Chelsea centre-back Thiago Silva has delivered his verdict on two of the club’s new defensive recruits Wesley Fofana and Kalidou Koulibaly.
Throughout the summer transfer window, the Blues were keen to sign new defenders following the departures of Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen.
Thomas Tuchel’s side opted to strengthen the backline ahead of the new season, with Koulibaly arriving from Napoli and Fofana signing from Leicester.
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Marc Cucurella also made the switch to Stamford Bridge during the window, and now Chelsea are fielding a fresh looking defence.
Koulibaly has already made five appearances for the Blues this season, with the Senegalese international being a long-term target for the club.
Meanwhile, Fofana made his debut for the club in the dramatic 2-1 win against West Ham on Saturday afternoon.
Ahead of the clash against the Hammers, Silva spoke to the official club website about the new arrivals, saying: “Last season we had the team that was playing together for two years, and you could see the automatic connection between players.
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“We need a little time with these players who arrived. We don’t have habits yet, but when you play with top-class players, it’s much easier to work out connections.
“The players who came are very interesting, and the only thing we need to start winning is to find those automatic connections.”
The Brazilian also added: “I know that we need to work in defence.
“We lost two players: Rudiger and Christensen. There are many new players so as I said before: we need to find automatism, we must work together. We need to find it quickly, because we have players with big quality.
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“We need to find cooperation outside the field also, because in the field we have quality. That’s the thing about automatism. We have to work defensively to avoid conceding goals.”
Chelsea survived a late scare against West Ham when they won 2-1 against their east London opponents.
Michail Antonio gave the visitors the lead just after the hour mark, but Ben Chilwell was on hand to net an equaliser soon after.
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He then assisted Kai Havertz for what would prove to be the winner in the latter stages of the match.
Maxwel Cornet found the back of the net just moments after, but VAR disallowed the goal due to a foul on Edouard Mendy in the buildup.
The full-time whistle soon came and the Blues were able to hold onto the three points, therefore securing their third Premier League win of the season.
Tuchel’s side will now prepare to kick-off their Champions League campaign when they face Dinamo Zagreb on Tuesday evening.
Topics: Thiago Silva, Chelsea, Wesley Fofana, Kalidou Koulibaly
Robert Calcutt