Chelsea have signed Reading defender Michael Hector. The 23-year old is one of the better Championship defenders currently, and with a small transfer fee at the home-grown status that he brings with him, the Jamaican international could be a good addition to the Chelsea squad looking further into the future.Michael Hector has had a very mixed career to date.
After spending most of his youth at Millwall, it was Reading that Hector found himself making his breakthrough as a professional footballer. The mixed side to all this comes in his loan movements. 11 loan moves in six years at Reading, Hector is well travelled, with the highest of those moves being to Aberdeen in the Scottish Premier League for the 2013-14 season.
After returning to Reading and going straight into their first team, Hector has grown and grown as a player, not just in height at 6”4, but in his play too. Despite being born in East Ham, London and growing up as a big Chelsea fan, Hector chose to represent Jamaica at international level and earned his first call-up to the national team back in February of this year where he went on to retain his place in the squad for the Copa America during the summer where Jamaica were eliminated early on, but they did themselves proud keeping the score lines to a minimum.
As well as his breakthrough onto the international stage, Hector became Reading’s vice-captain during last season after he played 41 of their 46 league games and became a real leader whether he was playing at centre-back or in the midfield where he is very comfortable on the ball and provided somewhat of a driving force from deep. He looked strong against Arsenal in the FA Cup semi-final last season, and this performance is believed to be the one that put him onto the radar of Chelsa scouts. With Chelsea giving Nathaniel Chalobah and Nathan Ake to Reading on loan last season and Lucas Piazon for this season, these three loans have been seen as a sweetener for Hector to move to Stamford Bridge. He will return back to the Madejski on a season-long loan.
Now this deal has gone through in the last few moments of the window, it will be one of the strangest deals of the window, especially for the Premier League champions, but a player who could surprise a few and develop into a good, strong Premier League defender in years to come.
