Ben Chilwell gives Mauricio Pochettino another option by staking his claim to become the Chelsea captain
Chelsea left-back Ben Chilwell has staked his claim to captain the team as manager Mauricio Pochettino is still deciding on who will lead the team out from next season onwards.
Previous club captain Cesar Azpilicueta left the club this summer to sign for Spanish giants Atletico Madrid. His role in the team as a regular starter was diminishing anyway.
A few days ago, as quoted by Mirror, Reece James’ father admits that the 24-year-old would like to take the role of leading the team out. Pochettino said that the Englishman is one of the contenders.
Here’s what Chilwell said when talking about his ambition to captain Chelsea (h/t Chelsea official website):
“I would love to be captain. I’m sure you’ve had that answer off a few of the players.
“I was captain of the youth team at Leicester and thoroughly enjoyed it. I think it brings the best out in me and my game, having a little bit more pressure and trying to help people around me. I think it’s one of my strengths.
“I don’t think you need an armband to be a leader though, so whether I get it or I don’t I’ll continue to do what I’m doing.”
Not that age matters when it comes to deciding the next captain of the side, but Chilwell is two years older than James. And as the former mentioned in the quote above, he has the experience of this role in his youth days.
The key factor to look at here is that both the fullbacks have missed a lot of games due to injuries in the last couple of seasons. If we look at the numbers, Chilwell has missed 58 games while James missed 46 games due to different injury setbacks in that period of time.
With that sort of an availability record, will Pochettino take a risk and make either of them the captain garnering hope that the injury concerns are behind them? It is difficult to gauge that.
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The obvious option would be Thiago Silva, but the Brazilian is 38 now and will not be a long-term captaincy candidate. While writing this article, we have confused ourselves. So, it is understandable why Pochettino is taking time before making a final decision.