{"id":132385,"date":"2025-08-09T18:36:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T18:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/132385\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T18:36:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T18:36:13","slug":"erik-ten-hag-predicts-chelsea-signing-will-be-a-big-hit-after-watching-him-vs-bayern-leverkusen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/132385\/","title":{"rendered":"Erik ten Hag predicts Chelsea signing will be a big hit after watching him vs Bayern Leverkusen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chelsea supporters certainly enjoyed watching several new faces play for them in their first game of pre-season.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Blues<\/a> got off to a winning start during a short pre-season schedule, beating Bayer Leverkusen 2-0 on Friday night at Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n

Enzo Maresca\u2019s side now only have Sunday\u2019s friendly match at home to AC Milan before their Premier League opener against Crystal Palace in eight days\u2019 time.<\/p>\n

Several Chelsea stars impressed against Leverkusen<\/a> during a fairly impressive performance, especially when you factor in they\u2019ve only returned to pre-season this week. Estevao Willian opened the scoring before Joao Pedro doubled the advantage in the closing stages.<\/p>\n

\"BayerPhoto by Domenic Aquilina\/NurPhoto via Getty ImagesErik ten Hag expects Jorrel Hato to shine at Chelsea<\/p>\n

Bayer Leverkusen manager Erik ten Hag<\/strong> delivered high praise on Chelsea\u2019s Jorrel Hato<\/a>, 19, after the pre-season friendly.<\/p>\n

When discussing Blues defender Hato, Ten Hag said via HaytersTV: \u201cFor sure he was one of the best, or maybe the best player, in the Eredivisie. He\u2019s so young but already on a very high level. I\u2019m very sure he will succeed at Chelsea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Chelsea completed the signing of Hato from Ajax. Even though Tottenham enquired about Hato<\/a>, the teenage defender sealed a move to West London to play for the Club World Cup champions.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Hato made his first-ever Chelsea appearance, entering the action as a half-time substitute against Leverkusen.<\/p>\n\nMinutes played<\/td>\nAccurate passes<\/td>\nTotal shots<\/td>\nChances created<\/td>\nTackles won<\/td>\nGround duels won<\/td>\nDribbled past<\/td>\nMatch rating<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n45<\/td>\n23\/26 (88%)<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n2\/2 (100%)<\/td>\n2\/2 (100%)<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n6.9<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Jorrel Hato for Chelsea vs Bayer Leverkusen via FOTMOB<\/a><\/p>\n

The Netherlands international slotted into the team at left-back extremely comfortably, picking up where teammate Marc Cucurella left off. It is worth mentioning that the youngster can play at centre-half, which could be useful due to Levi Colwill\u2019s ACL injury, but he mainly played as a left-back for Ajax last season.<\/p>\n

Blues head coach Maresca played a key role in Hato joining Chelsea<\/a>, and we can already see why the versatile left-footed defender will thrive in his system.<\/p>\n

\"JorrelPhoto by GLYN KIRK\/AFP via Getty ImagesMarc Cucurella will soon be looking over his shoulder<\/p>\n

First and foremost, Chelsea have done a superb job signing a talented defender to come and rotate with Cucurella for the left-back position.<\/p>\n

In the 2024\/25 campaign, Cucurella put in a mammoth effort to play 54 games across all competitions. Therefore, we\u2019re delighted to see that the minutes can be shared at full-back in the upcoming season because it was a glaring hole in the squad.<\/p>\n

While Cucurella definitely has possession of the shirt right now, he may need to stay at the top of his game to keep out the talented Dutch signing.<\/p>\n

Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink thinks Hato is a \u201ctop signing\u201d<\/a> for Chelsea this summer because he arrives with a lot of experience for a youngster. We expect the competition between the two Blues left-backs to be so fierce, and they should drive each other on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chelsea supporters certainly enjoyed watching several new faces play for them in their first game of pre-season. The…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":132386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[29009,80281,221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-132385","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-erik-ten-hag","9":"tag-jorrel-hato","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115000258463317948","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}