Manuel Pellegrini is obviously a firm believer in the old saying: “If they are good enough they are old enough.”
It’s been a lot of years since West Ham have seen youngsters blooded to the extent we have seen this season.
Declan Rice’s arrival in the first team now seems a predictable, foregone, conclusion but cast your minds back to the early days when it was anything but!
Then came Grady Diangana with promising appearances from Conor Coventry with Xande Silva also getting an FA Cup excursion.
Meanwhile a group of elite youngsters are training with the first team and the accent at the club looks set fair to remain on youth
It’s a refreshing approach from a manager in his first season at a club where the pressure is always on and shows that he has no worries about them failing and putting himself under pressure as a result.
Some are unforgiving in their assessment of managerial approaches and this is an easy area to pick fault if any of the young bloods fail to perform when a game is lost.
And ahead of the Chelsea match talking to reporters he said: “All the clubs are different. At some teams you can have the option to play with so many young players.
“Every Saturday or every time that we have to play the game, the best players. It doesn’t matter about their age.”
He added: “As a manager you must be used to pressure, but you must continue doing what you believe is the best way to win a game. Before the game and during the game. After that, personally, always when I don’t win the game I make self criticism about the mistakes.
“If you are always feeling you must do something because the pressure will be too high? I don’t think you can be a top manager.
“Chelsea in this moment are one or two points out of the spots of the Champions League for next season. Maybe they are not involved in the title race but they continue fighting for the Europa League.
And they were in the final of the League Cup, so when we finish the season if Chelsea are in a spot of the Champions League I think that will be a good season for Chelsea and Maurizio Sarri.”