‘I’m really confident’ – Romeo Lavia names three future stars at Chelsea

Romeo Lavia has picked out Tyrique George, Josh Acheampong and Shim Mheuka as three possible stars of the future at Chelsea. Aged only 21 himself, Lavia has shown several flashes of brilliance since joining Chelsea in a £53million move from Southampton back in 2023. But it’s been far from plane sailing for Lavia. Having missed practically the entirety of his debut season through injury, the midfielder has been hampered by fitness problems again this term, managing just 12 appearances in all competitions under Enzo Maresca.

There are hopes Lavia could be welcomed back into the fold over the coming weeks, though Maresca is yet to put a timescale on his possible return to first-team action. Despite his frustrating start to life at Stamford Bridge, Lavia was this week named as one of the EA SPORTS FC 25 Future Stars, along with the likes of Lamine Yamal, Benjamin Sesko, Leny Yoro and Endrick. The Belgium international sat down to discuss his selection – and a range of other topics – with the Rising Ballers YouTube channel and revealed which of Chelsea’s young players could be on that list in the future.

‘Let me think… Ithink Tyrique George, I see Josh Acheampong,’ Lavia replied. ‘You guys probably don’t know him… well you probably do know him… Shim [Mheuka], good striker. ‘Yeah, I would say these three. I’m really confident in their abilities.’. Lavia went on to lift the lid on his own ambitions for the future, both on and off the pitch, and his desire to ‘give back’ to the footballing community.

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video. Up Next. ‘Off the pitch I want to give back to the community in general because I think, as footballers, we can do a lot more. That’s definitely one thing that I have in my heart,’ he added. ‘Obviously the people that are following us all the time… sometimes when we’re playing games and it’s raining and it’s bad weather, we think, “These people are there and they’re singing and they’re behind us all the time”, so it’s just giving that love back as much as I can.

‘On the pitch [I want to achieve] a lot. I’m aiming for the highest so every title that is there for me to grab then I will go for it. All the trophies I can think of, I’m going for it.’. While Lavia described playing against Cristiano Ronaldo as the ‘highlight’ of his career thus far, he picked fellow countryman Kevin De Bruyne as the ‘toughest’ opponent he had ever faced on the pitch.

Asked whether Ronaldo was the toughest player he had come up against, Lavia replied: ‘The toughest? Probably not because we’re not directly against each other. ‘The hardest I would probably say Kevin De Bruyne because I’d been with him for a full year at Manchester City in training, watching his moves, and then I moved to Southampton, played against him, thinking I know him… I didn’t know him!.

‘That was probably the toughest opponent I’ve played against, yeah.’. Lavia was deployed in a number of positions while rising through the ranks at, first, Anderlecht and, later, Manchester City, taking inspiration from several of his footballing ‘heroes’ throughout his development. ‘At the start you don’t really play in one position so you’re just watching Ronaldinho and Neymar and all these players,’ Lavia responded when asked to name his heroes in the game.

‘But at some point you start to get your own position and then your heroes start to drift into the position that you’re playing. ‘In general, I’d probably say [Lionel] Messi, Ronaldinho, Neymar, [Sergio] Ramos. I was playing striker, centre-back so there was a bit of everything. ‘In my position, mainly it was [Sergio] Busquets because when I started watching football that’s when they were probably at their best so I would probably say Busquets.

‘And then over the years I would probably say the likes of [N’Golo] Kante or Fernandinho so there are a lot of examples… but just to name a few.’. For more stories like this, check our sport page. Follow Metro Sport for the latest news on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Arrow MORE: Paul Scholes names four Manchester United players Ruben Amorim must replace. Arrow MORE: Paul Scholes says Mikel Arteta transfer target is ‘bigger and better’ than Arsenal.