Ruben Loftus-Cheek is this week’s hot player when it comes to Chelsea chatter and it’s no surprise given the superb debut he made for England last night.
The usual moaners have been out saying “look what he can do when given a chance”, and of course they’re right that the 21 year old has tons of ability.
But their complaint that Antonio Conte was wrong to play RLC as a forward or winger on occasion last season misses the point entirely. You have to look at the context in which Ruben was picked to understand Conte’s decision. As a youngster and squad option, he was coming into the team in cup games.
Conte wasn’t playing him there because he wanted to, he was playing him there because it was the only way to fit him into the second string that played in those games. Cesc Fabregas and Nat Chalobah the third and forth choice midfielders for the first team, so they took up those spots in the second string.
That mean that Conte would either have to change formation to accommodate RLC, or play him in place of the rested Hazard, on the opposite side to whichever of Pedro or William wasn’t first choice at that point.
It’s disingenuous to suggest that Conte was misusing Ruben because of a lack of understanding of his best position – it was simply a pragmatic decision dictated the need to squeeze the second best XI players in the squad into the same formation that the first team used.
While developing young players is important, sometimes that has to be balanced with the needs of the team. In this case it was the team – and the needs of the equally promising Nat Chalobah – that won out.
