6 Chelsea youngsters who will be looking to impress Enzo Maresca in pre-season

Chelsea have an awful lot of football players on their books. An awful lot of football players.

Do you need to borrow a 19-year-old promising midfielder to help get you promoted back to the Premier League? Give the Blues a shout. Would you like a promising young striker with England age group experience to come and help you out for a year? Pop down the Bridge.

A whole host of young ballers are going to be doing their very best to catch Enzo Maresca’s eye down Cobham and on the pre-season tour this summer. Let’s have a look at some of those who are most likely to break into the first team at some point in 2024-25.

Alfie Gilchrist

Academy Player of the Year 2023-24, born in Kingston-upon-Thames, six feet tall, shaved head like a proper hard case. The ingredients are all there. This lad was born to play in defence for the Chels.

Future Chelsea captain, actually. You heard it here first. That’s our bold prediction. Might stick a tenner on it. The 20-year-old made a few senior team appearances toward the back end of last season, and he didn’t look out of place at all.

Gilchrist faces very stiff competition but we think he could be set to make a breakthrough in 2024-25.

Andrey Santos

This young Brazilian midfielder arrived from Vasco de Gama with a big reputation and sackloads of promise but has yet to make a first-team appearance for the Blues.

They sent him back to Vasco da Gama on loan, then to fellow Premier League side Nottingham Forest. Santos struggled for game time at Forest, probably because they found themselves fighting relegation and points deductions and so had to rely on experience to drag them out of the mire.

Santos was then loaned out to Strasbourg in France, where he played a little more regularly but still not as much as he and Chelsea would’ve hoped. Another loan probably looms, but pre-season could be his opportunity to show Maresca what he’s all about.

Cesare Casadei

You might recognise Casadei as a central midfield wonderkid from Football Manager. He racked up 11 Premier League appearances last season after six months at Leicester on loan, where he helped them win promotion back to the Premier League.

Casadei is ready for the top flight and might well break into the first team this season. We fancy the young Italian to machete his way through the stacked Chelsea midfield and nail down a place in the starting XI at some point in 2024-25.

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Angelo

Another young baller who Football Manager fans will be well aware of, Angelo spent last season on loan at Strasbourg alongside his compatriot Andrey Santos.

The nineteen-year-old was a first-team regular at Strasbourg, but didn’t manage to find the back of the net, and that’s where he needs to improve if he’s going to break the senior team in West London.

Angelo is oddly shy in front of goal for a modern winger, scoring just once every 30 games or so, so far.

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Carney Chukwuemeka

Chukwuemeka joined Chelsea from Aston Villa in 2022, and broke into the first team fairly quickly.

At the beginning of the 2023-24 season, however, the attacking midfielder came out of the blocks like a greyhound, and looked set to be the Blues’ breakout star of the season, scoring his first senior goal against West Ham.

Then the injury came. An awful knee injury followed by an ankle injury upon his return essentially put an end to his season.

If he can get himself back to full fitness in pre-season, there will be a place for him in this Chelsea team. It all depends on how his body is coping with the strain.

Harvey Vale

Vale captained Carney Chukwuemeka in the England Under-19 team that won the Under-19 Euros last year. He was Chelsea’s Academy Player of the Year in 2022, and played 47 games for League One Bristol Rovers in 2023-24.

Primarily, Vale is a left-back, but he’s versatile and even played in goal briefly for Fulham’s youth team, as well as playing as a striker and a number 1o.

That match experience with The Gas will prove valuable for the 20-year-old on his return to West London, and with Ben Chilwell’s tendency for injury and Marc Cucurella seemingly unable to win over the fans, Vale may find himself thrust into the first team sooner rather than later.