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Charly Musonda has hope of at least spending pre-season with Chelsea

By George Perry

BARCELONA, SPAIN - AUGUST 20: Lionel Messi (L) of FC Barcelona controls the ball next to Charly Musonda of Real Betis Balompie during the La Liga match between FC Barcelona and Real Betis Balompie at Camp Nou on August 20, 2016 in Barcelona, Spain. (Photo by Alex Caparros/Getty Images)
BARCELONA, SPAIN - AUGUST 20: Lionel Messi (L) of FC Barcelona controls the ball next to Charly Musonda of Real Betis Balompie during the La Liga match between FC Barcelona and Real Betis Balompie at Camp Nou on August 20, 2016 in Barcelona, Spain. (Photo by Alex Caparros/Getty Images) /
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Chelsea may have made a commitment to a young Belgian who started his career at Anderlecht. We’ll spare you the breathless clickbait: it’s Charly Musonda.

Amongst the loans made and transfers not made, Chelsea may have given one youth prospect an encouraging sign for the pre-season. Charly Musonda reportedly has his kit number with the first team secured ahead of next week’s assessments.

Normally we would offer any number of caveats around single-source reporting, particularly when that source is a pseudo-anonymous Twitter account. However, Chelsea Youth are a reliable, consistent and sober source of news pertaining to – wait for it – Chelsea’s youth.

Even if Musonda is wearing #17 throughout Asia on the pre-season tour, he is unlikely to be doing the same at Stamford Bridge come mid-August. At age 20 he has only 24 senior-level appearances, all at Real Betis in La Liga. That falls well short of the 150-200 appearances that apparently are the minimum. Musonda has several more years of loans left before he makes his first team debut for the Blues.

Related Story: Chelsea loans will start younger to build 150-200 games experience

Chelsea may have given Charly Musonda a kit number to ward off laughably low transfer offers. Celtic supposedly thought they could secure Musonda for a mere £5 million. The first-team number sends the message that Chelsea will discuss a loan but not a transfer, and that any transfer offers have to be serious.

If, somehow, Musonda is still in the squad come opening day, that will say more about Chelsea’s failings than his success. Musonda was well off the depth chart among coming into the off-season. If Antonio Conte deems it necessary to keep him around, the club will be admitting that many loans and transfers were premature, in addition to the transfer failings.

Next: Antonio Conte's Chelsea future in doubt due to transfer failings

With Nathaniel Chalobah ready to transfer and Ruben Loftus-Cheek weighing his loan options, Chelsea have heavier things to deal with among their youth than Charly Musonda’s first-team pre-season kit number. They should find Musonda a Premier League loan and then return focus on who will be leading the line in six weeks.

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