Chelsea made it five wins in a row in the Under-18 Premier League, including three consecutive clean sheets, when we defeated Brighton & Hove Albion 3-0 at Cobham on Wednesday afternoon.

That saw us close the gap to West Ham United at the top of the southern table to just three points, with the Blues still having played three games less than the leaders.

However, Under-18s head coach Hassan Sulaiman knows we must continue this form and replicate those impressive performances in every match if we are to keep reeling in the Hammers in pursuit of silverware this season.

'We just have to make sure we keep backing up each of our performances with another strong performance in the next game,' said Sulaiman.

'That’s the ambition. Our recovery after Wednesday's game is important, but we are still preparing on Friday as we always do on matchday-minus-one and we have a game plan that we’ll aim to execute against Reading.'

The Blues face another difficult task for Reading's visit to Cobham on Saturday for a match that kicks off at 11am, coming hot on the heels of the midweek meeting with Brighton, which itself followed last weekend's 2-0 win away at Aston Villa.

Suliaman hinted that could mean more changes to his starting line-up in a bid to maintain the energy of his team and prevent overburdening his young squad, but he will be expecting the same approach and hunger to win whoever is named in the team.

'The recovery’s important, because three games in eight days is never easy. We had a game on Saturday, then on Wednesday and now we go again this Saturday. We have to make sure we freshen up where possible, like we did on Wednesday, with a few players coming in.

'So recovery is really important, but I think our mentality and how we approach each game is even more important. We have to make sure that we continue to display those same winning behaviours and that winning mentality in our approach to every game.

'It’s a challenge to have these three games in eight days, but it’s certainly one that at the moment we’re relishing. So on Saturday we’ll have the same preparation in terms of our mindset and approach as we did for the other two games over the last week.'

Where to watch the live stream

You can watch our Under-18 Premier League fixture against Reading live on the Official Chelsea App, complete with enhanced stats and event tracking from MVX, built by Infinite Athlete. It will be available globally and priced at £1.99.