Former Chelsea winger Joe Cole has explained the one thing Ben Chilwell gives the team that Marcos Alonso could not.
Chilwell was signed for £45m from Leicester City earlier in the summer, and it appears he will now be Frank Lampard’s first-choice left-back.
The England defender made his Premier League debut for the Blues in their comfortable 4-0 win over Crystal Palace, opening the scoring before setting up another.
Alonso has been a great servant to Chelsea since joining from Fiorentina in 2016, but the left-back position was quickly identified as one the team could improve.
The Spaniard has always been a threat in an attacking sense, but has, on occasions, been caught out defensively.
Cole believes that Chilwell is more of an all-round defender than Alonso, after seeing the 23-year-old impress on his league debut.
“His left foot is lovely, like Alonso’s, but I think he’s a little bit more astute defensively and he gives you a little bit more nous defensively,” the former Blue said on BT Sport.
After a bit of a scrap in the Palace box, the ball eventually fell to Chilwell - who smashed the ball home from close-range.
The English left-back then turned provider for Kurt Zouma, who he found with a fantastic cross before the Frenchman headed into the top corner.
As well as his attacking contributions, Chilwell showed that he can be relied on defensively, and helped keep Palace’s counter-attacking threats down to a minimum.
Rio Ferdinand, who was working alongside Cole for BT Sport, was also full of praise for the former Leicester defender.
Ferdinand said: “I think more importantly, a clean sheet, and that’s been something hard to come by on a consistent basis for this Chelsea team.
“What he’s done is that he’s come in and it seems like water off a duck’s back to him, confidence, happy to be on this stage, happy with the expectations that are gonna be different from what he had at his previous club. Today, I thought he was fantastic.”
