How Thiago Silva can bring order to Chelsea’s defence

Chelsea’s most exciting signing of a spectacular and relentless recruitment drive depends on your point of view, but there can be no debate about the most interesting deal Marina Granovskaia has made: the free transfer signing of 35-year-old Paris Saint-Germain captain Thiago Silva.

Silva’s elite pedigree is indisputable. More than a decade of excellence at AC Milan and PSG established him as one of the finest centre-backs of his generation. At his best, he consistently produced performances that suggested no weaknesses, shutting down opponents in the air and on the floor, all the while passing with ambition and accuracy. During his time in Italy, he was called the heir to Franco Baresi by the man himself, and he was named in the Ligue 1 team of the year in every one of his eight seasons in France.

Yet he is also a somewhat surprising choice to try to reinforce a Chelsea defence that conceded more goals than any other in the top half of the Premier League last season. The list of high-profile defenders who had their first taste of English football at top clubs well into their 30s is a short one: Laurent Blanc to Manchester United aged 35 in 2001, Mauricio Pellegrino to Liverpool aged 33 in 2005, Martin Demichelis to Manchester City aged 32 in 2013. Blanc and Demichelis won a Premier League title each in Manchester but neither of them exactly revolutionised their club’s defences, and Pellegrino played only 12 league games.

The most obvious Chelsea comparison is Marcel Desailly, who played at a high level at Stamford Bridge for six years after joining from Milan in 1998. But he was 36 when he left in 2004. Silva, who has signed a one-year deal with the option for a second, will turn 36 in the first month of the 2020-21 season.

Put simply, there is no recent historical precedent for this working. Silva, while arguably a better defender in his prime than any of the names above, is arriving into the fastest, most intense major league in Europe at an age when most footballers find their bodies are simply no longer capable of performing at an elite level. Yet we are also a matter of days removed from a Champions League knockout stage in which, far from looking on his last legs, Silva expertly marshalled the competition’s meanest defence.

What does this mean for Chelsea and for Silva, who knows that only succeeding at Stamford Bridge will give him a chance of fulfilling his ambition to represent Brazil at the 2022 World Cup?

The goal that won Bayern Munich the Champions League featured a rare miscalculation from Silva, though it will rightly be remembered more as a superb team move by a great team.

As the ball is worked from left to right to the feet of Joshua Kimmich, PSG’s captain and his centre-back partner Presnel Kimpembe are tracking Robert Lewandowski as he runs towards the penalty area. Everyone in the vicinity is expecting a pass to Serge Gnabry, quickly followed by a cross in towards Bayern’s top scorer from the right flank…

… but as Gnabry pulls his foot back to deliver the cross, Silva changes course, darting towards the edge of the PSG penalty area. He has correctly judged that Thomas Muller, arriving late with Ander Herrera trailing behind him, is the intended recipient of the ball in and is hoping to intercept it. Before he can, however, Muller gets there first and smartly sends a one-touch pass back to Kimmich, standing unmarked in a deep crossing position…

Having failed to make the interception, Silva is now stranded in no man’s land. Meanwhile, in the space he has vacated, Thilo Kehrer is being overwhelmed at the back post by Lewandowski, Kingsley Coman and the late-arriving Leon Goretzka as Kimmich prepares to cross…

The rest is history. It would be harsh to call the goal a direct consequence of Silva’s mistake. Kimmich is not closed down quickly enough, his cross is perfect and Coman outjumps Kehrer to connect with a powerful, precise header into the far corner. But the moment is notable because it was one of the few sequences in the match when Bayern’s rampant attack managed to successfully take PSG’s captain and defensive leader out of the play.

For much of the evening in Lisbon, the pattern was of Silva frustrating Bayern, repeatedly putting himself in the right positions to disrupt their attacking combinations and movement. Here he is early on, moving into the spot he knows Muller wants to get to as Coman shapes to slide the ball into PSG’s penalty area…

His timing is perfect and his interception doubles as a controlled pass into the feet of Kehrer, who can clear the danger.

A few minutes later, as soon as Muller plays the ball into the right channel for Gnabry to chase, Silva is looking over his left shoulder to see where Lewandowski is and positioning himself accordingly…

The result is a simple one-touch clearance along the floor out to the PSG left wing.

Here he positions himself significantly deeper than the rest of PSG’s defence as Coman works space for a cross against Kehrer…

Coman succeeds in waiting for Muller to move into the penalty area before clipping in his cross, but Silva cuts it out.

Shortly before half-time, Kehrer finds himself isolated again, this time against Alphonso Davies. The Canadian has two inviting areas in which to send his cross — the six-yard box towards Lewandowski and Coman, or the edge of the area towards Muller and Gnabry…

Silva reads Davies’ body shape and reacts swiftly, leaving Coman to jump out and intercept a delivery that might otherwise have connected with Muller or Gnabry.

Once they had broken the deadlock in the second half, Bayern tried to exploit Kehrer again, with Muller floating the ball towards the late-arriving Coman at the back post…

This time, however, Silva is in position to react. As the ball drifts towards Coman, he instinctively rushes back to protect the unguarded portion of Keylor Navas’ goal…

Coman connects with Muller’s cross and sends the ball flashing dangerously across the PSG goalmouth, but Silva clears.

Silva was helped by the fact that PSG played with a deep defensive line for much of the final, protected by three relatively conservative midfielders. Thomas Tuchel’s game plan was to invite Bayern up the pitch, soak up the inevitable pressure and then progress the ball forward as quickly as possible to Kylian Mbappe, Neymar and Angel Di Maria. In an attacking sense, only some wasteful finishing prevented it from working perfectly. In a defensive sense, it meant Silva was rarely isolated high up the pitch.

That only happened once — in the last 10 minutes, with PSG a goal down and pushing up to find an equaliser. Ivan Perisic wins the ball back on the halfway line and Lewandowski immediately seizes the opportunity to run directly at Silva, the only defender left standing between him and Navas.

Silva, backpedalling furiously, does pretty much all he can do: he tries to position his body to encourage Lewandowski towards the wing rather than the goal and waits until the last possible moment to commit to the tackle, by which time Kimpembe has recovered to a covering position and he is no longer the last man. Then he brings the Bayern striker down. It was his only foul of the match and an automatic yellow card, but it could have been game over for PSG.

Bayern deservedly won the Champions League, but Silva emerged from his final PSG appearance with significant credit. His positional instincts were a big reason why one of Europe’s most dangerous attacking sides had to wait 59 minutes to make their breakthrough, and why they only scored once in the full 90. His calm reading of situations has not diminished and for that reason alone, he has something real to offer a Chelsea defence that all too often lacked his composure in Lampard’s first season.

Against most of Chelsea’s opponents, Silva will not enjoy the security of the deep defensive line that PSG deployed against Bayern. Lampard wants his defenders as close to the halfway line as possible, enabling his forwards and midfielders to more effectively press inferior teams into costly mistakes in their own half. This is great when it works but, as seen at Stamford Bridge last season, it can also backfire spectacularly if the high press fails and the team is disorganised defending in transition.

Silva, like many older centre-backs, prefers to position himself deeper and reduce the chances of being caught in a prolonged foot race with younger, faster attackers. But after eight years at PSG, he is also well used to playing in a higher line as part of a team that regularly dominates possession and territory in Ligue 1. This was also the case for much of the club’s Champions League run in 2019-20, which yielded plenty of examples of the Brazilian defending solidly far from his own goal.

PSG took four points off Real Madrid in the group stage, winning 3-0 at home and drawing 2-2 in Spain. Here is Silva in the match at the Bernabeu, pressuring Eden Hazard over the halfway line. Hazard’s plan is simple: lay the ball off to Karim Benzema, spin and race into the left channel to connect with the return pass, leaving the defender six years his senior in his wake…

But that’s not what happens. Instead, Silva anticipates the danger. Although he is not quite as fast across the ground as he was in his prime, he is still quick enough. It is a stretch, but he manages to slide in and cleanly send the ball out for a throw.

Silva also gave Eden’s brother Thorgan Hazard a taste of his more aggressive defending in the first leg of PSG’s round-of-16 tie against Borussia Dortmund. Here, as Hazard attempts to lead a fast counter, Silva leaves Thomas Meunier to track the dangerous Erling Haaland and decides to pressure the ball…

His challenge is well-timed, the ball runs free to Marquinhos and Dortmund’s attack is snuffed out before it can get going.

Dortmund away was probably the worst performance of PSG’s Champions League campaign: slow in attack and predictable in midfield, giving one of Europe’s most dangerous counter-attacking sides plenty of opportunities to force Silva into scramble mode. Haaland, in particular, gave the Brazilian trouble — unsurprising, given his freakish blend of speed, size and strength — and the battle between the two was great to watch as it ebbed and flowed throughout the game.

Early on, Silva tried to set the tone by pressuring Haaland in the Dortmund half. Here he succeeds in winning the ball, but it runs free to Emre Can and the Dortmund attack continues…

Haaland gets the ball back on the halfway line and Silva commits to tackling him again, but he can’t quite get there and the ball is offloaded to Jadon Sancho…

By the time Silva gets back to his feet, Haaland is long gone, and Marquinhos is forced to make a covering run.

Later in the first half, Silva does much better, bending his run left and right to stay in front of Haaland as the striker tries to shake him off before receiving Can’s pass…

In the end, Haaland is forced to abandon any thoughts of shooting and lets the ball run through to Sancho. Silva immediately switches his attention to the winger and, with Meunier in support, restricts his shooting window. The resulting effort is well struck, but fairly comfortably saved by Navas.

On several other occasions, Haaland highlighted the dangers of leaving the veteran Silva to defend alone with space around him. Here he manages to isolate the PSG captain in transition, though Marquinhos and Kimpembe are sprinting to recover…

Silva mistimes his attempted tackle and Haaland manages to bundle his way past him, but Marquinhos manages to get back and snuff out the chance before the Dortmund striker can advance on Navas.

Chelsea don’t have a world-class defender like Marquinhos to pair with Silva, but Kurt Zouma, Antonio Rudiger and Fikayo Tomori all have plenty of recovery speed and Andreas Christensen is not slow. Lampard will be hoping that Silva’s guidance will improve the positioning of his younger centre-backs, but in turn, their greater mobility will be essential for offering him the protection he needs.

Lampard also demands that his centre-backs are brave in possession, playing around and through opposition pressure to get Chelsea on the front foot. At times, Silva has been accused of being too safe with the ball, and his 95.5 per cent pass success rate in Ligue 1 last season would partly indicate that he favours short simple passes. But he is also consistently progressive — Virgil van Dijk was the only outfield player in the Champions League whose passes covered a greater total distance towards the opposition goal than Silva — and he rarely panics even when pressed.

Here, in the opening minutes of PSG’s semi-final against RB Leipzig, Yussuf Poulsen tries to put pressure on Silva. He positions himself to cut off any forward pass to Marquinhos as he closes the distance to the ball…

Silva has a relatively easy sideways pass to Kimpembe, but he wants to get his team moving forward. So instead, he fakes a pass to his centre-back partner to get Poulsen to lunge to his right, opening up the pass to Marquinhos.

Here, early in PSG’s group stage win over Real Madrid in September, Silva is pressed by Hazard and Benzema but instead of going back to Navas, he deftly dinks the ball between the two with the outside of his right foot to find Idrissa Gueye.

And here he is in the return game at Santiago Bernabeu, again pressed by two Madrid players, turning down a simpler pass to Meunier in favour of a dink forward to the feet of Mbappe, who is better placed to advance the ball.

Silva doesn’t have the passing range of his countryman David Luiz, but he is still capable of more ambitious longer passes. Here, against Leipzig, he spots Mbappe primed to run into space behind Dayot Upamecano.

His floated 50-yard ball is pretty much perfect, and only Mbappe’s poor first touch prevents it from turning into a good shooting chance.

Silva’s calm, composed passing should provide a welcome boost to a Chelsea defence that was often too easily panicked and pressed into mistakes on the ball last season.

If he is to succeed in England — and to address everything that Chelsea have lacked defensively — Silva needs to be able to hold his own in the air. A look at the Ligue 1 numbers indicates that he is not quite the aerially dominant presence he was in his prime.

That said, he still wins headers more frequently than any of Chelsea’s current centre-backs bar Zouma, who makes the most sense as his centre-back partner at Chelsea for several reasons — not least because the two men can communicate in French.

Chelsea centre-backs in the air 2019-20

Player	Total aerial duels	Aerial duels per 90	Aerial success
Kurt Zouma	144	5.5	73.60%
Antonio Rudiger	96	5	59.30%
Andreas Christensen	120	6.2	57.50%
Fikayo Tomori	62	4.3	54.80%

Silva’s success rate in aerial duels rose to 76.9 per cent in the Champions League last season, suggesting he can still ramp up his level of physicality when it matters most. He will need to adjust to doing so more frequently in the Premier League.

It would be a surprise to see Silva emulate John Terry’s achievement of playing every Premier League minute for Chelsea as a 34-year-old in 2014-15. He is still in excellent shape though and featured in 21 of PSG’s 27 Ligue 1 games before the season was curtailed as well as nine of their 11 matches in the Champions League. Lampard will surely lean on him as much as he can to bring some order to a defence that descended into shambles at times last season.

By all accounts, Silva’s command of English is limited. Lampard may do well to make French the primary language of his defence, given that Zouma, Cesar Azpilicueta and N’Golo Kante are all fluent speakers (get studying, Ben Chilwell). But he will also be looking for his new Brazilian veteran to lead primarily by example.

This is a fascinating move by Chelsea and a brave one by Silva at this late stage of his career. Recent evidence suggests he still has enough in the tank to be effective at the top level, but how quickly and well he adapts to the Premier League will be vital for him — and perhaps also for the broader balance of Lampard’s talented new team.