David Luiz is 'a liability and a worse player than when he left' for PSG two years ago

French journalist Julien Laurens has criticised Luiz for his time with Paris Saint-Germain and says Chelsea's re-signing of the Brazilian defender is music to the ears of the Ligue 1 champions

A French journalist has claimed that David Luiz is a worse player now than when he left Chelsea two years ago after completing a £32m return to Stamford Bridge on transfer deadline day.

Chelsea’s hunt for a new defender led them to former player Luiz after they failed in their attempt to sign both Kalidou Koulibaly and Alessio Romagnoli from Napoli and AC Milan respectively. With time running out to bring in reinforcements, manager Antonio Conte made the surprising decision to sanction a move for 29-year-old Luiz, despite the club choosing to sell him in 2014 for £50m that remains the highest fee spent on a defender.

Luiz has helped Paris Saint-Germain to win two Ligue 1 titles during his time in the French capital, but it’s fair to say that he didn’t convince everybody despite keeping fellow Brazilian Marquinhos out of the side.

French journalist Julien Laurens launched a scathing assessment of Luiz’s time with the Parisian club, and labelled him not only a “liability” but also a “worse player” than he was when he left Chelsea.

“He’s been a liability for PSG more than anything else,” Laurens told BBC Radio 5 Live. “Everybody remembers the game he had against Barcelona and Luis Suarez, who nutmegged him twice, in the Champions League quarter-final and humiliated him at the Parc des Princes.

“He hasn’t improved at all since leaving Chelsea. He’s probably coming back a worse player than when he left.

“Well yeah, they almost got their money back, two years after he left, for a player who’s two years older. I’ve watch him pretty much every weekend since he joined PSG, I can hardly remember four games where he was actually good, or very good maybe. He had some shockers. PSG couldn’t beleve their luck and I think first of all they tried to keep him because they had no other options and then they thought ‘the money’s too good, we can’t turn that down, it’s impossible’.”

Luiz wasn’t the only player to arrive at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday as the club also completed the £23m addition of former Bolton Wanderers and Sunderland left-back Marcos Alonso from Italian side Fiorentina, adding to the earlier additions of N’Golo Kante from Leicester City, Michy Batshuayi from Marseille and Eduardo Carvalho from Dinamo Zagreb.