Chelsea under-21 striker Reece Mitchell has admitted his delight at Guus Hiddink giving him the chance to play with the first team over Christmas, according to London24.
The 20-year-old has been on Chelsea’s books for nearly 10 years and got the chance to make an impression to Hiddink when he and other youngsters were put against the first-team in a recent training session.
We’ve been able to have a bit of time off over Christmas but we were back in before the New Year and had the chance to meet Guus Hiddink and play an in-house game against some of the first team players not involved against Watford on Boxing Day, which was a big test for us.
The forward is now hoping to stay injury-free and to convince Hiddink to give him a chance for the Chelsea first team, whose strikers have been notably goal dry this season.
You get a lot of good challenges at this level with the first team players that are often involved for other teams; earlier in the season I was up against Martin Olsson playing for Norwich and that was really good for me to test myself against that level of senior player.
With Mourinho gone, Chelsea now seem eager to blood through some of the talented youngsters from the Academy that won the FA Youth Cup and under-19’s European Championship double just last year.
Up next for Mitchell and Chelsea’s U21s side is a couple of tricky games, firstly away to Tottenham Hotspur and then a tough match against last season’s FA Cup final opponents, Manchester City at the Academy Stadium.
