England Under-21 manager Lee Carsley was full of praise for “exciting” Chelsea talent Noni Madueke, whom he believes only needs opportunities at the club to realise his “high potential”.
Madueke‘s man-of-the-match performance for the Young Lions certainly impressed a lot of people, including several of his Chelsea teammates.
His dribbling ability is arguably his strongest asset, but just as he showed last weekend and at PSV Eindhoven, he can be a prolific attacker.
Carsley, however, argued that Madueke will need more game time to unlock his potential, which is harder to get at Chelsea than at PSV.
“Seeing him get that goal and two assists was really pleasing,” Carsley told the media when speaking about Noni Madueke (via the Evening Standard).
“I think his style of play will really suit the Premier League. He’s exciting, fast, direct, and very versatile but what we have to remember is he is still young.
“He is going to need time, match minutes, the time to work on his game but he has high potential.
“Like a lot of the younger players, he just needs an opportunity. They need opportunities to show that talent and given a run of games he will be fine.”
The right-winger has only made four appearances for the Blues so far and started in just two of them.
Since he is not part of Chelsea’s Champions League squad, he is also at a clear disadvantage in terms of competitions for spots.
At some point in February, Graham Potter seemed to see him as his first-choice right winger, ahead of Hakim Ziyech, but the formation change — from a back-four to a back-three — had a big impact on the attacker pecking order.
That said, as Carsley pointed out, Madueke is versatile, so he is likely able to adapt to the new system.
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