Young Chelsea star Shim Mheuka pushing for first-team chance with red-hot form | OneFootball

Free-scoring young striker is making himself hard for Enzo Maresca to ignore

The forward, who turned 18 last month, has been in red-hot form this season and scored his latest goals when he hit a brace for England’s Under-19s in Wednesday's 2-0 win in a European Championships qualifier against Lithuania.

His performances have been the talk of Cobham and earned him first-team minutes for Enzo Maresca’s side with 20 minutes off the bench in September’s 2-1 Carabao Cup win at Lincoln City.

Club and country: Shim Mheuka has impressed for England as well as Chelsea

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The teenager has sustained his goalscoring form and is pushing for greater involvement in Maresca’s first team.

Last month, Standard Sport reported that sources had confirmed Mheuka is “one of, if not the most regular” academy player invited to join in with first-team training, participating in sessions even more regularly than Maresca’s self-confessed favourite academy player, 17-year-old midfielder Reggie Walsh.

Mheuka has six first-team appearances for Chelsea.

After making his Premier League debut off the bench in February’s 4-0 win over Southampton, he said: “I felt like I could go onto the Stamford Bridge pitch with zero hours of sleep and still be energised and ready for a game.

“I’d played it out in my head many times. Everything was how I imagined it to be.”