04 September 2023 , 01:00
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William Gallas has insisted Axel Disasi is not ready to play Premier League football, despite Chelsea spending £38.8million to sign him from Monaco in the summer.
The 25-year-old has started all five of the Blues' games so far, netting on his debut against Liverpool. But he has been part of a defence that has kept just one clean sheet this term, with their latest result being a 1-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
Disasi was a regular starter for Monaco during his three years with the Ligue 1 club and has become one of Mauricio Pochettino's trusted defenders at Stamford Bridge. Despite that, Gallas remains unconvinced by the French international.
"I was one of the guys who didn’t understand why Disasi joined Chelsea. The Premier League is a different league in terms of difficulty. Even though he is a physical player he has to understand strikers will be very strong when they challenge him," he told Gambling Zone.
"He has to improve a lot, but he has the opportunity to play alongside Thiago Silva and he has to learn from him, speak to him a lot, and Silva can help him move to the next step. Even though he has joined Chelsea it doesn't mean he is completely ready.
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"He still has some bad habits and he has to change them. That’s why when I saw his name, I thought he was not ready to join Chelsea. But you have to give him time to settle into a new country, new players and a new club.
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Axel Disasi has been slammed by former Chelsea star William Gallas (Rob Newell - CameraSport via Getty Images)"You have to give him time. When you have a foreign player who joins the Premier League you have to at least give them one year."
Gallas also took aim at Chelsea's summer recruitment strategy, following a poor start that has left them 12th in the table. The former Blues star believes club chiefs have made a mistake in targeting young players over experienced heads.
"It feels like Chelsea don’t really know what they are doing. They have bought a lot of young players, give them 7-8 year contracts and it looks like they are thinking about the future, instead of thinking about trying to win the Premier League this season," he added.
"That is my concern. You can’t win the Premier League with only young players who don’t have experience, you need a mix. Only four players have that experience to help win the Premier League: Thiago Silva, Raheem Sterling, Reece James and Ben Chilwell, all the rest are young. It will be a difficult season.
"The midfield of Chelsea is too young. When you want to play in the PL you need experienced players. At the moment they only have experienced players at the back and that is not enough.
"The experienced players are the secret to getting results. The people who are recruiting at the club need to do that job properly, and I don’t think they are doing that well. They just buy, buy, buy young players."