Johnson right back in hunt for Chelsea starting place

Glen Johnson is a bit young for comebacks at the age of 22, but his return to Chelsea this season marks one epoch already in his short career. The first signing of the Roman Abramovich era is back at Stamford Bridge and prepared to fight for the right-back spot that he first tried to make his own four years ago.

Since he joined Chelsea in 2003 for £6m after just 14 senior appearances for West Ham, Johnson has had to catch up on his growing up. Last season, when he was loaned out to Portsmouth, was his opportunity to re-establish himself after a career that has had a few embarrassing moments. There was his broken hand incident after he allegedly punched a wall in October 2005. And there was the bizarre episode in January when he was fined £80 for stealing a toilet seat from a Kent B&Q store.

Johnson would no doubt prefer to concentrate on the five England caps and the immense promise of his early days. Jose Mourinho may yet persuade Khalid Boulahrouz to go to Seville to facilitate a deal for the Brazilian right-back Daniel Alves, but for now Johnson is back in Chelsea pre-season and competing with Paulo Ferreira for the right-back place.

"I feel better now coming back to Chelsea after a long season with Portsmouth and I feel like it has done me a lot of good," Johnson said. "When I picked up injuries I would get treatment back at Chelsea so I stayed in touch with the lads. I would train at Chelsea until I was fit, so I saw them all through the season. I would prefer things to have been different in my time here because every player wants to play week-in, week-out. But, in reality, it does not always happen like that, it has been tough, but we will get there in the end.

"I am only 22 and still a young man. There have been a lot of players coming in and out over the times I have been here. But it is a close bunch of lads at the moment because there has not been so many changes as there was at the beginning. The stability is good.

"It is important for me that the manager has not made up his mind [at right-back] because I want to come back and play. There was not anybody who nailed down the position last year. But there were four or five players who played there so the position seems wide open."

The one player who might prove a rival at right-back is Tal Ben Haim, the 25-year-old Israeli defender who arrived on a free from Bolton this summer. Originally a target in the January transfer window, Mourinho said this week that the player will be used at full-back as well as centre-back.

"He's a multi-functional defender," Mourinho said. "He can play at right-back and left-back if we have needs and, during the season, we will. I've seen him play for Bolton, so I know his qualities. But after three training sessions, I like him even more.

"He is a central defender and he gives us the security and competitiveness we need. At the moment we have three central defenders of quality. We need multi-functional players. It's very comfortable for a manager to have these players in the squad. Last year pre-season was a disaster.

"We started with half of the team and, after that, every two or three days some players were arriving depending upon their performance in the World Cup."

As far as Mourinho is concerned, Ben Haim will certainly prove a lot more welcome at Chelsea than Avram Grant - the Israeli who has been appointed director of football. "I know Avram Grant very well, he was the manager of the Israel national team, but Jose has said what he thinks," Ben Haim said. "He was my manager, but I don't know exactly what Chelsea will say about his job. He's a good guy to have around."