Chelsea wonderkid Reece James has at some point played every single position on the football pitch, according to the player’s father and former coach.
The 19-year-old is primarily considered a right-back and has shone in that role in his career so far, the bulk of which has been spent on loan at Wigan Athletic.
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Chelsea fans can now be very excited about the young talent they have on their hands here, with Frank Lampard handing him two opportunities to play in his first-team so far this season.
It remains to be seen how much more of James we’ll see this term, but Lampard has shown he’s ready to trust his youth after promoting the likes of Mason Mount, Tammy Abraham and Fikayo Tomori to key roles in his side.
James could fill in in a number of areas is his father’s claims to Alex Goldberg are anything to go by, with the coach giving an exciting insight into his development in the clip below:
Why is Reece James such a versatile footballer?
Listen to this brilliant answer from his Dad, who is also a coach. pic.twitter.com/bSV1HBcr00
— Alex Goldberg (@AlexGoldberg_) October 16, 2019
“Reece would never play in the position that he played at Chelsea,” his father said. “If Reece was a central midfielder, he’d play centre-back for me. When he was young and playing at centre-forward, he’d play left-back for me, he’d play right-back for me.
“Reece has actually played every single position on the pitch.
“I never used to believe in putting numbers on the back of shirts. If you give someone the number 9, he automatically thinks ‘I’m a centre-forward’, but if you just put them out there and say ‘you’re going to play here, you’re going to play there and the next ten minutes you’re going to play there and you’re going to play there’, they all know ‘I might have to play in defence’ but there’s no numbers to confuse them.”