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The 20-year-old has spent his entire career to date within Chelsea’s academy system, working his way up since joining as a 12-year-old and becoming a fixture of the Under-21 setup at Cobham, though a route into Xabi Alonso’s senior squad has so far proved elusive. <\/span><\/p>\n The move to Hartlepool gives him his first taste of regular first-team competition, in the fifth tier of English football. <\/span><\/p>\n “I’ve been at Chelsea since I was 12 and it’s been an incredible place to develop,” Merrick told Hartlepool’s official website. “I’ve learned so much from the coaches and the players around me, but I feel like I’m ready for the next step now. <\/span><\/p>\n “Playing senior football regularly is where I want to be and as soon as I heard about the opportunity to come here, I knew it was one I wanted to take.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Chelsea’s business at the other end of their squad continues to progress, with Lacroix having completed his medical with the club, the final step before signing a contract that will run until 2032. <\/span><\/p>\n The fee for the France international is understood to be worth \u00a352m, with an agreement reached between Chelsea and Palace following lengthy negotiations over the defender, who impressed for France at this summer’s World Cup and was a key figure as Palace won the Conference League, the FA Cup and the Community Shield during his time at Selhurst Park.<\/span><\/p>\n The move gives Xabi Alonso an additional option in defence as he continues reshaping his squad this summer, with Lacroix’s experience seen as a valuable addition following Crystal Palace’s Conference League-winning campaign last season, during which he established himself as one of the Premier League’s most reliable centre-backs and a firm fan favourite at Selhurst Park. <\/span><\/p>\n Chelsea have been targeting defensive reinforcements throughout the window, and Lacroix’s arrival is expected to be confirmed officially in the coming days once the final paperwork is completed. His departure leaves Palace needing to find a replacement at the heart of defence, with the club having already been linked with Brest’s Raphael le Guen and Augsburg’s Chrislain Matsima as potential options to fill the gap.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 20-year-old has spent his entire career to date within Chelsea’s academy system, working his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}