Maurizio Sarri hails Chelsea 'academy' trio as future of the club

Loftus-Cheek and Hudson-Odoi both impressed vs Brighton
REUTERS
Vaishali Bhardwaj3 April 2019

Maurizio Sarri hopes Chelsea's trio of academy graduates Callum Hudson-Odoi, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Andreas Christensen will lay the foundation for future success at Stamford Bridge.

However, the Chelsea manager acknowledged it may be hard for the club to keep all three players in the long term.

Sarri made seven changes to his starting line-up for the visit of relegation-battlers Brighton on Wednesday night, handing Hudson-Odoi his first Premier League start while starting Christensen and Loftus-Cheek - the latter of whom scored the winning goal in Chelsea's 2-1 comeback win away to Cardiff on Sunday.

The trio all impressed - with 22-year-old Christensen helping the Blues keep a clean sheet, 18-year-old Hudson-Odoi getting an assist and 23-year-old Loftus-Cheek scoring a superb goal and creating another for Eden Hazard as the Blues ran out 3-0 victors.

There have been question marks about Hudson-Odoi and Christensen's long-term futures at Stamford Bridge after the former handed in a transfer request in January amid interest from Bayern Munich while the latter expressed his frustrations with his lack of game time this term.

In Pictures | Chelsea vs Brighton | 03/04/2019

1/20

Sarri admitted after the win over Brighton that the trio have the quality to be the building blocks of success for Chelsea in the long-term, but conceded that keeping all three at the club may be hard.

"I think it's important Callum and Ruben and Christensen - he isn't English, but he's the same as he's an academy graduate - it's important for the club but also for the fans.

"I hope so [they can be the foundation for success at Chelsea]. I think so but I hope so. They are very important players but the potential is high up so in the future they can become top players. I think for this team the future could be good."

When asked about the potential struggle to keep all three, Sarri said: "I don't know, sometimes it's impossible to do something. As you can see in other teams, it's difficult to keep the young players especially here in England because the view is that if you're under 18 is that you can only sign for two years. So it's a big risk for the club."

Loftus-Cheek was forced off against Brighton in the 82nd minute with a minor hamstring issue, possibly just cramp, but has struggled all season long with back pain which he has had for several years.

Getty Images

And Sarri added on the midfielder: "Loftus[-Cheek] for the first time he doesn't have a probelm with his back so in the last 20 days was able to train every day.

"He played well, scored a wonderful goal but, after 75 minutes, he had a problem with his hamstring - only cramp I think.

"Tomorrow I want to be sure about his problem with his back. I have to say another thing. We are talking about Callum and Ruben but I was impressed by Christensen. So I want to speak also about him because in the last period, he played five or six matches very well."

AFP/Getty Images

When then asked about Hudson-Odoi, Sarri replied: "[He played] Very well. But I was sure about it.

"As I said in the press conference, Callum is ready to play in every match because he improved a lot in the season.

"I was sure about his performance, he played very well. But I am really happy with him because he defended well.

Getty Images

"It's important to have three offensive players who can defend or the balance of the team is a problem. Tactically, he is ready."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in