Former Chelsea striker Tore Andre Flo is dumbfounded by the current speculation surrounding David Luiz’s reported £30m January move to Arsenal.
Flo, who played for Chelsea from 1997-2000, doesn’t believe that Luiz is unsettled at Stamford Bridge. The 44-year-old reckons that the defender’s happy working under Antonio Conte. However, he’s carrying an injury at the moment.
“He looks to be very happy to me,” said the Sky Sports pundit.
“He is a very lively player and to me there doesn’t seem to be any problems at all.
“He’s injured for the moment, so I don’t really understand all this stuff going on in the press.
“To me it’s just a player who is injured and seems to be very happy at the club.”
Luiz, who the Gunners are allegedly ready to pay £30m for, hasn’t featured for Chelsea since their 1-0 win over Bournemouth on October 28. This is reportedly because the 30-year-old got in a training ground spat with the Blues’ manager who then left Luiz out of the squad for the following match against Manchester United. However, the official line is that the Brazilian is currently dealing with a knee injury.
Luiz has been at Chelsea since 2016. Previously, he was with the Blues from 2011-2014 before enjoying a brief two-year spell at Paris Saint-Germain.
Since his return, the defender has slotted straight back into Chelsea’s starting line-up and despite only making eight appearances this season, he’s made 194 in total.
Luiz is injury-prone, so there’s no reason not to believe Conte when he claims he is again. This week, the former Italy boss insisted that he doesn’t read the speculation about his players in the press.
“I don’t read [the speculation] and I [therefore] solve the problem,” said Conte.
“I don’t read so I don’t have information about this topic. As a person I am very realistic, I like to tell the truth.”
Luiz, who’s also supposedly attracted attention from Newcastle, has 18 months left on his current contract.
The fly in the ointment
While Arsenal do need a centre-back, the chances of Luiz wanting to sign for a London rival and Chelsea even considering selling us one of their first choice defenders is a bit far-fetched.
£30m isn’t a bad price considering that Jonny Evans will reportedly cost £5m more than that. However, with Laurent Koscielny’s dodgy Achilles, we don’t need any more injury-prone centre-backs.
What’s more, Arsene Wenger rarely makes big signings in January. Therefore, I really don’t see us dipping into a rival’s squad mid-way through the season.