In Part 2 of the Youth and Reserves season preview I will be focusing on the reserve team for the coming season. There has been a fair amount of change in the Reserves so let us start on those changes in this preview. First let us cover the players who have left Chelsea this summer, those players are players that have been regulars for the main part in the reserves squad. First one to depart in Niclas Heimann, Heimann hadn’t played that many games for the Reserves but has been in the age group for a while now.

Leaving was always on the cards for him with goalkeepers around him performing better, he has already found himself a Haxhia, Haxhia has been on the verge of leaving the club for a long while, his standards has never been high enough but with an injury to Sam Walker he was kept around for a while still.

Next to leave is right back Nana Ofori Twumasi, who is one who really struggled to make it a level higher and make an impact at reserve level let alone on loan, Ofori Twumasi however , has managed to find himself a club already and one at a higher level than many would have expected at Peterborough. Nikki Ahamed is the other right back to move on, Ahamed I always thought had good potential but it never really kicked in to that higher level and with some excellent full backs coming through the club they have taken the view to let him move on.

Finally we see Liam Bridcutt and Kenny Strickland move on. Liam has been with the club for a very long while and at times seemed to have good potential, however, never making it on loan and struggling to keep up with other players at the club when back sealed his fate. Currently trialling at Crystal Palace he may be lining up against us tomorrow afternoon. Lastly Kenny Strickland, a player who came in as cover only and never really looked on the right level was always going to be moving on this summer.

So those are the players that we have seen depart. The next big chance is to the actual format of the Reserves league. This has finally been revealed in the last couple of days. This is massively long overdue and is still not enough in the eyes of people who follow the Reserves. What this means is that the league has been split into three groups, one southern group and two northern groups. Chelsea will play every team in the southern section home and away, plus they will play each of the northern teams once with the games split evenly between home and away. This means an increase in just four games from 16 to 20. This is still no-where near enough games when what you want is them to be playing over 30 games a season to really continue their development. Still it is a step in the right direction.

So what can we expect from the Reserves this season? Well as always Steve Holland will have to compete with working with different players all the time, we will see the young players making first team appearance getting game time in the Reserves, first team players who are back from injury, the group of players moved up from the Youths who can no longer play for the Youths and Youth players making early in roads. Still there will be a core of players around mainly being the players who are moving up from the Youths, players like Lalkovic, Kaby, B Clifford, Aziz Deen Conteh, Rohan Ince, Marko Mitrovic etc. This is a successful group of players who have worked very hard to be where they are and now they need to make the next step and show that they can cut it with the big boys.

With a lot of players moving on and more to go on loan we have a very good core group of players to play with the Reserves this season, so let’s hope we can see some good things from this group of players, and when we come to Man Utd, Man City and Liverpool let’s hope we make a good account of ourselves and show that Chelsea is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to Youth players.