Why Filipe Luis Should Become Chelsea's First Choice Left-Back

As Stamford Bridge emptied on Wednesday following Chelsea FC’s win over Bolton, some players truly stood out from others. Kurt Zouma did well on his Chelsea debut, Oscar scored a superb goal, while Filipe Luis shined the most, showing exactly why Chelsea bought him to replace Ashley Cole.

Last season, Cole was dropped from his position, where he was a mainstay for over six years, and replaced by a right-back by trade, Cesar Azpilicueta. Cole had started to lack in pace and had begun to decline, while Azpilicueta put in committed, solid, defensive performances week in, week out. However, with Branislav Ivanovic playing at right-back, Chelsea suffered from a lack of attacking width given from full-backs in the final third. Looking across Europe, all the top teams have quality full-backs with attacking quality. Barcelona have Jordi Alba and Dani Alves, Bayern Munchen have David Alaba and Philipp Lahm, while Real Madrid have Marcelo and Dani Carvajal. Branislav Ivanovic has made the starting right-back berth his own since the 2009-2010 season, in which Jose Bosingwa suffered a season-ending injury. Ivanovic, a center-back by trade, showed defensive solidity, yet lacked in attacking prowess. At that time, this was compensated with Cole’s attacking talents, as shown by his quality goals that season, including one against Sunderland and another against Wigan Athletic.

Last season, Chelsea generally performed well against the top teams, yet struggled against teams in the bottom half of the Premier League table. In many home games, teams would “park the bus”against Chelsea, often leaving space out wide for Chelsea to cross the ball into the box. The problem: Azpilicueta stayed deep, as his weaker footedness limited him, while Ivanovic’s crossing was generally poor. Ivanovic’s crossing was very important, as teams were very happy for Ivanovic to cross the ball into the box, with a majority of the crosses being poor. Azpilicueta’s positioning was another concern, as Eden Hazard, Chelsea’s star man, was forced to attack all on his own. With two markers in front of him, Hazard could be shackled. An attacking full-back providing an extra option would open up space for Hazard and detract a marker from Hazard. Looking across Europe, Cristiano Ronaldo is one player who benefits from this. With Marcelo in the team, Ronaldo has the ability to link up well and find more space, yet with the more defensively solid but attack-wise limited Coentrao, Ronaldo was not hitting the same vein of form.

Luis was arguably Europe’s best left-back last season, performing admirably as part of Atletico Madrid’s fantastic back-line, defending well, yet still managing to attack and put in crosses for Diego Costa. Being a specialist in his position, he would take away attention from Hazard and with his superb crossing ability and find Costa. Azpilicueta moving to right-back would see improvement too, as he could then put more emphasis into attacking. Having specialist full-backs is key, as can be seen in many important games. Manchester City are very good at using full-backs as key parts of their attack, as many of their goals involve their attack-minded full-backs, Aleksandar Kolarov and Pablo Zabaleta. Looking at Chelsea’s last game of last season, against Cardiff provides a reminder to how important full-backs actually are. Azpilicueta provided width, playing a part in both Andre Schurrle and Fernando Torres’s goals. Playing specialist full-backs could have been the difference playing against the teams parking the bus, and could have been the difference between Chelsea finishing third and winning the title.

This season, Ivanovic seems to have improved his deficiencies from past seasons. In Chelsea’s opening game, Ivanovic performed well, and even scored a headed goal from a corner as Chelsea defeated Burnley 3-1. In Chelsea’s second away game of the season at Goodison Park, Ivanovic scored yet another goal as Chelsea ran out 6-3 winners. Despite these attacking improvements, Ivanovic’s defensive game seems to have suffered. The side seem to lack balance, as Cesc Fabregas sitting in the pivot with Nemanja Matic can leave gaps, and with Chelsea’s right-back reluctant to return to his position after attacking, the team is exposed on the counter-attack. Quite a few of Chelsea’s goals this season have been conceded on the part of Ivanovic, as they have only kept one clean sheet in eight games. For example, Everton’s second goal at Goodison Park came with an Ivanovic mistake. As Aiden McGeady raced through Chelsea’s midfield, Cahill and Terry moved inwards, yet Ivanovic did the same, allowing Naismith to have the space to score. The movement was typical of a center-back. Everton’s very next goal, a Samuel Eto’o header from a free-kick saw Ivanovic lose Eto’o, whose header beat Thibaut Courtois. Against Swansea City, yet again Ivanovic was dragged inside, and when the pass was made wide, Ivanovic could not recover to stop a pass being made across goal and into the region of the goal from where John Terry put the ball into his own net. Against Schalke, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar picked the ball up in the position where Ivanovic should have been, but he wasn’t. Huntelaar went on to score. Schurrle has taken much of the blame for Frank Lampard’s goal against Chelsea last weekend, but Ivanovic yet again played a huge role. While Schurrle lost Milner, Ivanovic was standing on the edge of the box and even glanced at Lampard. Yet he didn’t go into the box and prevent Lampard from scoring and instead just stood there.

The evolving role of the full-back in modern football has seen defensive solidity often replaced with attacking talent. Starting with Brazilian talents such as Roberto Carlos, many full-backs are now known for their attacking prowess more than their defensive ability. Naming the amount of top quality defenders in the world at the moment provides a rather short list, unlike the past. Whatever the case may be, it must be remembered that a defender’s first role is to protect his own goal, rather than to score one at the other end.

Follow Saad on Twitter @PrezunesRashid.