Marco Van Ginkel Still Has a Role to Play in the Future for Chelsea

Marco van Ginkel was among the first signings of Jose Mourinho’s second spell in charge at Chelsea. Brought in from Vitesse Arnhem in 2013 for a fee believed to be in the region of £8 million, per BBC Sport, the 21-year-old Dutch midfielder has seen his time in London blighted by injury.

Having shown plenty of promise during pre-season, a horrific cruciate ligament tear sustained against Swindon Town in the Capital One Cup ended his season early, per the Daily Mail, and kept him out of the Netherlands squad which reached the World Cup Final.

Having recovered over the summer, van Ginkel was sent on loan to AC Milan to get regular game time. According to comments he made to Dutch newspaper Omroep Gelderland, per Bruce Archer at the Daily Star, the youngster was upset at not being included in the Blues’ Champions League squad and was hopeful of nailing down a regular place in the Serie A side.

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Milan were interested in me for a long time and they wanted to buy me from Chelsea, they followed me when I played at Vitesse and during the European Under-21 Championships, I think when we played against Italy.

Chelsea? I have not been put on the Champions League list, whilst there are also many foreigners in the squad, so someone had to leave.

"

Injury struck again and he left the pitch after just half an hour of his Milan debut, per the Daily Mail, and despite only being out for two weeks, he has not featured for the first team since.

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This led Mourinho to talk about bringing van Ginkel back to the Premier League in January, per the Evening Standard. While the youngster may prefer to stay at Milan, as indicated to the club’s TV channel before the Milan derby, via The Express, the fact that Mourinho wants to see him play regularly bodes well for his Chelsea future.

The Blues have owed much of their success so far this season to the midfield pairing of Cesc Fabregas and Nemanja Matic. While Matic plays a more defensive role, Fabregas has been allowed to unleash his creativity by roaming across the park, setting up 11 goals so far, per WhoScored.

Although he is more often described as a box-to-box midfielder exhibiting the best qualities of both players, Van Ginkel bears some similarities to the Spanish playmaker. Both are comfortable playing anywhere in midfield, and both use their range of passing and creativity to support the team’s attacking tendencies. Per Transfermarkt.co.uk, Van Ginkel notched 12 goals and the same number of assists for Vitesse in the season before joining Chelsea, and he will have the opportunity to continue his development when he returns to the club.

One of the reasons given in Mourinho’s explanation of how he enticed Fabregas to Stamford Bridge is that he saw him as crucial to the long-term vision of the club, telling The Telegraph: "We spoke about football. We spoke about the Chelsea project. We spoke about the way I want him to play, the way I want to transform my team, the Chelsea philosophy as a club."

In terms of a mentor, Van Ginkel could not hope for a better teacher than Fabregas.

The World Cup winner is six years older than Van Ginkel and has experience leading a youthful side from his time as Arsenal captain. He has also had to overcome several serious injuries in the course of his career and will be able to advise the youngster on how to turn the situation to his advantage.

Mourinho was full of praise for Van Ginkel's work ethic when he first joined the club, and his potential to become a great player is clear. If he can stay injury-free for a while and learn from the more experienced players in the squad when they reunite for pre-season next summer, there is no reason to expect his future as a Blue to be anything but bright.