Chelsea's High Block Master : How Lacroix Raises Chelsea's Defensive Floor

Chelsea have signed Maxence Lacroix from Crystal Palace, which means Chelsea have finally signed that CB they have long craved. This piece will detail exactly who Lacroix is, what he can do and how he can help elevate this Chelsea team.

Lacroix is another physical specimen, as Chelsea has increased the physical floor of the team this summer with Palestra and Rogers. He stands at 6’4, is very pacy, one of the fastest CBs in the league, with a 36.4 km/hr speed. Mo Salah had the highest clocked speed last season at 37 km/hr.

Lacroix can play a back 3 or 4, but he has had lots of experience playing in a back 3, which could make it look like it’s the only experience he has. He played in Back 3’s at both Palace and Wolfsburg. But his profile can handle a back 4; he just needs to play in a system that can do it. A manager who can coach it too.

Lacroix is very comfortable defending either centrally or out wide; he played as a wider CB for Wolfsburg. I even watched him against Xabi Alonso’s Leverkusen in Germany, and he played LCB in a back 3, and he played in back 4’s at Wolfsburg too. He has all the elements to play any role in the backline. Deschamps played him as an LCB in a back 4 at the World Cup, too. Although his performances weren’t the best (none of the CBs was), he can play there. Let’s see his ability to defend the flanks from the stats.

This is from @pranav_m28 playerprint app on X. I compared it to still probably the best defender in the league, Van Dijk, and his channel defending and flank defending that particularly states “out wide“ is of a decently high level in Europe’s top 5 leagues. He is comfortable being led into the wide areas by wingers or attackers going wide; CBs normally struggle with this, but Lacroix is fast and reads the game well, so he follows them there and can handle those 1v1s or gets touch-tight and knocks them off the ball.

This is his speed compared to CBs in the league last season

Sky Sports also analysed him when he faced 1 on 1s, and he was first for winning those 1 on 1s

Lacroix usually reads the play and gets there before the opposition player and has to even face the 1v1. he can struggle with players a little bit when they are tricky players with the ball at their feet when they get it, but he tends to get there before them, which speaks to his dominant nature. When the player starts to jink left and right, it becomes a bit more difficult for him.

On the ball, Lacroix is decent technically, nothing exceptional, but can handle the ball and pass out, definitely not a Colwill level, but a decent lower level to hang. Let’s see the stats on this.

This is from @pranav_m28 playerprint app on X,

You can clearly see that lots of his passes are safe and side-to-side, which is fine as a CCB in a palace. Watching him, you can see he isn’t afraid to pop it between the lines, too. But, remembering Jonathan Tah’s role in Leverkusen’s back 3 under Xabi, his role was similar to this, more circulating, and the wide CBs had more responsibility to progress the ball through passing and carrying.

Further analysing his passing profile, you can see why I said he isn’t your classic ball-playing CB, very conservative, but accurate enough, even when he passes progressively. I do suspect it increases at Chelsea in a proper possession-based team, though. We’ve already begun to see how it is in a Chelsea shirt against Real Sociedad.

His long pass seems to be decent as well; he knows how to switch the ball when he finds space, and he can execute those types of passes fairly well, not excellently, just above average or thereabout. You wouldn’t put too much progression responsibility on him or rely on him for those as much as you would demand of Colwill (a CB has to do everything these days, huh?). You would just prefer Lacroix to provide ball circulation, recycling, and so on. That is not his main appeal, though.

Although the accuracy rate is more 50/50, with SofaScore showing it to be 49%, Lacroix isn’t afraid to go long to either switch play or play balls directly to his striker. Well, Palace didn’t really build up short only, but he tended to play lots of longer balls when necessary.

This, for example, led to a goal, from Lacroix picking out the run.

Under pressure, from the eye test, Lacroix looks very good under pressure, doesn’t seem rushed, and knows how to swivel his hips and manipulate the ball to another angle that the presser wouldn’t easily get to when they press to get out of pressure.

Here is him getting out of pressure. He is aware of the danger and knows how to get out of it; if it requires him to carry, he will.

He can carry if it means getting away from pressure; he isn’t afraid to do that like some passing CBs.

Now, something about his passing is that it lets me give you some background on his passing at his former club, Wolfsburg, and even his first Palace season. He was more progressive then. He made more progressive passes in 23/24 his final season at Wolfsburg, than he does. This first one is his passing stats for the Palace 24/25 season. Higher progressive passes at a higher progression rate, less accuracy, but we’ve seen he can be accurate, more throughballs, which backs up my take on his long passing,

This one is his passing profile at Wolfsburg 23/24. Decent number of progressive passes, progression rate, and accuracy.

This shows that in the right system, under the right circumstances, Lacroix can show progressive passing, and his passing is just above average, not world-class, but more than serviceable at the top level.

His defensive instincts are really good and are considered his strong points. Well, he’s a defender, isn’t he? However, let’s discuss his style first. Defenders are usually either passive or aggressive defenders; some are passive-aggressive, but most fall into one side or the other. What does that mean?

It means if a player is passive, they prefer covering the space behind them and hardly push out of the backline to engage with players in front of them to try to collect the ball. An aggressive style is the opposite of that. They would push up and be touch-tight to the forwards they’re defending against and try to tackle them early to get the ball before they turn

Lacroix is an aggressive-style defender with the ability to defend passively. What does it mean? He loves to get touch-tight with his attackers and also can defend the space behind him, as well as cover.

He is a dominant defender and can deal with physical strikers, bouncy balls, and awkward situations very well. His duel success rate is 61%, winning 2.4 ground duels and 61% winning 5.8 duels per game, which is a solid, solid statistic.

He is Lacroix handling a tough situation with a high and bouncing ball coming towards him with a player on his neck.

He reads the flight of the ball and gathers it well. Something as simple as this, well, not overly simple, is what our CBs struggled with last season.

We also use an example of Lacroix’s game against Fulham. He did this twice in the game. He is met with a 1v1 with Gonzalo Garcia to deal with in transition. He gets there on time. What he does first was wait and watch before putting in a challenge, the idea for defenders is to delay the attacker as much as they can from getting to go and shepherd them into less dangerous areas

Garcia tries to come back on his inside and take him on, but Lacroix read it excellently and stopped a potentially dangerous situation. It’s the calmness in which he does it that gives me a sense of calm as a fan; imagine those around him in the backline

A real strength of Lacroix, not the only one, is his box-defending. The stats show this as well; he’s an excellent box defender, to the level of Van Dijk and the best CBs in the league. He is usually first to anything in the box, and his positioning is excellent. Both on the ground and across, he reads them both well and doesn’t mind going to the ground to stop them when he needs to. The stats also show similarity. These are his defensive actions, and a lot of them happen in his box. Palace does play with a lower defensive line too; that’s why a lot is in his own box, but it’s a lot. This also includes last-ditch defending as well.

You can also see his box actions put him amongst the best in the league; his box actions, box tackles, interceptions, and box aerial duels won are Van Dijk territory because, yes, Van Dijk was probably the best statistically for most of these after checking. Another defender who excelled at this was Jan Paul Van Hecke, who is now at Spurs.

Here is his box defending in action.

A ball into the box and he’s there to clear out the danger as the first person at the scene

He not only positions himself well, but he also reacts quickly to what is happening immediately. Blocks the shot

Is fast enough to react again to make a last-ditch tackle

Lacroix also excels at reading the game defensively, recognising danger, and nullifying it. His different forms of interceptions, box, channel, and flank interceptions, show the picture clearly. He is always in position to mop up. Playing in the centre of Xabi’s hybrid back 3 shape means he will be asked to do lots of that in rest defence, as we saw some of against Fulham as well.

Here you can see he is trying to read the pass in behind, hes a player that will aggressively step out to defend but he reads this situation well, knowing there is only one pass on,

He intercepts it and stops a dangerous attack. Showed his ability to intercept a dangerous throughball.

The last thing I’ll really highlight about Lacroix is his strength in the air. He is both good in aerial duels and at mopping up loose balls in the box. He is usually the first to everything in the box; his box-defending profile is one of the best in the league based on last season's statistics.

Based on the stats, he contests a lot of aerial duels and can win a lot more, but it’s more than average; plus, Sofascore puts it at a 61% aerial success rate too. Another important thing to highlight is the win rate from set pieces, which is the phase after a set piece has been initially played, so a second phase from a set piece. He’s at the 73rd percentile. Defending set pieces was Chelsea’s Achilles heel last season, or one of them, especially 2nd phases of corners. It’s good to see a defender excel at it. We needed dominant defenders and Lacroix can be classed as one of them.

Lacroix in an aerial duel with Isak

Weaknesses

One of the things about aggressive-style defenders is that when it works for them, it is very good, as it stops attacks at the source, but when they don’t, they leave gaps in the defence. The player receiving back to goal that they are defending can also get past them if they are great between the lines and top dribblers. So Lacroix sometimes can get bypassed if he’s a bit too late to the player he’s pressing when coming out to defend. For example, here, Ball goes to Davies; Davies already knows the pressure is coming, and he then takes the touch into space and leaves Lacroix for dead; Bayern scores from that.

Another way this can be used against him is if there are multiple opposition players around him. Teams should defend this better in my opinion, as Lacroix shouldn’t be doubled on here, but there are 2 men around him, one in front and one behind, and he tries to anticipate the player in front of him by going to defend aggressively, but the player just uses a flick pass and takes advantage of the space behind him, and Fulham scores.

Well, it’s still part of his aggressive nature, but don’t worry; he can sweep very well too, but his team isn’t meant to put him in this position because it’s basically 2 against 1

I’ve always said defenders that can defend aggressively can be effective if the system demands it, like Cucurella was top in Maresca’s system and Rüdiger was in Tuchel’s system.

How can he fit into the system?

Lacroix can play in either a back 3 or back 4 system. Xabi already put him in a back 3 hybrid system with 4 attackers against Sociedad, and Xabi has used both systems in preseason, but the principles are more or less the same. 4 attackers with Palestra being the last on the attacking line. Lacroix can play either in the middle of the situational back 3 or on the right. He can also play on the left, but Chelsea have enough LCBs for that in Colwill and Hato.

Intangibles

Lacroix brings a lovely blend of the right experience, from being a wonderkid in the French league to then being wanted for years at Wolfsburg and playing multiple Bundesliga seasons and then playing for Palace for 2 seasons in the Premier League and being the backbone of a trophy-laden period at Crystal Palace with an FA Cup, Community Shield, and Conference League wins. He is a leader who has been in squads that know what it takes to go all the way and win in cup competitions, which is necessary experience.

Maxence is also very vocal on the pitch and does very well to help his teammates every time, even though he isn’t captain. Having not just one but at least 2 leaders at the back is necessary in a top team, and we’ve lacked that for a while, especially with Colwill’s injury coupled with that as well. This signing changes that.

Lacroix might not be Van Dijk level and may never be, but he is in that right spot and possibly set up to take the step up in his career. I believe Lacroix can improve even further and get to a world-class level under the right coach and system at the right point in his career. It seems to be at just the right time for him at 26 and in the right team.