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Burley: ‘Thiago Silva is going to need an oxygen mask’

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Chelsea have added plenty of attacking firepower to their ranks but their defense remains questionable despite Thaigo Silva’s addition. 

Timo Werner has joined Chelsea. Hakim Ziyech is a Blue. Kai Havertz will be at Stamford Bridge next season. Add them to the mix of Christian Pulisic, Mason Mount, Tammy Abraham, and Olivier Giroud and you have a scary attacking lineup.

It is at the back that Chelsea are vulnerable. They had the worst defensive record in the top half of the Premier League points table. Frank Lampard will have the services of Thiago Silva but question marks continue about their defensive capabilities. 

Craig Burley certainly believes so. The former Chelsea defender believes only N’Golo Kante can help the Brazilian in shoring up their leaky defense and even he has been marred by injuries.

“Thiago Silva is going to need an oxygen mask because there is only N’Golo Kante in there who has got any defensive qualities,” Goal quoted Burley.

“That’s going to be the difficulty for Lampard, striking the balance.

“Mason Mount, who really flourished in his first season in the Premier League, is an attacking player, Kai Havertz played a lot of the season at Leverkusen as a striker, and then you add the front three [Werner, Ziyech and Christian Pulisic] in and it’s ‘over to you N’Golo Kante’ because nobody else is going to be defending!

“Striking a balance with [Mateo] Kovacic or somebody else in there is going to be key.

“Chelsea had one of their worst seasons defensively last year, they lost a heck of a lot of goals, so Lampard knows that he needs to make sure he solidifies his backline, which was a big problem for them.

“Chelsea are going to be great to watch, you just don’t know which way!”

Chelsea open their 2020/21 Premier League campaign with a trip to the Amex Stadium.

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