Reece James has reached 100 games for Chelsea after two and a half seasons as a starter, and so the Athletic decided to do a really nice feature about his development as a player.
There’s lots of good stuff about him as a kid training in Sheen, but the best bits come when he goes on loan to Wigan, initially as a backup.
Before too long he’s showing everyone what he can do, and one of his teammates at the team remembers that before long he was the star of the side:
“I was on the bench for a lot of games at the start of the season and any time a player got it down the left wing, the guys on our bench would say ‘no chance’. And you’d see Reece just go over and take the ball off them. You’d almost feel bad for the player up against him. He was just too strong, too quick and his positioning was too good.”
We’re not surprised really. We still often feel the same way when we see players try to take him on now. The only difference is that these days it’s Champions League level wingers we’re pitying.
Apparently later that season “no-one would go near him in training,” so afraid of being bodied were they.
What makes the whole thing even funnier is how calm and peaceful Reece is. The gentle giant scaring his grown up teammates as a raw 18 year old.
Reece was truly awesome in his spell at Wigan and the fans adored him. In his last game the ref stopped the match as the whole stadium rose as one to applaud him off, grown men were in tears as he left the field for the last time. He really was that good.