00:00 Hey there everybody, Adam Cleary from 442 here. Yes, sat wearing a hoodie in August
00:08 because it's so cold. And that's bad, isn't it? But I'll tell you what's not bad, Levi
00:14 Caldwell. Because he's good. Not as good as that intro, but... In fact, he's so good that
00:19 I would go so far as to say that by not loaning him back to Brighton, by making him sign a
00:23 new six-year contract, by fending off the interest of a host of top European clubs,
00:28 he could actually be Chelsea's signing of the summer so far. And I know he's not technically
00:33 a signing, obviously he's their player, but when you give someone a contract, you do have
00:37 to physically sign it. So that's what I'm getting at. So play on words.
00:41 Alright, so before we start, not to toot my own cock or anything, but when Pochettino
00:47 signed for Chelsea, I did this video and said this.
00:51 I'm Levi Caldwell, on loan at Brighton. Pochettino will love that kid. He will 100% be back and
00:57 you will see him in this team quite a lot, I think.
00:59 And it certainly looks like he does going off pre-season. He missed the Wrexham game
01:03 for Chelsea, with coming back from international duty, but then he got a full 81 minutes against
01:07 Brighton, 45 minutes against Fulham, the entire match against Dortmund, and missed the Newcastle
01:11 game for having a lovely rest. And while we still don't know exactly how Pochettino's
01:15 going to set Chelsea up come the start of the season, that Dortmund game does look a
01:18 fairly good indication. And this was their line-up. Caldwell and Silva do feel, for all
01:24 the world, like the best possible centre-back pairing they've got right now.
01:28 But why is that? Why all the hype on Caldwell? Is it just the England under-21s performance?
01:31 Is it the fact that Chelsea's other centre-back pairings would make me look like a viable
01:36 option? No, there is definitely something here. And that something is just this wonderful
01:41 blend of really intelligent defensive fundamentals, some elite-level ball-playing ability, and
01:47 just look at him. Look at him! The guy is so big and tough and dependable. Is it any
01:52 wonder they named him after a pair of jeans? So last season, while on loan, Caldwell got
01:57 a really good run of games for Brighton at centre-back next to Lewis Dunk. And as I and
02:02 every other football channel has covered to death, Brighton's deserby ball system last
02:05 year was so, so, so reliant on the quality of its centre-backs. If you didn't see it,
02:11 I'll give you the quick skim version. Basically, they're really involved in the build-up. You
02:14 use the goalkeeper as well. The idea is you get all these little triangles going. You
02:17 invite the opposition to press you as high as they are willing to do. And then, whatever
02:22 opportunity opens up, and it could be any one of the forward players dropping back,
02:26 it could just be one pass between the lines, the defenders, Dunk and Caldwell, it was their
02:31 responsibility to spot that and play that. And that means two things. You've got to be
02:35 really comfortable receiving the ball under pressure and playing these neat, tidy little
02:39 passes around your own area with the players, and sort of in five or ten yards. But more
02:44 important than that, when the opportunity avails itself, and it could be absolutely
02:48 anywhere on the pitch, you have to be able to play that decisive, killer ball. That is
02:53 not a situation you would naturally think you would want to put a 20-year-old with virtually
02:58 no Premier League experience into. And yet, deserby did, and yet Caldwell was amazing
03:04 at it. Like I mentioned before, progressive passes out of defence. They are the new hotness
03:08 in football. They allow you to skip entire phases of your own build-up. They allow you
03:12 to beat presses. They allow you to throw other teams that are incredibly well organised into
03:17 chaos. And Caldwell, well have a look at this. Obviously his general passing stats are really
03:22 impressive and show how good he is at the small stuff, at the tidy stuff, but his key
03:26 passes are amazing. His passes into the final third, his progressive passes, there were
03:30 virtually no centre-backs in the Premier League who were doing that as consistently and as
03:34 well as Caldwell was. Now, okay, you might be thinking, well, Caldwell was playing for
03:37 Brighton last season, you know, that's just their system. Anyone in it would have these
03:40 similar kind of numbers. And when you compare it with Dunk, yes, the neat and tidy stuff
03:44 is fairly similar, but you can see the key passes is nowhere near the same. Clearly Caldwell's
03:48 got a little bit more of an edge, but what really sets him apart, not just from his Brighton
03:53 teammates, but from pretty much everyone in Europe is his ability to carry out of the
03:59 back. Now, I think as we all saw last season with John Stones, having a defender who was
04:02 comfortable carrying the ball up the pitch, not just passing it out of defence is really
04:06 important and actually vital for any team that wants to play on the front foot. But
04:10 Caldwell doesn't just carry that ball out of defence and into the midfield. He just
04:15 keeps going. He carries and he carries and he carries until he all of a sudden is just
04:20 playing. And again, where a player like Stones would then get in the middle and sort of contribute
04:24 to being an extra man, to the neat and tidy stuff, to helping with the attacking phase,
04:29 Caldwell is very happy simply being the attacking phase. His ability to find runners with really
04:34 precise through the line passes, his ability to exploit a high defensive line is just,
04:39 well, look at this, he's in the top 1% in Europe last season for assists from centre-backs.
04:45 Like you've played FPL, right? How often do you see your centre-back get an assist and
04:50 it's not just like a weird knockdown from a corner? Almost never. And what is the one
04:54 thing Chelsea currently have in abundance? It's attacking midfielders who love, love,
04:59 love, love, love to get behind defenders, to receive through balls in that area. Not
05:04 loads of build-up on the edge of the box. They don't like trying to break down really
05:07 deep defences. They want teams to sit with a high line so they can exploit the space.
05:11 And in Thiago Silva's incredible over-the-top passing range and Levi Caldwell's sort of
05:17 short, incisive through balls, you've now got two deadly weapons for that. And weirdly,
05:22 if you actually look at them both, Thiago Silva does actually profile weirdly similarly
05:27 to Lewis Dunk. And that might sound ridiculous. It might even sound redunculous, but in terms
05:32 of the way they both play, Caldwell's a perfect foil for the both. And that's why it's important
05:36 not just to talk about his passing or his ball carrying, as exciting as that is, but
05:39 his ability to defend because he's f***ing excellent at it. Like Fulbright and Dunk would
05:45 tend to be the one who stepped out of defence to try and engage the opponent to put the
05:48 pressure on, and Caldwell would then cover him behind. He would watch the space. He would
05:52 make sure that if Dunk got beat or a pass went round him, that he was covering that
05:56 space. His reading of the game for doing that is so far above the levels you would expect
06:00 of a 20-year-old. His composure in the tackle is so far ahead of what you would expect for
06:05 a 20-year-old. Like look at this stat. He is in the bottom 1% for tackles in all of
06:11 Europe because he just doesn't make them. What he does is he stands up and he stands
06:16 up and he stands up and he only commits to a challenge when he's pretty much certain
06:20 he's going to be able to make it. And even when he does do that, he doesn't dive in,
06:23 he doesn't go off his feet. He's got this amazing technique of staying shoulder to
06:27 shoulder with a player and then effectively adjusting his stride to get a little half
06:31 a yard and just step across. This is just my favourite clip of his in regards to defending.
06:36 Breitner in all kinds of trouble here. Any 20-year-old, any 35-year-old would get a rush
06:41 of blood, would get a rush of adrenaline, would realise it's all on you now Adam, I
06:45 mean Levi, and dash across, put a tackle in and potentially create even more problems.
06:50 But he doesn't do that, does he? He moves across to deal with Nketiah because
06:53 obviously that's his job, that's where the danger is, but he doesn't even come close
06:57 to engaging him. He just stops him having a clean run through on goal and leaves enough
07:00 distance between the two that the shadow cover he's offering, which is like if you draw a
07:04 line out, it's the area you can't pass to and the further back you are, the wider that is,
07:09 basically blocks off any pass whatsoever. It's just like you cannot coach that. You're
07:14 either good enough to be able to do that in that moment or you're not.
07:17 Like Chelsea fans, you don't need me to tell you, Koulibaly was a disaster last year. He
07:21 just loved charging out and putting in tackles and just thoughtlessly doing stuff. Colwell
07:26 could not be more the thematic opposite to a player like that. He's just up here, he's
07:31 got it all. Now I will just caveat all of this by saying, please remember he is 20 years
07:36 old. He is half Thiago Silva's age, almost. He is by no means the finished product just
07:41 yet. Like his ball carrying ability is excellent and he loves to do it, but his dribbling technique
07:46 itself, which is obviously a slightly different thing, still leaves a little bit to be desired.
07:50 You can kind of get a bit lost with it sometimes. And while his passing is incisive and he's
07:53 got a really good eye for it, his longer balls, like his switches of play or his really, really
07:58 direct ones, they're not quite there yet. And also not that this one should matter too
08:02 much. If you're a Chelsea fan and you did watch the Dortmund game last night, his finishing
08:06 could be better. Yes. Oh, and one final point. He is naturally left-footed. He's a left-sided
08:14 centre-back who's naturally left-footed with a great range of passing and a brain.
08:18 So if I'm Harry Maguire, I'm sweating. Anyway, Chelsea fans, yes, I think you've got an absolute
08:24 diamond on your hands here. And by the looks of it, I think Maurizio Pochettino agrees.
08:28 Who could blame him? But I mean, saying that, if you are a Chelsea fan, you may have seen
08:32 slightly more of him in pre-season than I did. I don't know. The bits I saw, he looked excellent
08:36 and I watched all of the under 21 Euros. So that's what I think. But if it seems a little
08:39 bit off or even if it seems a little bit on, please do get it in the comments below. And I
08:44 mean, come on, subscribe to 442, the new season's starting. It's dead exciting. But if you'd just
08:47 rather argue with me face to face, you can get me on Twitter, Instagram threads @AdamCleary442
08:53 as well. Every single way you could possibly look. And the season preview edition,
08:57 which is previewing the season, which is happening now, is in stores also now. Till next time though,
09:03 that's it. Adam Cleary, 442, Levi Caldwell, big, big fan. See you soon. Goodbye.
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