Chalobah: Mourinho watches as youngster fails to impress.

Now I have to say, I haven’t seen much of Nathaniel Chalobah this season at Watford for one reason or another, but from reports I have read and word of mouth, it appears that he has had an excellent season on loan.

So, I made a point of watching his performance (in addition to Jose Mourinho, who was there scouting him) yesterday, to see just how well he was playing. I have to admit, I was disappointed, to say the least!

Now, I understand and accept that you cannot judge a person on a single game and maybe the occasion got to him, but I think he would admit himself that he under performed.

His willingness to get into space to be given the ball was encouraging, although for the most part, the ball wouldn’t come to him. When he was given it, he looked calm and composed and had some nice touches. You could see he kept looking for the killer ball but it wasn’t on as Palace dropped deep to stop the ball being played in behind.

He found it difficult to cope with the way Palace were playing as he was not given time and space on the ball to hurt them.

Defensively, he didn’t do well at all. He was turned more than once, backed out of a tackle and never really looked like being a ball winner in the holding position. That was the most disappointing thing for me as I am sure Mourinho was there to take a look at him for the holding midfield position and to see if he was good enough to promote to the first team squad next season.

Like I said, it wasn’t a good performance and he was eventually substituted. You cannot judge someone on a single game and need to do it based on the whole season. The positive from the game is that it’s all part and parcel of learning your trade. He needs to learn from this and to move on to improve.

It’s just a shame that he had the game he did on arguably the biggest stage with the new manager watching.

Carefree & KTBFFH!