Chelsea star Benoit Badiashile has played just 270 minutes for his new club after signing from AS Monaco in January yet he already looks a shrewd acquisition for the Blues. Alongside Thiago Silva, Badiashile has helped Chelsea keep three consecutive Premier League clean sheets with two goalless draws against Liverpool and Fulham sandwiching a narrow victory against Crystal Palace.
Kalidou Koulibaly and Marc Cucurella have both been deployed on the left of a back three and next to Silva in a back four since the start of the season, but neither have been able to hold down the position. The arrival of Badiashile has solved that issue with the 21-year-old putting in three near-perfect displays in defence.
Because of his form, Graham Potter was faced with a tough decision regarding his Champions League knockout stage squad. The 25-man squad submitted for the next few rounds would have to exclude four new arrivals because UEFA's rules state only three new signings can be added to the squad initially submitted at the start of the season
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Enzo Fernandez, Mykhailo Mudryk and Joao Felix were the three players selected by Potter with Badiashile unfortunate to miss out alongside Noni Madueke, Andrey Santos and David Datro Fofana. That selection decision faced by Potter will likely be the first of many tough scenarios for the Blues boss in the coming months with 33 players now part of his first-team squad.
While the general consensus from Chelsea fans was that Potter had made the right decision, former Premier League defender Martin Keown was shocked by Badiashile's omission when discussing the Blues' best performers against Fulham out of the four new signings that took to the field.
"[Mudryk] wasn’t really in the game. [Noni] Madueke then came on. Lots of flashes, lots of good moments, but [wasn’t] really impacting the game too much. The central defender, Badiashile, actually was probably the best player I saw among [Chelsea’s recent] purchases.
"The central defender that we’ve talked about being such a good player is not even listed in the Champions League group. How does that really work out? Who made that decision?"
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