It is often said that having a teammate at a club can help you perform at the highest level, that would have been the opinion when Chelsea signed the pair of Diego Costa and Filipe Luis from Atletico Madrid at the start of the season but Costa has become an integral part of the team while Luis has become more of a squad rotation player rather than the starter he was at Madrid.
This would not sit down well with the Brazilian, who is 29 years old and based on reports from ESPN, he could be heading out of the Chelsea team come the end of the season, they have Azpilicueta to play in the left back role and while Luis has played 5 UEFA Champions League games, he was not chosen to play in the final of the League cup.
Chelsea still need cover, so who should they sign?
The Blues would need some cover for the left back slot and one player who should become a priority for the London club is Aaron Cresswell from West Ham United. The 25-year-old English footballer has been immense for West Ham this season and has been part of the reason why they had such a brilliant first half of the season.
He was signed from Ipswich Town and has made the transition to the biggest league in the world look rather easy. Comfortable on the ball and a great tackler as well, Cresswell has all the hallmarks of a good defender. Cresswell might have been playing lower league football a couple of seasons ago, but he seems set to make a move to a bigger club pretty soon.
Comparing his stats using Squawka.com with those of Luis, he has a pretty similar forward pass number per game; he averages 21.03 passes per game going forward while Luis averages 23.17 forward passes per game.
The English defender also has a similar number of interceptions per game compared to Luis but is a better header of the ball in the air with 1.41 aerial duels won per game compared to 0.92 aerial duels won per game for the Brazilian defender. Cresswell also doesn’t lose as many tackles as Luis with only 1.22 tackles lost per game compared to Luis’ 1.83 tackles lost per game.
Cresswell would still have to work harder and improve his game if he is to become a regular at Chelsea but his improvement over the years does make him an ideal candidate to play for Chelsea and they have been on the lookout for English talent, this could be something to keep an eye out for in the summer.