached his prime yet, which I personally think he'll start showing next season under JM. The prospect of Luiz working under Mourinho is mouthwatering in my opinion, he's the perfect coach to bring the best out of David.

I've already said that and I spent most of last season blaming the midfield. However I still think we need at least one CB this summer because I don't think we have a number one defender - Ivanovic and Cahill are both back-ups to me and Luiz is someone who plays alongisde that commanding presence.

I fully agree - but why look at rebuilding something that's one player away from being pretty much perfect when there are other issues that need to be sorted out in the team? Do you seriously think that we would've been so defensively frail if our midfield was solid last season? Of course not. It really makes you think how good Luiz would've been if he had a proper pivot in front of him. It's quite sad actually how disorganised that area of our squad is. If we get a solid midfield we will easily see the best out of Luiz.

I agree with that. I don't think he is the rock, which is why I don't think he's that tough to replace. Whatever happens, we need that rock in defence, that cool, calm, considered presence who you build everything around (including Luiz).

If you tell me right now that we couldn't get someone to replace Luiz in the team who is younger and costs less than £30 million then there's absolutely no discussion to be had regarding DL.

Well personally I don't think there is any defender in the world with the exact skill set as David Luiz, that's how unique of a player he is, and we should be looking at that more than looking for a adequate replacement for £30m. Luiz is practically priceless in my opinion simply because of the skill set and attributes he has. It is very rare that a CB like Luiz comes along, so the fact that we're probably the only top club in Europe that have a CB like him should be exploited and not passed upon.

So you're saying he's irreplaceable. Fair enough. Personally I look at players like Nastasic and Vertonghen and think that maybe he isn't irreplaceable at a fraction of his price. I look at players like Papa and Mangala and think maybe there aren't other younger players out there with potential to be defenders good enough to win trophies with.

But you're saying that with £30 million we couldn't replace Luiz with someone as good. I'm not so sure of that.

Depends what you want to have in your team. I view Luiz as part of our new core very much, behind Mata and Hazard I count him as the most important player going forward. Luiz is a good defender who can have great games defensively but why I'm so hellbent on keeping him is the fact that he brings far more than just that to the team. Luiz is an attacking threat from defence - that in it's own is an unique ability - this ability, if implemented correctly, can be very advantageous to the team - if we implement a system where opponents have to keep an eye on what Luiz is doing it creates more space for those in front of Luiz, causes more tactical confusions for the opposing manager, adds to our offensive threat... There are many possibilities if this is correctly implemented by JM. Lucio was considered by some as the best defender in the world when Jose was at Inter due to the way he brought the ball up and added to the team offensively and I think Jose can do something similar with David.

Alex Song, Fabregas (rumoured to be leaving), Zlatan, Sanchez.....Barca make bad buys as much as anyone. There's also the issue of him perhaps being a better fit for La Liga in a team who dominate possession - that might be a factor.

That's not to say he's not a very good defender, but it comes back to the price being offered.

Definitely agree that Barcelona don't make good signings all the time, no team does, probably going a bit off topic here but personally I don't think Song, Fabregas, Zlatan and Sanchez were bad transfers. Regarding Song, I just think he's been massively underused. Song can easily play in any midfield in the PL right now - I could easily see him starting for United, City, Arsenal, or us. Barcelona have mistreated him more than anything. Zlatan and Sanchez are the unfortunate by product of a Messi-centric team, they're both phenomenal players who would again be star players for most teams in the world but obviously the Barcelona team is far too Messi geared for them to actually shine.

Fabregas is an interesting case, he's actually been decent for Barcelona so I wouldn't call him a bad signing but you're right in saying that he hasn't exactly fitted Barcelona. I think he's too direct for a team like Barca.

I think this is a complete misunderstanding of what we're doing. We're not fixing things, we're building a new team - that's why we've got a new coach.

Now we have parts already, but Jose will build a new team with a new philosophy of football and you start with the foundations. Players like Cech and Azpi are solid but you have to think about this from Jose's point of view - if he's building a defence would he rather have David Luiz or £30 million??

Yeah, we're building a new team but in my opinion we've already formed it's spine and Luiz is very much part of that (again, IMO). It's not like we're starting from scratch - we've got a team with bags of potential in place there already and there's no point in hypothetically using that as an excuse to sell a player when we haven't even anywhere near fully exploited the team's potential.

I'm not saying we should sell him but if someone is having a moment's thought about that choice then I don't really understand them.

Luiz is a phenomenal character, a unique footballer and just someone I love having at the club. But I wouldn't for a second say we'd concede less goals next season with him in the team compared to £30 million investment in the defence. Yes he's been fantastic for the last 6 months and yes he's cut out a lot of the mistakes but that's 1/5th of his time at the club and he still managed to throw a clanger in against Everton.

Again, one thing I hate about the general consensus around Luiz (90% due to the media's campaign against Luiz) is that he can go months without making an error and then when he makes one, people get all self-righteous and think they were right about him all along. Luiz has still been our least error prone defender this season, no matter what way you put it.

As you've rightly pointed out, there are many more intangibles surrounding Luiz which makes him worth a lot more than £30m to me. Football isn't just about a player's skill, it's about their character too and Luiz has both in abundance - this automatically makes him worth a lot more than £30m to me. Luiz is a great player to have for team spirit, I can actually see him and Jose forming a special bond due to them both speaking the same language and their personalities... Add in the fact that we're clearly established as a top 5 European team now there is no reason for a club like us to go around selling our best players.

The moment he does that and people in the stands around me are surprised is the moment I say there's zero sense in selling him. Until that happens, you have to consider offers of this magnitude.

Well, at least give him that chance. I'm sure he deserves that after his performances this season.