Everything was going so smoothly for Chelsea last night. With the fittest squad they’ve had all season, the Blues were cruising to a win against Aston Villa.
One key factor seemed to have been the replacement of Thiago Silva with the much more mobile Benoit Badiashile in the starting lineup. The whole team was able to play much higher up with the Frenchman in the team.
But brutally, he had to leave the pitch in the second half injured. Mauricio Pochettino was not asked about his fitness in the press conference, which is frustrating. Badiashile seemed to be pointing to his groin, and didn’t look happy, but it’s impossible to know until we get more information.
We really hope it’s not bad – we need him playing regularly to shake the mistakes out of his game and become the player we know he can be. We also need to see how we look in successive games without Silva.
Badiashile looked so poor (like a fish out of water) in his last outing at left back. It was really great to see him back in a more familiar role and looking self-assured. Silva provides experience, but his lack of mobility is an increasing liability, so it’s important for Poch to give these longer guys their opportunities to prove they can manage big games without the old War Horse in the lineup. After all, it appears highly unlikely he’ll be with us past this season, so the “training wheels” have to come off sooner or later.