Acheampong agrees new five-year deal

Chelsea defender Josh Acheampong is set to sign a new five-year deal at Chelsea, after a breakthrough in talks over the past week.

The 18-year-old has an agreement in principle over a new contract, with the two parties now finalising paperwork and the fine details of the deal.

The development ends a three-month freezing out period for Acheampong, where he was not selected to play for any of Chelsea's various youth teams or Enzo Maresca's first-team squad.

With just 18 months left on his current deal, Chelsea did reintroduce Acheampong at youth level and then back into the first team after the international break in late November.

This coincided with the contract talks restarting, allowing him to play at youth level again and make his first start of the season in the Conference League at Astana.

A series of meetings with senior figures behind the scenes, including Behdad Eghbali and Jose E. Feliciano from the ownership group, reassured a previously reluctant Acheampong to sign a new contract, rather than run down his current deal and assess his options in the summer.

When asked about the youngster last week, Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca told BBC Sport: "The club loves Josh - I love Josh."

Acheampong is poised to start against Shamrock Rovers in Thursday's Conference League fixture, and could get further chances to play at right-back as Reece James continues to struggle with persistent hamstring injuries.

The England Under-20 international had previously been linked with Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain.