The last few days have seen quite a few Chelsea youngsters talking about where they see themselves next season. With a new manager at the helm, no doubt everyone's perked up, and with good reason too, since the opportunity to work with a world class manager of Mourinho's caliber doesn't come around that often.
Kenneth Omeruo was among the quartet of Blues who had successful loan spells in Netherlands last season, add to that a fairly solid outing with Nigeria in the international fixtures and it looks like the club management might've decided to take a more serious stance on his development, as it would seem he is in discussion for retention at the club when the new season rolls around.
How do we know that? Well, Omeruo's representatives recently got talking to MTNFootball, and told them some rather promising things:
"It is now 95% certain that Kenneth will finally team up with Chelsea for the coming season. Mourinho has said he wants to work with Kenneth after watching him at the recent Africa Cup of Nations.
He watched him against Didier Drogba at the Nations Cup and he said he liked what he saw.
He will therefore not be heading back to Dutch club ADO Den Haag, where he spent the last one and half seasons on loan."
While on the face of it, this might be very nice news, it'll be harder to accomplish than made out to be. Omeruo only started turning out for Nigeria at the start of the year, which means he's some way off the necessary 75% appearance benchmark (across two years) players need to have their work permits approved for playing games in England.
Regardless, there's a chance he might be allowed a backdoor entry, especially if the club file for a special talent work permit, which is what they did for fellow Nigerian John Obi Mikel. No matter what happens, the fact that he already occupies the thoughts of his manager speaks volumes about how far he has come in terms of development as a youngster. If he can ply his trade in England, he could make for valuable depth at the club; if not, I'm sure we'll have no trouble finding a suitable loan destination for the budding teenager.