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Charley Musonda Charley Musonda

Charly Musonda is back, does he have a chance at Chelsea?

Chelsea signed Charly Musonda from Anderlecht back in 2012 and he was deemed as one of the highest rated wonderkids around.

8 years later at 24-years of age, and the former Belgium under-21 international is far from living up to those expectations, but here is why?

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He was a slow grower –

His physicality was often far too weak in any league he played in, he was knocked off the ball far too easily, and being too light-weight hampered his progress.

He showed great signs on loan spells at Betis most notably, but he never really gave us that extra factor.

He’s been hampered with injuries –

All his loan spells have been negatively effected due to various different injury struggles, and despite showing signs of real quality, his injuries stopped him from being able to build up any real momentum of good form.

His latest injury was career-threatening –

Some Doctors believed that Musonda would not play professional football again after his latest knee injury that required major surgery last year.

So, what now, and does he still have a Chelsea career?

Well, against all odds, Musonda has just started training again at Cobham again and he is expected to join full training with the Chelsea under-23s very soon.

Remarkably, he has transformed in physical stature and looks a lot more built, a lot stronger; which will hopefully cure the problem of him being too light-weight when he was younger. Especially in the Premier League, this will help him immensely as a winger.

He always had the pace, the balance, the skill, and a good low centre of gravity to be a real menace out wide. But now he should be able to carry the ball without being knocked off if it too easily.

We don’t know the exact plans for Musonda, but you would expect that Frank Lampard would be keen to at least take a look at him before making any decisions.

He has a contract at the club until the summer of 2022, so there is a bit of time to decide on his future. But as for his immediate future, you might see him going out on loan next month if he is deemed fit enough. This would be the ideal move for all, and will give Lampard a chance to assess him playing in senior matches.

The other scenario is that he stays at Chelsea, works on his match fitness playing for the under-23s, and perhaps gets called on by Lampard if and when he feels he can give him some minutes in the first team, or if he needs some extra numbers or a different option in attack.

In conclusion –

I have always rated Musonda as a potentially top class player, but always felt he was too light-weight to make it big time.

However, he has addressed that and I’d be very eager to see him play again now to make sure he hasn’t lost his pace, confidence, or any of his ability as can quite often happen after a major injury like this.

But if he still has the pace to add to that physicality, then he could potentially become a very good and powerful winger for Chelsea, hopefully!

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