He’s endured a frustrating start to his Chelsea career but Michy Batshuayi is certainly making a name for himself during his short stints on the field. The Brussels born 23-year-old netted a last-gasp winner against Atletico Madrid on September 27th but his heroics remain unlikely to secure him a Premier League start anytime soon.
By John O’Leary
Batshuayi has played just 1047 minutes since joined the West London club and has managed 14 goals during that time. He plundered an 82nd-minute strike at the Hawthornes at the beginning of May to clinch the Premier League title for the Blues and also netted a crucial goal against Watford at the beginning of the campaign.
Despite his knack for scoring decisive goals, Antonio Conte proffered that Batshuayi still “has a lot of room for improvement” and “…struggled a lot to understand the league…” upon his arrival. He’s been largely restricted to appearances from the bench and outings in the Carabao Cup this season, a competition in which he recently netted a hat-trick against Championship outfit Nottingham Forest.
He made just one start last season but can boast the joint highest amount of goals from the bench for any Premier League club in 2017 netting four times in all competitions.
The Belgian’s late strike puts Chelsea top of their Champions League group with a maximum six points from their opening two encounters and they have Roma and Atletico Madrid trailing them with four games remaining.
Antonio Conte’s side could have been forgiven for under-performing at the Wanda Metropolitano with a crucial Premier League clash with Man City pencilled in the diary just four days later. Despite his heroics, Batshuayi is likely to retain his place on the bench with Alvaro Morata expected to lead the line at Stamford Bridge.
Despite having one less day to recover from their Champions League exploits, Oddschecker are expecting Chelsea to prevail against Pep Guardiola’s side in the 5:30 pm kick off in West London. City have won just one of their last five visits to Stamford Bridge and could struggle to contain the champions.
Batshuayi could play a pivotal role once again if deployed from the bench against Manchester City and his penchant for netting crucial goals is a handy weapon to possess. Antonio Conte must ensure a lack of playing time doesn’t hinder the big striker’s development and whilst the Chelsea hero must play the role of super-sub for the foreseeable future, his impact from the bench should not be underestimated by the opposition.