Academy not delivering

[Blue Daze]

The fans of those teams wouldn't and rightly so, we're not more important than any other club regardless of size.  Well apart from: tottenham,westham,milwall, leeds,liverpool,manutd,leicester,wolves,stoke,sunderland,newcastle,wigan,everton,cardiff........you get the idea though.

I know I'll sound like a prick but f**k'em.

It's like the argument about 3 o'clock kick-offs not being screened because it might reduce attendances at lower league grounds. To me that's just tough luck. Football is part of the entertainment business and if your 'act' isn't drawing the punters whilst 300,000 people want to watch a Chelsea game then that's life unfortunately.

On a more serious note, us doing well in Europe raises this country's co-efficient so other teams can compete in European competitions, thus having more money to afford better players to increase the exposure of smaller teams and earn them more TV revenue. Germany allows B-teams as does Spain and it's worked out pretty well for their national team too. I was gonna count how many of Spain's 2010 World Cup squad played for a team with 'B' in the name but got bored after 10.

At some point people need to ask if we can maybe annoy the 8,000 people who watch Cheltenham, Morecombe, Dagenham and Accrington each week by dropping them out of the football league and maybe bringing through some top English talent who could be playing in front of 80,000 people at Wembley.

 

[ws6blue]

Agree with a lot of the points made although I am sure there are teams with home grown players in their first team squads and they make it work. Clearly the youth recruitment works well until u21 level as we are probably best uk academy currently and that includes acquisitions like izzy brown and bamford. And the youth coaching is good too, it's the link into the 1st team.

We know they train regularly with the 1st team so that's ok too.

And we name some academy players in the squads but we need to find reasons to play them more, see if they are good enough.

I agree to some extent it doesn't matter where we get the players but we must retain the culture in the club that you get from a home grown product like JT

So my solution is to adopt a must play em policy, give a couple of them 10 games or so in a season like we are with zouma, find a way to get em played.

Ake yes, and Rubén yes, give them a full season

 

[Remodez]

If we can't bring through/play just one youth player without results going wrong then I think there's a problem with the set up at the club. No one is wanting us to go to the extreme and do an Arsenal. 

 

[Noverca]

I think José should rotate more in the PL/FA Cup/CL with players like Schürrle, Luis, Ramires, Remy, Mikel and Salah, so that some of our youth players can show what they got in the Capital One Cup. Especially in the first few rounds (against Bolton, Shrewsbury Town and Derby County) we should have given Aké, Loftus-Cheek, etcetera more chances in my opinion. I mean, if Salah already doesn't get play time, how could Loftus-Cheek ever come into the first team for more than 5 minutes?

 

[LewisCFC]

in all honestly, Ake right now is the only player I think is ready.

 

[big blue]

in all honestly, Ake right now is the only player I think is ready.

To be fair, he us the only one that has had a decent amount of opportunities to prove himself. Hard to say any of the others aren't ready, when they haven't been given the opportunity.

 

[Nibs]

In their last match they had 3 I think. No Lahm or Alaba in that one.

To me it's a balancing act. Where Bayern have the edge is through their dominance of their league (something we may well be approaching at the youth level) and a B Team, for whom I think all of these players appeared.

We need that in this country and I'd be quite happy to see a few lower league teams fold in order for that to happen.

If we can't bring through/play just one youth player without results going wrong then I think there's a problem with the set up at the club. No one is wanting us to go to the extreme and do an Arsenal. 

This is the crux of it. It would be great to have a successful team littered with players who have come through our own academy but that is fantasy stuff and we know that just ain't going to happen.

But surely we could bring one through. Surely we could balance it better than we have? The FA Cup match against Bradford is an ideal chance to give a couple of the younger players some first team experience AND playing time. Would like to see one in the starting line-up with at least one more on the bench.

 

[Backbiter]

This is the crux of it. It would be great to have a successful team littered with players who have come through our own academy but that is fantasy stuff and we know that just ain't going to happen.

But surely we could bring one through. Surely we could balance it better than we have? The FA Cup match against Bradford is an ideal chance to give a couple of the younger players some first team experience AND playing time. Would like to see one in the starting line-up with at least one more on the bench.

One of the huge problems we have is that the squad players, who don't get many regular starts in the big Prem/ CL games (Mikel, Luis, Remi, Schürrle, Zouma, Salah (???)), also need game time, and need to be managed carefully to prevent them getting discontented and out of match parctice, so they are always going to get selected ahead of the youth players in the FA and League Cups.

 

[Barn]

I don't like the whole idea of playing a few of the kids in lesser cup games.  I get that it gives them some minutes on the pitch in the big stadiums and all that but it's totally different to play in than a "proper" game, the senior teammates play and react differently, the crowd is very different.  It's a good experience but meaningless on it's own, these youngsters have to also be given a number of games throughout the season that aren't "easy wins".

 

[dan_cfc]

The thing is often when they are sent on loan they either don't perform or can't get into the teams.

 

[enigma]

The most promising ones have been sent on loan. RLC and solanke are our other promising youngsters in the youth ranks.

 

[IliyaKrostin]

I hope to see Ake and Loftus-Cheek against Bradford City, also Chalobah can get a chance.

 

[yorkleyblue]

This is the crux of it. It would be great to have a successful team littered with players who have come through our own academy but that is fantasy stuff and we know that just ain't going to happen.

But surely we could bring one through. Surely we could balance it better than we have? The FA Cup match against Bradford is an ideal chance to give a couple of the younger players some first team experience AND playing time. Would like to see one in the starting line-up with at least one more on the bench.

Nibs, you've long had a thing for the youth, and rightly so mostly, what with your life-size poster of Josh in his Speedos on your bedroom wall and all that, but can you imagine the disgusting RAWK-style meltdown in here if we played some lads at the weekend and lost to Bradford?  The record books would only show Chelsea lost to lower league opposition.  The sh*t-storm in this forum would explode exponentially across the world like Krakatoa, East of Brentford.

I hope to see Ake and Loftus-Cheek against Bradford City, also Chalobah can get a chance.

I'm actually with you both on this, but I'm afraid the general f**kwits who now infest this once-great forum would just spontaneously combust if the young players actually did play but we didn't win.  FFS, you know what it's like in here if we are not 5-0 up within the first 20 minutes of any match, anyway!

 

[Xfaxtor]

Nibs, you've long had a thing for the youth, and rightly so mostly, what with your life-size poster of Josh in his Speedos on your bedroom wall and all that, but can you imagine the disgusting RAWK-style meltdown in here if we played some lads at the weekend and lost to Bradford? The record books would only show Chelsea lost to lower league opposition. The sh*t-storm in this forum would explode exponentially across the world like Krakatoa, East of Brentford.

I'm actually with you both on this, but I'm afraid the general f**kwits who now infest this once-great forum would just spontaneously combust if the young players actually did play but we didn't win. FFS, you know what it's like in here if we are not 5-0 up within the first 20 minutes of any match, anyway!

I honestly dont think it would be too bad, I mean everyone is clamoring for the youth to be given a chance so I think most would be fine with it. Unless Jose pulled all the youth at halftime and we still lost

 

[Remodez]

Not sure why people keep saying that. I don't recall any youth player getting stick from the fans. Majority of people are willing to give the benefit of the doubt to youth players rather than experienced internationals who cost £20m+. 

 

[yorkleyblue]

My point is that most of the posters in here (not you, by the way!) have all the patience of a hungry cat at half-past tea-time, and a lot of them seem to feel an inalienable right to be winning everything, playing incredible football with none of their particular scapegoats in the squad. I just think that the normal match-day ranting would start off as "Thank f**k we are playing some youngsters" and would rapidly morph into "f**king Jose, we haven't scored yet and there are almost 10 minutes gone. Worst. Game. Ever. THis is a pile of sh*t.  f**king Mikel!  f**king Willian!" 

Do you see what I mean?

 

[big blue]

My point is that most of the posters in here (not you, by the way!) have all the patience of a hungry cat at half-past tea-time, and a lot of them seem to feel an inalienable right to be winning everything, playing incredible football with none of their particular scapegoats in the squad. I just think that the normal match-day ranting would start off as "Thank f**k we are playing some youngsters" and would rapidly morph into "f**king Jose, we haven't scored yet and there are almost 10 minutes gone. Worst. Game. Ever. THis is a pile of sh*t. f**king Mikel! f**king Willian!"

Do you see what I mean?

I don't think we should be starting with loads of youngsters. Maybe 2 or 3 max. My main gripe is that we should have 1 or 2 on the bench in all games you would expect to win, and then if we are comfortable, we can give them a 20 mins here and there. If they impress then we look to give them a start or 2 in the earlier rounds of the cup competions, and they dead rubbers.

After a couple of seasons we would have seen some of the youngsters maybe 10 times or more, and we would be in a better position judge whether these players are ready to contribute.

Not to mention how much more likely a player will get minutes out on loan if they have made over 10 appearances for the first team.

4 nil up at half time but we didn't have a single youth player to give what would of been a massive 45 mins worth of experience.

 

[Nibs]

Nibs, you've long had a thing for the youth, and rightly so mostly, what with your life-size poster of Josh in his Speedos on your bedroom wall and all that, but can you imagine the disgusting RAWK-style meltdown in here if we played some lads at the weekend and lost to Bradford?  The record books would only show Chelsea lost to lower league opposition.  The sh*t-storm in this forum would explode exponentially across the world like Krakatoa, East of Brentford.

I'm actually with you both on this, but I'm afraid the general f**kwits who now infest this once-great forum would just spontaneously combust if the young players actually did play but we didn't win.  FFS, you know what it's like in here if we are not 5-0 up within the first 20 minutes of any match, anyway!

I know what you're saying and you do have a point but again it's all back to balance. Have enough experienced starters who you know you can depend on and just play a couple of youth players. I never like to be complacent but we are talking Bradford here (who admittedly I know little about other than the fact they are somewhere up North and not very good), so really can't see the harm in a couple of youngsters getting minutes on the pitch.   

 

[dkw]

I've never understood teams that put 7 or 8 young players in at once, it's not a natural situation. At best one or maybe 2 will play in the first team with the senior players so they need to learn how to do that, not play in a cup game with a load of other youngsters they have spent years playing with.

 

[Blue Daze]

I've never understood teams that put 7 or 8 young players in at once, it's not a natural situation. At best one or maybe 2 will play in the first team with the senior players so they need to learn how to do that, not play in a cup game with a load of other youngsters they have spent years playing with.

Very good point. Think it works best when you have 1 or 2 playing alongside an established frame of a side. It's easier to bring someone like RLC in when he's surrounded by JT, Matic, Cesc etc. than it is alongside Rami or Mikel.