Former Chelsea defender Glen Johnson has claimed he didn't know who Billy Gilmour was prior to his display in Tuesday's FA Cup victory over Liverpool.
Gilmour has enjoyed a breakthrough season for the Blues under Frank Lampard. Though his appearance against Liverpool was only his second senior start, it was his seventh first-team appearance of the season.
The former Rangers kid has been named in the squad a further seven times and last month it was announced that he would train with the senior stars on a full-time basis.
He has been one of the stories of the season on the fringes of the Chelsea first team, but Johnson, who was on BBC punditry duty alongside Alan Shearer, Gary Lineker and Ian Wright for the Cup showdown, admits that he and his fellow panelists had never heard of him prior to Tuesday.
He was, however, mightily impressed with what he witnessed from the 18-year-old in the 2-0 victory.
“I just hope that performance wasn’t because of adrenaline,” Johnson said on talkSPORT.
“I just hope that is how he can perform.
“We see the team sheet (before the match) and we were all like ‘Who’s the kid?’.
“No-one had heard of him and obviously seen him play, so naturally you’re watching him more because you don’t get into Chelsea’s first team at 18 unless you deserve your chance.
“I watched him in the warm up and he looked tiny and then we see a photo of him and he looks about 12.
“(But) he looked like he had been playing there for years.
“You can tell how good the Chelsea players think he is because they were giving him the ball in tight areas that could be deemed as a risky pass, but they clearly believed that he could deal with the situation.
“They trusted him and they know him better than we do and they’ve obviously seen a lot in training to be able to do this.”
