'Kick you and smile at you' – Pochettino raves about Chelsea player who’s barely played

Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino has been raving about one of the players in his squad who he has barely even used as of yet.

As the Argentine gets ready to face Newcastle United in the quarter finals of the League Cup this evening, he sat down with the media for his pre-match press conference yesterday afternoon.

EXCLUSIVE! Chelsea tracking Juventus CB, £50m Gallagher IS up for sale, Blues defender is NOT for sale, Transfer updates on Echeverri, Toney, Osimhen, Gyokeres, Nusa, Maatsen, Chalobah, and more..

As always, there was an embargoed section that for a reason I have never understood, gets released later on by the media, in this instance late last night.

Rounding up some of the later quotes I honed in on a very interesting segment about 19-year-old Chelsea player Alex Matos, who has been on the bench a lot late but has barely featured.

Matos has come through the Chelsea academy and has been training a lot of filling in bench places with the senior squad to cover injuries. But it looks like he has certainly caught the eye of The Blues head coach.

In words cited by The Daily Mail, Pochettino said: “His (Matos) personality, his character is always so focused. Of course he’s talented with potential. He’s really impressed me with his focus in everything. He’s so smart, watching always everything, always smiling.

“To compete with the first-team players is tough. But he’s really competitive, he’s really strong. He’ll kick you and smile at you.

“It’s nice to have this type of profile. I’m happy with him. There’s some massive talent in the academy in all the different teams.

“After four, five months we’ve had possibility to assess them all, and I think we have many young, talented players that, with time and given the possibility, can reach the level of Chelsea.”