Ally McCoist insists 26-year-old is in Chelsea’s best team and should be starting

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Ally McCoist insists Ben Chilwell needs to be recalled into Chelsea’s starting line-up.

One of the early criticisms so far of Mauricio Pochettino has been his team selection, with the Blues head coach making some eye-catching decisions. For instance, Ben Chilwell has had an intriguing start to the campaign.

We’ve been used to seeing Chilwell shine as the club’s first-choice left-back in recent years. That’s not been the case under Pochettino so far, though.

The 26-year-old started the campaign playing further up the pitch as a winger. Now, he’s not even been in the starting line-up for the past couple of Premier League matches.

TalkSPORT pundit McCoist is adamant Pochettino needs to reinstate Chilwell to Chelsea’s best XI straight away.

“Ben Chilwell is in Chelsea’s strongest team I don’t care what anybody says. There’s got to be a level of criticism at the feet of Poch. I don’t think he’s playing his strongest team,” McCoist told talkSPORT.

Incidentally, Pochettino confirmed yesterday (via Nizaar Kinsella) that Chilwell will play in Wednesday night’s Carabao Cup third round tie at home to Brighton.

It seems a no-brainer to a lot of Chelsea fans to bring Chilwell back into the side in his most familiar role. We can spot an easy path of shifting Levi Colwill across to the centre-back position and vacating left-back for Chilwell.

Journalist Matt Law recently told the London Is Blue podcast that Chilwell is extremely well liked by everyone around Chelsea.

When fit, we think the Blues vice-captain should be one of the first names on the team sheet at left-back.

There’s going to be a much better balance to the XI once conventional full-backs are in their roles.