Lucas Piazon is hoping that he has a good pre season with Chelsea in order to put himself in contention for a first-team place for the next Premier League campaign.
The Brazilian attacker has been on loan at La Liga club Malaga since January and has impressed the staff at La Rosaleda, and they’d probably welcome him back for another spell next season, but Piazon sees his future at Stamford Bridge.
We don’t yet know who the next permanent Chelsea manager will be but there have been strong indications that Jose Mourinho is due to return to West London. Whoever the manager will be, Piazon is hoping to make an impression during Chelsea’s tour in Asia.
The 19-year-old said:
“I will go back to Chelsea in July and I will do the pre-season with all the players at Chelsea, and then I think the new manager will decide who he wants to stay and who he wants to send on loan to other clubs.
“Of course I would prefer to stay at Chelsea. London is a great city, we have our house in London, my mother and sister live there and I have my friends there.
“I love the club and the people there because I have been for one and a half years and it is quite a long time. So it is my club. It is the club where I want to be.
“So if Chelsea want me to stay and the coach wants me to stay and play, that will be the best thing for me. If they decide to send me on loan for another season, it could be at Malaga or at another club, then I will try to improve myself so that I can get back to Chelsea.
“With my age it is difficult to play regularly for a big club like Chelsea, but if I can do a good pre-season with Chelsea as I did last year, I can be a player that will be there the moments the club need me. If I can play 20-30 minutes almost every game I can help the team to win and to get better.
“When I came to Malaga, the important thing for me was to play football and that is happening, so I am really pleased with the coach and with the club. It has been great to get the experience to play in a big league, so I can come back to Chelsea as a better player.”
I think his words are fairly refreshing as he is enjoying life as a Blue and is keen to put the work in to make his way into the side this season, but also shows patience by saying that he is willing to go back to Malaga (or elsewhere) in order to improve further until he is ready.
His ambition could become a little more difficult should Mourinho arrive than someone like Manuel Pellegrini, who already knows the qualities of the player, as the Portuguese manager hasn’t done enough to develop talent over his career and this may just be because he hasn’t stuck around anywhere long enough and usually is trying to win as much as possible in a short time. However, that’s not to say he can’t but showing his longevity is the real challenge of his career as he’s made history in four different countries already.
Piazon has played in 13 games for Malaga this season and has made a couple of assists. It’s probably a little too soon for him to start challenging the likes of Oscar and Victor Moses, but he’s going in the right direction.
