Brown, Loftus-Cheek to play vs. West Brom
Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea will aim to continue their 2014/15 Premier League campaign with a win at The Hawthorns, in what could be West Brom chairman Jeremy Pace’s final game at home.
Chelsea’s young players may be FA Youth Cup winners and European champions, but Jose Mourinho believes Ruben Loftus-Cheek’s ascension to the first team is the academy’s biggest prize this season.
Not since John Terry’s emergence almost 17 years ago have Chelsea produced a homegrown player to feature prominently in the first XI, but Mourinho clearly has plans for midfielder Loftus-Cheek and the Blues’ other youngsters, many of whom are English.
“This year, the most important title for the academy was Ruben, not the European or FA Youth Cup. It was Ruben,” Mourinho said.
The challenge will be to balance integrating the youngsters into his first team with winning matches and trophies, a process that begins with the Premier League champions’ clash at The Hawthorns on Monday night.
The 18-year-old Isaiah Brown is poised to make his debut against his former club West Brom and Loftus-Cheek will make his second successive Premier League start.
“Izzy Brown, he plays,” Mourinho said. “I want him to be champion and I want him to have his debut for Chelsea in the Premier League at West Brom.
“It means double for him to play for Chelsea, to be champions and to play against his old club.”
Loftus-Cheek, Nathan Ake and Andreas Christiansen have been training regularly with the first team this season, while there are high hopes, too, for Brown, Dominic Solanke, Lewis Baker, Jeremie Boga and Charly Musonda.
Loftus-Cheek, who is 19, made his debut in the Champions League defeat of Sporting Lisbon in December and his first start against Liverpool last week.
His potential is such that Mourinho intends to retain him in the first-team squad next term, while others of his generation will continue their development amongst Chelsea’s vast ranks of players out on loan.
Mourinho was asked, hypothetically, if the arrival of someone like Juventus’ Paul Pogba — a reported £70 million target for a host of Europe’s top clubs — would stifle the emergence of Loftus-Cheek.
Mourinho said no, believing instead that any incoming recruit could help push on the development of Chelsea’s youngsters to be potentially better than any signing.
“Maybe he is better than the player I buy,” Mourinho added.
“And if he is, he plays and the player I buy doesn’t. But at the moment he’s not better.”
Mourinho has high hopes for one first-team regular, expecting Oscar to benefit from an enforced rest as a result of a thigh injury to show a similar evolution next season to the one the outstanding Eden Hazard has enjoyed this term.
Brazil playmaker Oscar, who will miss this summer’s Copa America, has played round-the-year football for some time after featuring in the 2012 Olympics, 2013 Confederations Cup and 2014 World Cup.
Mourinho said: “Now, for the first time, he’ll have a proper rest, proper holidays, proper pre-season, which he never had too, and hopefully that can give him a base to develop.
“I really believe in Oscar’s talent. I have many hopes for him.”
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