Chelsea star Kalidou Koulibaly proved many people wrong by putting in an excellent defensive display for the Blues in their Champions League round of 16 clash against Borussia Dortmund on Wednesday. After signing from Napoli in the summer, Koulibaly has struggled for consistency and the arrival of Benoit Badiashile in January saw him lose his spot in Graham Potter's starting XI.
During his first few months as a Chelsea player, Koulibaly was often deployed on the left of a back three with Potter opting for a similar shape to the one that brought him so much success at Brighton. However, those fortunes were not repeated in west London and Potter therefore shifted to a back four which has seen Badiashile partner Thiago Silva for the last four Premier League games.
Across those 360 minutes played together, the duo have conceded just one goal helping Chelsea keep clean sheets against Liverpool, Crystal Palace and Fulham. Their form meant the likelihood of Koulibaly coming back into the team was low, however the Champions League presented a major opportunity for the 31-year-old.
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The omission of Badiashile from Chelsea's squad for the knockout stages, with only three new signings allowed to be registered, meant that Silva would require a new partner for the clash in Germany.
Trevoh Chalobah and Wesley Fofana were both options but Potter chose to go for Koulibaly despite him missing the previous weekend's game against West Ham through illness.
A composed display, despite Chelsea's defeat at Signal Iduna Park, has potentially brought Koulibaly back into the Premier League thoughts of Potter and he could be in line to keep his place against Southampton.
Ahead of the game, Koulibaly posted a match graphic to his Instagram story, a usual sign of a players involvement in a fixture. Presumably if Koulibaly were to start, Potter would partner him up with Silva again after their performance on Wednesday, however that may not be the case.
Team news aggregator Sam_c345 on Twitter has claimed that Silva, along with Hakim Ziyech and Marc Cucurella have been left out of the Chelsea squad to face Southampton. He also noted that Reece James is another major omission with The Athletic reporting James is being rested after playing 240 minutes in the last 15 days following his return from injury.
Potter appears to be taking a big risk by resting several of his first-team stars, but given the size of the squad now at his disposal after Todd Boehly's major January spend, he can likely afford to do so.
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