Conte praises form of Luiz, Chelsea’s ‘warrior’

Daniel Storey

Antonio Conte is delighted that David Luiz is proving his doubters wrong, but warned one mistake could see Chelsea’s Premier League title prospects unravel.

Eyebrows were raised when Luiz returned to Chelsea on the final day of the summer transfer window, having been sold to Paris St Germain two years earlier for £50million.

But Luiz has been near-flawless as the central figure in Conte’s three-man defence which has seen the Blues take a nine-point lead entering this weekend’s fixtures with 16 wins in 18 games.

“He is showing his real value,” Conte said.

“He’s a warrior… I’m pleased with his performances. It’s important for him, for Chelsea and for me.

“I like to repeat to all my players – you need a lot of time to be something important and you can have only one minute to disrupt all this.

“It’s important to continue this way with great concentration, with great focus in every game.

“When you are a central defender and you play in the middle you must pay great attention, because you have to play football with great intelligence and to understand the moment to be aggressive and to cover the others.”

It’s about this time we plug our piece on Luiz from this week: