Wonderkid contract hopes crushed by blunt Maresca in presser – right back slot now open

Youngster Josh Acheampong was spotted training with Chelsea in the open training session today at Cobham, and that got everyone (including us) very excited.

The academy kid has been frozen out of both first team and youth team action until he signs a new contract, so seeing him travel to Germany got everyone excited that there might have been a breakthrough. With Reece James out and Malo Gusto also struggling for fitness recently. it’s a perfect moment for Acheampong to make his breakthrough.

Well, if you were hopeful about that – bad news. In his press conference just now, Enzo Maresca made it very clear that Acheampong’s presence doesn’t indicate any change in his status, and doesn’t point to any impending contract breakthrough as far as he knows:

“There is not any update in terms of contract or these kind of things. He had a session with us in the last two days with some of the young players. He is not in the squad for tomorrow and we have four or five from the second team with us,” Maresca explained pretty clearly. When asked if the youngster would play, he was equally negative.

“No, nothing. He is just training with us in the last two days. There is no update on contract or these kind of things.”

Fans hopes dashed

Well, there we are then. Those hopes lasted just a few hours. We can still pray that this involvement with the first team pushes Josh a little closer to agreeing a new deal – but we’ve seen with the sporting directors’ previous attempts to strong-arm players that these sort of antics invariably push them away rather than actually leading to them signing a new deal.

As for who plays at right back tomorrow night… Axel Disasi anyone?