Why Levi Colwill is perfect for Chelsea

Embed from Getty Images

In the last few years, Chelsea have given away several superstar centre-backs in the making. The likes of Fikayo Tomori and Marc Guéhi went for very little money, only to completely shine at new clubs and prove their worth elsewhere.

Embed from Getty Images

Throughout that time, they persisted in playing a different youngster in Trevoh Chalobah despite his shortcomings, whilst again letting Levi Colwill go out on loan. This season has to be the one where Chelsea stop the nonsense. They have to keep hold of their young, talented centre-making superstars in the making. They have to play Levi Colwill and make him an essential part of their plans.

Embed from Getty Images

Here is why the former Brighton and Huddersfield loanee should be one of the first-choice centre-backs for the Blues this campaign.

CONFIDENCE ON THE BALL

Embed from Getty Images

Chelsea centre-backs are essential to kickstarting attacks right from the back end of the pitch, where they must be sound passers and progressors. Whether Pochettino plays in a back-three or four, the centre-backs in his system will continue to be key quarterbacks from the team’s own third. Toby Alderweireld held such responsibilities for the Argentinean at Tottenham, and Thiago Silva, even now approaching 39 years of age, has arguably even better range and vision out from the back.

Embed from Getty Images

The problem for Chelsea is that Thiago Silva, their best leader and organizer at the back, is indeed 39 years of age. Benoît Badiashile proved to be a solid companion for the Brazilian in the second-half of the campaign despite Chelsea’s shortcomings, complimenting Thiago Silva’s playing style with his cool head and composure at the back.

Embed from Getty Images

But Mauricio Pochettino has another centre-back that exudes equally valuable confidence on the ball, and that’s not the injury-struck Wesley Fofana, but the supreme assurance of Levi Colwill. Having played under massive amounts of defensive pressure at Brighton, and under the fast-paced responsibilities at Championship level, Colwill is fully capable of handling his own for one of the best in the world now. He wonderfully exudes that Roberto de Zerbian quality of ‘La Pausa’, where he can pause on the ball at different moments to lure the opposition into pressing, and then play a smart pass to get his team out of trouble. That same quality goes for picking out passes when having to rush the pass into space, ensuring he can still make a sensible decision.

Wonderfully adept at sensing even the tiniest of spaces to complete a pass, Colwill impresses in breaking lines and playing intelligent passes even when put under pressure. Of Chelsea centre-backs, only Badiashile and Thiago Silva completed a higher percentage of progressive passes than Colwill’s 74.3%; and only the Brazilian beat his forward pass completion rate of 86.3%. This also shows Colwill to be an accurate passer of the ball, and someone that can help keep Chelsea ticking along in their pursuits to progress the ball.

Whenever deployed in De Zerbi’s system at Brighton, possession numbers were bound to spike for the Seagulls. In Colwill’s 17 appearances last season, he made more forward passes per 90 (30.5) and passes into the final third (8.59) than any Chelsea centre-back. He’s fully capable of commanding the ball, and making those smart, incisive passes through the lines.

We haven’t necessarily seen enough evidence that he can be a dynamic switcher of play and change the point of attack through diagonal passes, but we have seen plenty of evidence that Colwill has a fantastic eye for the vertical pass up the field. The ‘smart pass’ statistic is a relatively arbitrary and subjective stat on Wyscout, but Colwill’s 0.3 smart passes per 90 completely outshines Chalobah’s 0.18, as the highest Chelsea centre-back. For centre-backs ‘smart passes’, are often ones that split defenders.

Being a left-footed centre-back gives Chelsea all the more advantages in building out from the back, particularly in a world where they’ve lost all four of the midfielders that featured prominently in Tuchel’s Champions League winning campaign – Mount, Jorginho, Kovacic and Kanté. They could now, in theory, completely by-pass the midfield lines and skip a route into Enzo Fernandez, going more direct into their attacking midfielders.

This is the exact kind of tactic I cried out for throughout Tuchel’s time at the club (going all the way back to the Futbol Masterminds podcast). Chelsea have historically played with these nice switches of play diagonally, and ball-carrying central-midfielders that have the mobility to break lines on the dribble.

Embed from Getty Images

But they’ve often lacked connectivity in connecting that width and midfield dynamism to the front-line in central channels. With Colwill’s experiences of playing in a De Zerbian system, his inclinations toward vertical passes through the thirds could be an essential key to unlock their attacking potential.

Embed from Getty Images

Colwill’s progressive carry numbers also hit relatively high, but he’s less of a confident dribbler on the ball in comparison to someone like Badiashile. He preferred to exude grace and poise through his passing precision for Brighton and Huddersfield, and this could be a great compliment to Badiashile’s composure in dribbling out of tight spaces.

Embed from Getty Images

Thiago Silva is also the archer that can spray diagonals and switch play on a dime, so it’s not as though they would necessarily miss that ability to draw in width if deploying Colwill and Silva together. It’s also worth noting that despite the similarities in theoretical play-style between Chelsea and Brighton, Colwill might be asked to play in a different way under Pochettino, and we could easily see some of those supposed lesser notes spike higher in 2023-24.

DEFENSIVE SOLIDITY

Embed from Getty Images

For all his quality on the ball, Levi Colwill also makes himself a commanding force out of possession. We profiled him as a potential heir to Virgil Van Dijk’s throne for that exact reason, given their similarities in preferring to use speed and physicality to sweep up messes rather than flying into tackles. In fact, Colwill ranks in the bottom 1% for tackles in 2022-23, attempting just 0.59 per 90. Wyscout even has his ‘possession-adjusted sliding tackles’ at a 0.

Embed from Getty Images

This doesn’t mean that Colwill’s not capable of winning 1v1 situations. In fact, the exact opposite. No Chelsea defender won more of their defensive duels than Colwill (71.6%), or a higher percentage of their total duels (66%). Only Silva and Badiashile won more in the air (63.9%), where Colwill’s an equally powerful physical presence.

Embed from Getty Images

Smartly angling his approach to force attackers away from goal and toward the touchline, Colwill’s often able to sweep up messes in behind his defense before getting into a situation where he needs to make a tackle. Given the midfielders in front of him having that inclination instead (the wonderful pairing of Caicedo and Mac Allister), that also helped to simplify Colwill’s role.

Embed from Getty Images

But he’s also smart when needing to quickly shuffle his feet to cut out angles of passes, where his tall frame often comes in handy in reading the situation.

Of Chelsea centre-backs to persistently go to ground and use physical force from sliding into challenges, Kalidou Koulibaly spiked the highest at 2.2 tackles per 90.

Embed from Getty Images

Koulibaly was widely considered a ‘failure’ at Chelsea for his erratic nature, brash tackling and persistent leaving of his line. Being the antithesis to that approach should serve Chelsea well, allowing them to stay calm and composed at the back.

Encouragingly, Badiashile and the tough-tackling Thiago Silva also adopt similar mentalities, making challenges when necessary rather than always wanting to steamroll into challenges full gas. Suddenly, Chelsea’s defense is looking improved on the defensive end, without them even having to make a new signing.

Embed from Getty Images

Considering the similarities in play-style between Lewis Dunk and Thiago Silva, Levi Colwill has even had plenty of experience playing alongside that type of centre-back, and sweeping in behind to support their physical build. Dunk often made himself the first man to step up to challenges in transition, where Colwill’s speed and positioning at the back became integral.

He’s even had plenty of experience man-marking some of the most physical centre-forwards in the league under De Zerbi’s defensive approach, making his duelling success all the more impressive.

All and all, this seems like a no-brainer for the Blues. With Wesley Fofana now out for the bulk of the season, Chelsea have to give their 20-year-old star in the making more playing-time this season.

Embed from Getty Images

Colwill is a player that already adopts the composure of someone in their mid to late twenties, and will immediately improve upon some of the tactical limitations from the team in the past. If you’re reading Mauricio, give Levi Colwill his chance to shine.

---

• WordPress
• Facebook
• X
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Search

Search