Gary Neville accused Levi Colwill of getting ‘bullied’ in Chelsea’s 3-0 loss to Brighton and claimed the defender must ‘get stronger’ if he is to become a top Premier League centre-back.
Chelsea were beaten all ends up by Brighton at the Amex Stadium, less than a week after the Seagulls defeated them at the same ground in the fourth round of the FA Cup.
Kaoru Mitoma opened the scoring with a solo wondergoal to break the deadlock in the 27th minute and the visitors simply had no answer after Yankuba Minteh struck either side of half-time to increase the deficit.
A first-half hamstring injury to Noni Madueke only added to Chelsea’s misery and the result means Manchester City can leapfrog Enzo Maresca’s men into the Premier League top four with victory over Newcastle.
A despondent Maresca issued an apology to Chelsea’s travelling support shortly after the final whistle – with his side failing to register a single shot on target – and it gets no easier for the Blues, who have a difficult trip to Aston Villa ahead in a week’s time.
Asked whether the performance was the worst he had seen from a Chelsea side under Maresca, Sky Sports pundit Neville replied: ‘Yeah, I think so.
‘It was a worrying performance because it looked like they were going to concede a lot of goals and they look like they’re not going to score.
‘That’s a terrible combination and I just throught they looked like a five-a-side team.
‘You set players out into positions on the training pitch and it’s combinations and patterns. But then they forget about the most important thing which is keeping the ball out of the net at one end and scoring at the other.
‘There was no penetration whatsoever, I never saw players busting a gut to get into the box and I never saw a player making a fast run forward.
‘I didn’t see much from Chelsea. In fact, I didn’t see anything from Chelsea that I liked tonight. It was a really poor performance.’
Neville criticised Filip Jorgensen’s display between the sticks before turning his attentions to Chelsea defender Colwill, who had a night to forget on the south coast.
‘Colwill has got to get stronger, he’s got to get stronger,’ the former Manchester United and England right-back said.
‘He’s getting overpowered quite easily in games that I’ve seen recently. Two or three games that I’ve seen recently, he’s been bullied in that channel.
‘Also, that one [Brighton’s second goal] was a really bad one for him in that he also gives the ball away. But he then sits on the floor, turns around and looks. He spends two or three seconds on the floor.
‘Just get up and sprint back! So that’s a bad habit.
‘Look, he’s still young and he’s got a lot of learning to, as have a lot of the young Chelsea players that are playing in these types of positions.
‘But they’ve got to get stronger in their bodies, they’ve got to get really physical and aggressive.
‘That’s tough when you’re a young centre-half that maybe hasn’t developed as fully as you should do yet, but he’s learning on the job and it’s hard work for him at the moment.’
Jamie Carragher was in agreement with Neville and recalled Colwill having similar problems when Chelsea were beaten by Liverpool at Anfield back in October.
‘He looks like he needs to get a good meal down him and sort of fill out,’ the former Liverpool and England defender said.
‘When you look at Danny Welbeck and the strikers that they’ve got up front, the physicality in the Premier League now… if you’re a centre-back and you can’t cope…
‘Actually, if you go back to the game at Anfield when Chelsea were on a really good run and outplaying Liverpool for a lot of that game, they lost it because the centre-back couldn’t cope with direct play over the top.
‘Liverpool couldn’t play through them, Chelsea had a lot of the ball, and that again was a problem for them.
‘When you look at that back four, it’s nowhere near strong enough, physical enough, good enough. It’s a million miles away.’
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