Chelsea's Jose Bosingwa is full of class

Unfazed: Jose Bosingwa

Full-back is not the sexiest position on a football pitch. You rarely see them winning player-of-the-year awards but if you get two good ones - and Chelsea now have more than two - they can add another dimension to a team and play a big part in helping them to win a title.

There can be no doubting the impact that Deco has made at Stamford Bridge this season and he has rightly earned the plaudits for helping to make the Blues an entertaining team as well as a winning one so far.

But Chelsea's other new Portuguese signing, Jose Bosingwa, has been every bit as good as his compatriot since his arrival from Porto.

The right-back position has been a problem at Stamford Bridge for some time now.

Paulo Ferreira, Juliano Belletti, Michael Essien, Glen Johnson, Lassana Diarra, even Geremi, have occupied that place over the past three seasons without fully convincing that they should be there for the long haul.

But Bosingwa has come in and looked every inch the player Chelsea fans hoped he'd be and boss Luiz Felipe Scolari knew him to be.

I met him when he signed for the club. He didn't speak any English and seemed very quiet and modest.

But he's not been fazed by the £17million price tag and looks like he's been at the club for years.

If anything, Bosingwa's value has already gone up.

It's still early in the season but I've not seen anyone get the better of him when he's had to defend.

And the 26-year-old's natural instinct is to get involved going forward, support his winger, and get as many balls into the box as is possible during the 90 minutes of play.

You can see that he has based his game on those other two Portuguese-speaking world-class full-backs, Roberto Carlos and Cafu.

While Jose Mourinho wanted his full-backs to sit in, deny the opposition any space in behind and not venture too far over the halfway line, Scolari has given Ashley Cole and Bosingwa licence to get forward at every opportunity.

This has helped turn Chelsea into an attractive side to watch, being effective as much as the combination of Deco and Frank Lampard in midfield.

It was a big compliment to Cole and Bosingwa to see Manchester United, the Premier and Champions League winners, come to Stamford Bridge and practically 'mark' the Chelsea full-backs by putting Ji-Sung Park and Owen Hargreaves up against them instead of playing Cristiano Ronaldo and Ryan Giggs.

And it will be interesting to see if Rafael Benitez does a similar thing when Liverpool visit on Sunday.

Dirk Kuyt will probably come back in to contention and play on the right wing. He has done an excellent job in helping his full-back out with some tireless displays, and while he doesn't possess the ability of some of his team mates, he makes up for it in sheer effort.

Albert Riera has played pretty well on the left since signing for Liverpool. But he is a player that doesn't like to track back as much as Kuyt and it will be an intriguing battle between him and Bosingwa if Riera is selected to play.

Both teams have their top striker out but Fernando Torres will be more of a miss for Liverpool than Didier Drogba will be for Chelsea.

The Ivorian has hardly played a game for the Blues due to injury this season and in the games he has played, he hasn't looked 100 per cent match fit.

Even though they do miss him, and have a long injury list, Chelsea will have plenty of other match-winners on the pitch. Liverpool do not. If Robbie Keane is out injured, then it is difficult to see where their goals will come from.

Stop Steven Gerrard scoring and defend well at set-pieces and Chelsea have a very good chance of not conceding, in what could be their seventh consecutive clean sheet in all competitions. Liverpool have a miserable record at Stamford Bridge and having only scored six times in 16 visits in the Premier League, I'm sure they would settle for a point now.

They will certainly not be as negative as Roma were on Wednesday but it will again take a lot of patience from the Chelsea players, and the crowd, if they prove difficult to breakdown.

I'm not saying Bosingwa will be the match-winner in the way John Terry was against the Italians, but if the Blues win, he could be a major reason why they did.

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