J.Mceachran: It's Time For The Blues To Give A Serious Thought To This Lad

Chelsea need to give a serious thought to the young midfielder...

Joshua Mark "Josh" McEachran ever heard that name lately? Yes readers I’m talking about our 19 year old young left footed talented midfielder, Last you would have heard of him would be on 17th January 2012 when Josh completed a loan move to Swansea City. And on finalising the deal he told Blues News that he was looking forward to working under former Chelsea reserves coach and Swansea manager Brendan Rodgers. I want to get game time to be honest, and it will be good playing for Brendan. Swansea play really good football and I'm looking forward to it.
Well AVB sent him there in a move which was meant to benefit the U-21 Three Lions midfielder and provide him more playing time. Which at Chelsea he unfortunately couldn’t get due to an already packed and experienced midfield.All and all at Swansea he made just 4 appearences which is quite poor for a young talent like Josh in my opinion.

Well moving on from all those past happenings. Let’s see how Josh played under several CFC coaches.

Under the management of Carlo, McEachran was deployed mainly as a defensive midfielder in his appearances for the first team,usually replacing Michael Essien or John Obi Mikel, although his prefers playing as a centre midfielder.

However, under the management of Villas-Boas he was given a more advanced attacking role. Villas-Boas commented on McEachran saying "This is a youngster with so much talent, Physique-wise, there is nothing to him at the moment. In the changing room you see him getting ready to go and train and he looks nothing like a footballer. His power and pace is in his head.

Great abilities and calm and composed on the ball; needs playing time

Well whatever you read till now fellows does give you a clear picture that this lad has talent and has potential. My main concern is that Chelsea don’t forget one of their own handcrafted player’s in the Chelsea Academy. Yes Mr. Roman and Chelsea are not yet done with their shopping spree from the transfer window and are looking for players.

Chelsea and the board should have Josh in their sights in their long term plans. The ability this lad has is impecable and he has proved it from 2009 or so. Josh even got the Oxfordshire Sport Award: Sport Man of the Year 2010 and Chelsea Young Player of the Year  2011 which justifies his talent.

Carlo put his faith upon him and often used him as a sub in the Champions League and the Cup competitions in which Josh gave some awesome performances (considering his age and experience then) He often scored the opening goal in the Barclays Asia Trophy which is the highlight of his career and after that many fans did expect Josh to atleast be a regular substitue and not a starter unfortunately those remained just cold expectations.

Now let’s analyse his style of play-

Our number 10 Mata has got nothing but words of appreciation for Josh.

Josh's best attributes are his ability of unlocking defenses with his close control on the ball, vision and composure. McEachran has said he idolized Zinedine Zidane growing up by saying "With Zidane it was everything about him, his goals, his touches. He was the complete all-round midfielder.". When Zidane retired he looked up to Andrés Iniesta.

Former Chelsea player and our former assistant manager Ray Wilkins recalled the first time he laid eyes on McEachran saying: "A couple of years back, when I had just joined Chelsea, I was watching an Under-17 match between us and Racing, a club side from Argentina. Josh was playing, despite only being 15; I'd never seen him play before, but in the first half he cut inside someone and played an inch-perfect pass inside the full-back. I turned to the other Chelsea coaches next to me and said, 'That's Liam Brady!' It was the biggest compliment I could think of at the time.

Josh has even blown away his viewers with his sensational performances at the international level....

Stuart Pearce, the England national football team under-21 manager, praised McEachran after a friendly against Italy. “Chelsea think extremely highly of him and you can see why," said Pearce. "He’s got ability and vision. “All of our cutting passes probably came from him. Henri Lansbury has got the insight to play those passes but I think, in Josh, he’s got an outstanding talent, similar to Jack Wilshere, and it bodes well for us.

Impressed already? Yes fellow Blues this lad has abilities and has earned loads of aclaim from his coaches for his  techniques and his awareness as a player.

But the question is will Chelsea call him back from Swansea and give him time to play? Josh could be like what FC Barcelona’s number 11 Thiago or he could be the next Ziziou or Iniesta. And we all know we are in the rebuilding process so why not add a young budding,hungry and a creative young lad?

It all depends on the CFC technical directors and management.In my view Josh is ready for the next level and if Chelsea don’t provide him enough playing time they will never know how good he can be or how good he will be. This young lad pictured above is an emerging talent and deserves his chance and if Chelsea don’t give him one he could be on his way to another loan move somehwere else.

Till then KTBFFH fellow Blues as always...

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