Up to five young players may make their Chelsea debuts against AFC Wimbledon in the Carabao Cup tomorrow night, according to Mauricio Pochettino.
In his pre-game press conference, he stated that there would be a chance for all of the young players to demonstrate to the management what they can accomplish for the first team.
It may not come as a surprise that Pochettino is seeking to rotate whenever possible for the League Cup match tomorrow after a difficult start to the season in the Premier League.
He has so far only made enforced changes to his line-up in the Premier League, with them coming after injuries to Reece James and Carney Chukwuemeka.
However, he may look past those who have been on the bench for the majority of league games to look at those who are currently representing youth teams.
Pochettino hints five debuts
He has claimed that there could be as many as five yongsters called upon for tomorrow night’s game.
He said: “We are not thinking in this way, we are thinking to start with XI players who can perform in the way we want. Our assessment and our risk, we are going to use four or five young guys.
“Chelsea always produces good talent, young kids, now it is about opportunity. It is not because it is our philosophy, it’s because we need to bring young guys to the first team because we have some players who cannot play tomorrow.
“Part of the project is to produce players for the first team because the players and coaches are working so hard.”
It will be interesting to see who is chosen by the manager. However, one player who should definitely start is Lesley Ugochukwu after his impressive bench display recently.
