Gael Kakuta under the sporlight for all the right reasons

Gael Kakuta was recognized as one of the brightest youth talents in France when he made a move from Lens to Stamford Bridge but the youngster came under the spotlight when FIFA imposed a transfer ban on Chelsea for inducing the player to break his contract with his former club. The Stamford Bridge outfit has already launched an appeal and while they await the final decision, Chelsea fans had the chance to see what all the fuss was about.

After Kakuta largely impressed playing for the reserves, Carlo Ancelotti included him in the squad for the Premiership game against Wolves and handed him debut when his side were already 4:0 up. The youngster played some great stuff during his first 30 minutes in the Premiership and showed he was a great prospect for the future.

It was evident he wasn’t afraid of the big chance he got and played as if he was well established player. Kakuta didn’t waste any time in passing the ball around as most youngsters do until they feel confident enough to try something special but he immediately started looking for ways to create chances for himself and the teammates. The 18-year-old Frenchman showed why he was considered the brightest talent in Chelsea youth academy by constantly taking the players on and almost every contact he had with the ball led to a chance.

Kakuta obviously cannot be judged by a single performance and he need to continue working hard in order to command a starting berth at Chelsea but he’s got all the qualities needed to become a world-class player and Ancelotti is definitely lucky to have him in the squad.

Kauta is not the only youngster with a bright future at Chelsea and credit to Frank Arnesen because it’s been a while since the Blues had so many talented players coming through the ranks. One of Chelsea goals was to have a successful youth academy and they are getting closer to their objective by the day. Serbian midfielder Nemanja Matic and Italian striker Fabio Borinia also played some part in the aforementioned Wolves game and they certainly didn’t disappoint, while centre-back Jeffrey Bruma is also touted as one to watch. Therefore, I can honestly say the future is bright at Stamford Bridge.

How will African Cup of Nations affect Chelsea’s chances?

One competition Premiership managers especially hate is African Cup of Nations since it often leaves them without several important players in the most important part of the season. Next edition of the competition will take part from 10th to 31st January but you should also take into account that the national teams are entitled to have the players around two weeks before the tournament starts. Therefore, Carlo Ancelotti will have to do without Drogba, Kalou, Mikel and Essien for approximately five Premiership matches. Seeing that we are talking about the crucial part of the season, this could be a problem.

First of all, Chelsea look like the hot favourites for the title with both United and Liverpool underperforming, although they will have to be wary of ever impressive Arsenal. Therefore, the Blues cannot afford to drop too many points during the Christmas holidays because that would put a big pressure on the team. The good thing is that Ancelotti has big enough squad to cope with the absentees unless the squad is hit with a big injury crisis. John Obi Mikel is not going to be sorely missed since he has barely featured this season, but losing Essien would definitely weaken the defensive part of the team. However, the boss could be handed a surprise boost since the Ghanian midfielder pulled out of the national team squad last weekend without having the consent of the Ghana coach and the national team officials have announced Essien could be banned from representing Ghana in the future.

The biggest blow will be losing Drogba and his replacement Kalou, since that will leave Nicolas Anelka as the only senior striker in the squad. There is a couple of ways how the boss can solve this problem. The first one is moving Joe Cole to partner Anelka, while playing Ballack as the tip of the diamond, while Ancelotti could also opt to modify his formation a little bit. The Italian also has two great young strikers in Borini and Sturridge, who have already proved their potential and this can be the right time to hand them the chance to shine. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

The most important thing, however, is that the Blues mostly face teams from the bottom part of the table during this period, thus the absence of aforementioned players shouldn’t be such a big problem. Chelsea are set to face Fulham, Sunderland and Birmingham at home, while playing Hull City and Burnley away, and they couldn’t have wished for the better fixture list. All the players will return in time to face Arsenal on 6th February and as things now stand, the next African Cup of Nations won’t do Chelsea a lot of harm. Therefore, the right betting strategy is to back Chelsea to win the Premiership at odds of 1.91 offered by 888sport.