Chelsea defender Thiago Silva has revealed his confidence in Kalidou Koulibaly after he signed for the Blues this summer.
Koulibaly made the switch from Napoli earlier in the month, having spent eight years at the Serie A side and been a long-term target for Chelsea until they finally signed their man.
He is their first defensive addition of the summer, with more expected to follow as they prepare for the new season.
The defensive duo started in the pre-season friendly against Udinese on Friday night and despite not being able to keep a clean sheet, they both performed well in their final test of the summer.
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When he spoke to the official Chelsea website, Silva revealed his thoughts on the club signing the Senegal captain and how he performed in the 3-1 win.
“It was good. He is a player with a lot of experience,” said the Brazilian.
“He played in Italian football, which for me is the best defensive schooling you can possibly receive.
“He is ready for our ideas. He played 70 minutes, and on Saturday he will be ready to play 90.
“Normally we speak in French, because Edou does too, and Azpi, it worked well.
“The communication is not a problem, we can speak many different languages together.”
Although Silva has been impressed with Koulibaly since his arrival, he has raised concerns over whether or not his side are fully ready to kick-off their Premier League campaign against Everton next Saturday.
“We have to do things well now during the week before the start of the Premier League.
“I think we are not at 100 per cent quite yet, but we must work hard and well this week to arrive ready for Saturday.”
After the first win against Udinese, with the Blues beating them once again in a separate game the following day, Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel also expressed his thoughts on their levels of preparation for the new season.
“We trained a lot this week, especially two days ago so we did not have the freshest legs,” said the German.
"But we have a lot of positive things to take away from this game. It’s a good performance, it’s a good result, we could’ve scored much more, should’ve scored much more.
"But overall, it’s a lot of positive stuff to take away from this. Tomorrow (Saturday), we play another match here against Udinese, another team, to have minutes in our legs.
"Then it’s two days break. Then we prepare nothing else but Everton because they are right in front of the door and we need to improve, we are not ready yet.
"We don’t have to be ready yet, we have another week and then it’s the time to be on the best level and there’s still some way to go.”
Topics: Thiago Silva, Kalidou Koulibaly, Chelsea, Premier League, Everton
Robert Calcutt