Luiz was a surprise deadline day signing by Chelsea, as they brought him back to Stamford Bridge two years after he left to join PSG.
Advertisement
Former Chelsea coach Ray Wilkins has big concerns over new signing David Luiz. “If we keep up this team spirit, we will be a threat in the Premier League”.
Conte ensures that the responsibility is on Chelsea’s shoulders, as Swansea won’t be an easy team to beat, but claims to be happy that all players are fit after returning from their worldwide spells.
Luiz trained with his new Chelsea team-mates on Tuesday afternoon as Conte put his Blues players through their paces ahead of their trip to south Wales at the weekend. Also, in some situations, he lost.
A great defender must be able to play football and defend, but the coach must improve his players. We know that David can improve in defensive situations, but it’s good and I’m very happy he has come here.
“I don’t like to speak about the past”.
“The same for David Luiz”.
“I think you can see that last season we were lacking a bit of resilience”.
‘We took a player with a great personality, good technique, he likes to play. I’m not afraid of this. “I like to play football and I like the defenders to play football. To work on weaknesses and make the players stronger”.
‘”At this moment we must focus only on our game”, Conte said. “But he’s my player”.
Though the occasionally erratic Luiz is a lot different to the no-nonsense type of defenders Conte has worked with in the past at Juventus and with Italy.
“It’s important to remember that when I started at Juventus, with Chiellini, Bonucci and Barzagli, the defence of Juventus had been conceding a lot of goals”, Conte added. “Before my arrival, many people told me: ‘No good, these defenders”.
“He played in England (for Bolton and Sunderland) and for this reason he has a good experience of this league”.
Advertisement
The 29-year-old is a gifted player but is also unpredictable and has been prone to making risky decisions – shortcomings Conte intends to address. “But remember, when we started in that first year at Juventus, it wasn’t like that”.
