FRANK LAMPARD has called up Chelsea’s Under-14s captain Charlie Holland to train with the first team amid a disastrous season.
Holland was spotted running alongside stars like Conor Gallagher, Thiago Silva and Mateo Kovacic as well as first-team fitness coach Matt Birnie.
Earlier this month, the talented teenager captained the Blues’ Under-14s to a 5-0 victory over Fulham in the Albert Phelan Cup South final.
Academy players are often invited to train with the first team, but that honour is usually reserved for the Under-21s and Under-18s.
This comes amid the West Londoners’ turbulent campaign that has seen them drop to 11th place in the Premier League table.
Chelsea, though, managed to finally win a game under Lampard, who returned on an interim basis last month.
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The Blues beat Bournemouth 3-1 on Saturday at Dean Court and ended their six-match losing streak under their caretaker boss.
Lampard is now hoping to rekindle the success of his first stint, which included some heavy investment on young talent, ahead of Saturday’s clash with Nottingham Forest.
The club legend promoted the likes of Mason Mount, Reece James, Tammy Abraham and Fikayo Tomori.
The West Londoners’ record goalscorer is now doing the same with the likes of Noni Madueke, Benoit Badiashile as well as Holland.
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And the former Everton boss has confirmed that no one’s place in the team is secured as we’re heading towards the end of the season.
When asked if both Madueke and Badiashile will get more opportunities, Lampard said: “It’s probably not easy to answer that.
“To a degree, yeah, but I’ll have to think about [Nottingham] Forest, see what the week says. Of course, my role now is to try to give those players minutes, to show and grow a little bit in the team.
“But also, as much as there’s that, I have to work with all the players and they all have to respect what I’m trying to do.
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“So if they’re training well there are other players who will be pushing those players too, so they do need to have a level of performance. Noni’s performance on Tuesday [at Arsenal] got him in the team, even though he was not so well earlier in the week.
“We all saw Benoit and it’s pretty clear that he’s got a big talent. So those are decisions I’ll have to make, but they do have to keep their level and they do have to keep pushing and we’ve got a tough run-in.
“The last week’s got three games and against three of the top teams, two of them away from home. So we’ll probably need to use the squad a little bit in that period anyway.”
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
