Chelsea’s Cherubs: Four youngsters who could have bright futures at Stamford Bridge

#2 Patrick van Aanholt

Now 23-years-old, Chelsea’s Dutch left-back Patrick Van Aanholt has very much paid his dues whilst part of the Chelsea youth system, with his current spell at Vitesse Arnhem his fifth loan spell since his joined the club in 2009. And as he begins to grow out of the loan cycle and begins to look for a more permanent role at a club, perhaps his impressive spell at Vitesse could be the convincing needed to replace an ageing Ashley Cole in Chelsea’s first team.

An almost constant fixture in the Vitesse team this season, Van Aanholt’s loan spell back in his home country has proven to be by far his most productive and the youngster really has a reputation as a top-class attacking left-back in the Erevdivise. With the fourth highest performance score of 678 in the whole squad, he fits very well into the modern-day mould of attacking full-backs, demonstrated by the 28 chances he created this season for his teammates and the 38 shots he has had this season. Admittedly, with a quite poor shot accuracy rate of 42%, he is not necessarily “good” at shooting, but his willingness to get forward and contribute to the attack is very impressive.

However, he shows the multiplicity of his skills with the way that he also contributes to defensive work, with one of his most impressive performances having come during a 1-1 draw with Roda JC in one of his first starts for Vitesse. Putting in a man of the match performance, 3 tackles and 4 interceptions showed how he is also capable of putting in the work to keep the score down at the other end, despite his confidence in going forward.