West Brom v Chelsea, 18th May 2015
There’s a nice focus at the moment surrounding changing attitudes at Chelsea, which indicates a priority has been put on promoting youth – exposing them to the first team rather than nurturing them for years, only to see them farmed out on loan or not make the cut.
It appears to be that Roman has stepped up his interest in the development of our younger players, and has been present at many an Under 21 game this season, more so than any other. Monday night’s game will see this changing attitude fully given wings with Jose starting at least 3 players from the CFC Academy.
In a week where Real Madrid were knocked out of the Champions League by Juventus, there’s sufficient irony in that their front 3 of Bale, Ronaldo and Benzema cost them over £200m combined, yet it was one of their own academy graduates that knocked them out. Alvaro Morata, now at Juve.
With West Brom already safe there will be no other games this season that will mean less than this weekend’s trip to The Hawthorns, and it allows Jose the perfect opportunity to give centre stage to some of our own graduates.
By doing this, Jose increases the value and interest in the game. Chelsea fans will be optimistically watching to see how at least 3 academy prodigies cut it amongst established international stars while the players themselves will be making every effort to make an impression and stake a claim for next season.
Mourinho was quoted this week indicating that Izzy Brown, Nathan Ake and Ruben Loftus-Cheek will all start, while the bench will likely be laden with fresh talent. It will certainly make for interesting viewing and we’ll review the game with a focus on the youth players that are given an opportunity.
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Against West Brom, especially because they are safe and nobody is waiting for a result, he [Ruben] will play and probably Nathan Ake, who deserves to play.
Izzy Brown came from West Brom, so it will be special for him to play at his house, they all deserve it.
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Predicted Line-up:
Courtois
Filipe Luis
Terry
Ake
Ivanovic
Mikel
Loftus-Cheek
Hazard
Fabregas
Brown
Remy
Predicted Score: West Brom 1-2 Chelsea
