“Special” young player predicted to skip loans and go straight into Maresca’s plans next season | OneFootball

While Tyrique George was the one who scored a first senior goal, it was fellow academy teammate Josh Acheampong who soaked up the most praise from his manager in the post-game press conference after Chelsea beat Legia Warsaw in midweek in the Conference League.

Enzo Maresca said he was in love with the youngster, and we were gushing over him too. The London is Blue podcast spoke about him in their summary of the game, and claimed it was impossible to see a situation where he wasn’t seriously involved in the first team rotation next season.

As one presenter pointed out, he’s already as good or better than some of the alternatives, and has far more capacity to improve:

“Josh is 18 years old. His ability to improve at an exponential rate is going to be much higher than some of the other players that we may have been banking on or trying to bank on maybe a little too long,” Dan Dormer said.

Chelsea youngster “doing his apprenticeship” to line up regular starts next season

Josh Acheampong in midfied. (Photo by Piotr Hawalej/Getty Images)

Co-host Dan Verlaney praised Maresca’s treatment of the teenager and said he didn’t see a scenario where Acheampong wasn’t involved heavily next season:

“We’re going to have a to have a lot of rotation in that back line it feels like in the next month and a half, so give the young buck a chance. He looked so composed out there,” Verlaney said.

“He didn’t get phased,  he was very strong. He’s special. I’m just so, so, so pleased that our manager has finally seen the light and decided to heap some praise on the young man because I can’t imagine there’s a scenario next season where he’s really in the mix for it. He’s doing his apprenticeship right now.”