Jayden Bogle.

18 year old Jayden Bogle has been under a lot of criticism of late from fans, and some of the criticism has been quite unfair.

He was recently sent off in the 90th minute of the FA Cup clash against Accrington Stanley (Who are they?) for an act that brought together multiple discussions. Was it a selfless act of sacrifice or was it something reckless that could have been avoided?

Statistically, Bogle has been beyond impressive, and quite frankly, does not deserve most of the criticism he receives. Yes, he struggles to block crosses but again, most full backs at this level struggles to do the same - it is not just sticking your leg out and hope for the best, there is a lot more behind it. Are they just taking a false shot, making you move needlessly? How high will they cross the ball, or will it be a low cross? Will they even cross it successfully or fluff it? There is plenty more that goes into it, and it might look easy but it is pretty bloody difficult to pull off - Bogle is also only eighteen years old, he still has got plenty of time to pick it up and get the hang of it. January 2018, he was playing for Derby County under 18s and fast forward a year, he's in the first team as a regular - he is clearly a quick learner and we just have to learn to be patient with him. He has also already proven his commitment in every match by chasing down balls, contributing to the games by creating chances (20 so far to be exact, on par with Tom Lawrence) and the red card in the Accrington game tops it off - he plays with his heart on his sleeve, and that is something we need to treasure more in the world of modern football.

Let's take a look at my favourite bit of football - statistical analysis. Jayden Bogle has made 29 appearances at the tender age of 18, 23 in the league, 3 in the League Cup and a further 3 more appearances in the FA Cup, and he does not turn 19 until 27th July, so quite obviously he will make rookie errors expected, and hopefully, he realises them and uses them as a learning curve - he has proven to be a fast learner, cutting down on mistakes that we initially saw in his first few appearances, and he has gained the trust of manager Frank Lampard, and it is significantly incredible that Bogle has gained so much trust from him in the little time Lampard has spent at the club, to be playing first team games regularly. Lampard has had nothing short of a perfect footballing career, and the wealth of expertise he has got in watching young players develop and be nurtured in his time at Chelsea, and Manchester City (I don't mention West Ham as he was a youngster himself there). So to know that Bogle has got full trust from Lampard, it should be a reassuring thing.

Impressively, he has completed 156 interceptions across all 29 appearances, that is more than Craig Forsyth and Scott Malone combined (137 interceptions) and he has also completed 1,106 passes, on par with Fikayo Tomori (1,384 passes) and Richard Keogh (1,717 passes) although Bogle has played six less games than Keogh (35 appearances) and four less than Tomori (33 appearances) - Jayden Bogle is certainly a little gem. Lampard's style of play is to play out from the back so it is not surprising to see the two central defenders rack up these sort of numbers but to see Bogle up, it is an impressive feat indeed, especially with the appearance disadvantage. Bogle has also dispossessed the opposition a total of 34 times this season, just one less dispossession than all four of the following; Forsyth, Malone, Keogh and Tomori combined. How has that gone unnoticed?!

To sum it all up - although he was caught out of position in that one-on-one that resulted in him receiving a red card, he showed that he is capable of knowing what to do if something goes wrong, he proved that he is here to play for the club on his shirt, not for himself, not for his discipline statistics, and all those statistics has shown him to be one of our best players this season, albeit mistakes that are easily tidied up by mostly Keogh and occasionally Tomori but he is rapidly maturing as a player and let's not forget - he is only eighteen.

"I've enjoyed every moment of it so far." - Jayden Bogle