“Alarming” – Sky Sports pundit claims Chelsea missing more than just a goalkeeper | OneFootball

Chelsea’s defeat to Manchester United at the weekend compounded a poor start to the season for the Blues, and it’s led to some big picture questions from pundits about the state of this squad.

On Sky Sports News, Charlie Austin had major doubts about our credentials to ever win the title with this squad. A lot of criticism has been aimed at Robert Sanchez for his early red card, but according to Austin the problems are much bigger than that – he also doesn’t think our defensive players are up to it.

Pundit doubts Chelsea’s defensive options

Trevoh Chalobah embraces Tosin on his return to Chelsea. (Photo by Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC)

“There’s options – but the alarming thing is that there are options but there are no standout names,” Austin said.

“Where’s the partnerships? You look at the centre back partnership that started at the weekend for argument’s sake. They’re not standout names centre halves. If you’re a team that’s wanting to complete to win the Premier League title – yes a goalie is really, really important, but so’s your centre back pairing.

“They’re got to have experience and they’ve got to be commanding. They’ve got to be the best in their position in the world, if you want a team that’s going to win the Premier League. You have that at Liverpool with Virgil Van Dijk, you have that at Man City with Ruben Dias. That’s the scenario, and you look at it with Chelsea and they unfortunately don’t have it at this time.”

You can see him speaking in the clip embedded here:

Top 4 still on the cards for Enzo Maresca’s team

Austin doesn’t think Chelsea are good enough to win the title, but he does think they can match last season’s achievements:

“I think they’ve got a great chance of top four, but top four and winning the title are two very different things.”