U.S. national team defender Matt Miazga, 20, became the first American to play for Chelsea on Saturday.
[ MORE: Miazga Watch - How’d he do? ]
Miazga impressed as he played the full 90 minutes at center back in his debut for the reigning Premier League champions.
His long-ball distribution could’ve been better and he lost a few aerial duels with Rudy Gestede, but overall he put in a very competent display to help Chelsea to a 4-0 win over Aston Villa.
Speaking to the club website after the game the New York Red Bulls academy product was happy to get his first minutes in a Chelsea shirt.
After joining Chelsea in January from Major League Soccer, Miazga was thrown in by interim boss Guus Hiddink alongside other youngsters Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Kenedy with Chelsea’s top four hopes all but over as they sit 10 points behind fourth place with seven games to go.
[ MORE: Hiddink - “Miazga had a proper game” ]
With Kurt Zouma out with a long-term knee injury, the future of veteran captain John Terry uncertain as his contract expires this summer and a new manager arriving (believed to be Antonio Conte, but not yet confirmed) at Stamford Bridge, maybe the New Jersey native has a growing role to play at center back for Chelsea’s first team in the coming months.
It’s likely that Miazga will get a few more run outs in the final seven games of the season as Chelsea wind down a disappointing 2015-16. He certainly did his chances of getting more minutes under his belt no harm at all with a composed display on Saturday.
Even though Miazga handled the challenge of the PL’s bottom club comfortably, there will be much greater challenges ahead.
