Background

With Clément Lenglet grabbing a lot of the attention in Ligue 2 there is another young French centre-back in Christopher Jullien who deserves his share of the plaudits. After a promising start to his professional career he struggled to really kick on, now though he is finally starting to show some maturity in his performances. Coming through as a lanky and commanding centre-back for Auxerre he was seen as someone with real potential and when Auxerre failed to agree a new contract with him at the end of the 2012/13 season Freiburg snapped him up.

He spent his first season in Germany playing for Freiburg’s second team in the Regionalliga Sudwest (Germany’s 4th division) and although he put in some solid performances he was never called up to the first team. The following year he continued to progress and by December 2014 he had racked up 2 goals and 7 assists in 17 appearances, a great ratio for a promising young midfielder let alone a centre-back. As a result of these performances he was finally called up to the first team and even made an 18 minute cameo off the bench in a 2-0 defeat to Bayern Munich. The week after the match against Bayern though he injured his achilles and once he’d recovered by March he was unable to regain the same form he’d been in, making another 6 appearances for Freiburg’s second team up until the end of the season.

With the start of the 2015/16 season and the prospect of playing in the Regionalliga Sudwest for a third straight year looming, Freiburg and Jullien decided it would be best if he went on loan. So, he now finds himself with Dijon, back in Ligue 2 three years after he’d shown enough promise to be lured away from the division. So far the move seems to have paid off and Jullien seems to be a revitalised man. With his performances both at the back (4 clean sheets in 10 league games) and going forward (5 goals in 10 league games) he has helped propel Dijon to the top of the table albeit the season is still only 11 games in.

Strengths

When defending crosses, whether from open play or from a set piece, he prefers to man mark instead of taking up a position in open space and attempt to read where the ball might be played. Standing at 6’5 and with a decent jump he almost always wins the aerial duel.

His fantastic aerial ability combined with his surprisingly quick reflexes helps contribute to his fantastic goalscoring ability in the opposition’s box. Unlike a lot of players his height he is also able to generate a lot of power with his headers as well.

Because he isn’t the fastest, opponents tend to think they have a bit more time on the ball against him than they actually do. This is because he utilises his rangy legs well and covers a lot of ground with well timed slide tackles.

Weaknesses

Because of his tendency to go to ground in the tackle he doesn’t seem to have a lot of confidence in his ability to tackle whilst standing meaning he sometimes backs off opponents in the hope that they might then try and run past him. This can lead to giving his opponents the space and time to shoot from outside the box whilst he is backing away.

Unless he starts to improve the tactical side of his game soon he would benefit from putting on a bit more muscle because at the moment he gets shrugged off the ball in 50/50s too easily. He might not be in those positions though should he start to get better at reading the game.

Leading on from his tactical downfalls at the moment is the fact that he does prefer to man-mark. This is fine as long as he tracks his man, however, it can be a big problem if he doesn’t as showcased in the 2-1 win against Le Havre when he failed to stay with Steven Fortes from a corner leading to Le Havre’s goal.

Final Thoughts

At the moment his style of play would suit a slower pace of game allowing him to take in the progression of play when defending, lowering the chance of his weaknesses being exposed. I think playing in that type of environment alongside a more experienced centre-back would also help the tactical side of his game to develop. Should he find himself in that situation I think he would develop tremendously quickly however, at the moment he is still very much a rough diamond.

*Brief examples of his goalscoring ability.

Go to 2:15

Watch the first 20 seconds to see an example of a weakness as well as a strength of his.