At the Emirates on Thursday evening the highest-paid player in the history of the FA Youth Cup will play for Chelsea in the second leg of the semi-final against Arsenal.

Andreas Christensen, described as a ‘gazelle’ by pretty much anyone who has ever watched him play, turned 18 on April 10. He earns £20,000 a week and has not made a first team appearance.

Something, somewhere, is going wrong when youth team players are walking around with that kind of money.

 

Watch Christensen on ITV4 on Thursday, when Chelsea’s 2-1 lead from last week’s first leg at Stamford Bridge will be tested by Arsenal’s youngsters.

He is an exceptional young player, a maturing centre half with plenty of ability on the ball. No-one disputes his potential.

The former Denmark Under 17 star, who came off the bench for Chelsea’s Under 21 team in their 4-2 victory at Aston Villa on Monday evening, makes time for himself drives into midfield positions in the way classic, ball-playing centre halves can. At his level, he is streets ahead of his contemporaries.

On £1million a year you would think that it is only a matter of time before Christensen, one of the youth team's most important players who was signed from Danish club Brondby a couple of years back, is a first team star in waiting.

If only it was that straightforward.

He was an unused substitute in Rafa Benitez’s final game in charge against Everton last season, but the standards are high at Chelsea.

 

When they signed Christensen in 2011, they were feeling pretty pleased with themselves after fending off interest from European football’s leading clubs.

Manchester United and Manchester City hovered, but walked away when the money came rolling in from Chelsea. Barcelona went the same way when they were also outbid.

Ask around the game and everyone will tell you that Christensen is perhaps the biggest talent in European football for his age.

And yet, at the age of 18, there are still no guarantees.

Take a look at another Chelsea academy graduate, striker Islam Feruz. Three years ago Chelsea wanted him so badly they paid Celtic some heavy duty compensation to bring him south of the border.

Now 18, he is still at Chelsea, but word around the club is that he is unlikely to make it to the very highest level.

Patrick Bamford, scoring goals for fun at Derby (on £8,000 a week), is expected to travel with the first team when they play a series of friendlies in pre-season. He is one of 28 Chelsea players out on loan this year.

When top clubs - not just Chelsea, because there will be others who are just a culpable - are paying big sums of money to a youth team player it is time to re-assess.

There are people at Stamford Bridge who are not even sure that Christenen, who is already 6ft 1in, will make it as a first-team player.

The FA Youth Cup is often seen as a barometer by mainstream clubs in England and Chelsea have certainly established themselves as a powerful name in the competition.

When they won it in 2010, for the first time in 49 years, Chelsea were convinced that Jeffrey Bruma, Josh McEachran, Fabio Borini, Gael Kakuta and Patrick van Aanholt would soon be filling first team berths.

Bruma, originally signed from Feyenoord, is now back in Holland with PSV Eindhoven.

McEachran, who was loved by Carlo Ancelotti, is with Wigan on loan. Last August, he turned down a loan move to Malaga and nobody ever expects him to play for Chelsea again, even though he earns a staggering £38,000 a week.

Borini left for Roma in 2011 and is now back in England with Sunderland; Kakuta is on loan with Lazio; van Aanholt, the left back, is on loan with Vitesse Arnhem and it says everything about his first team chances that Chelsea are in the mix for Luke Shaw.

Nemanja Matic played against Aston Villa that night and has since returned to Chelsea after a loan spell with Vitesse and three years under contract with Benfica.

Of the 2012 team who beat Blackburn 4-1 in the final, none of them are ready for the first team just yet.

 

Nathaniel Chalobah, the Youth Cup final-winning captain, was on loan at Watford last season and was watched in the play-off final by Jose Mourinho. He is now on loan at Middlesbrough.

As things stand the five players who stand the best chance at Chelsea are Christensen, Bamford, Nathan Ake, plus midfielders Lewis Baker and John Swift. Next season they are likely to be sent out on loan.

John Terry, who continues to captain the club, signed a professional contract with Chelsea in 1998 and remains the last player to successfully come through the youth academy and establish himself as a first-team regular.

To get into the Chelsea team in Christensen’s preferred playing position, he must be better than Terry, Gary Cahill, Branislav Ivanovic or David Luiz.

Even on £20,000 a week, it feels like a long way off.

 

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2605028/Meet-Andreas-Christensen-18-year-old-Chelsea-defender-20-000-week-never-played-team-wont-time-soon.html

I was amazed when I saw his wage. Didn't he play a few games in pre-season?

£20k a week for a youth team player?

 

I swear that senior squad players like Oscar are on £40k a week... Amazing that players who have proved nothing are able to command such high wages.

From what I've seen of the lad he doesn't even look that impressive. Honestly,

No sources at all for that wage and it's even more dubious as his dad already implied this is not the case. He probably is on more than the average youth player but I doubt he's on anywhere near £20k.

As Remodez said, the whole story is nonsense.

 

http://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation.com/2014/4/16/5620716/andreas-christensen-daily-mail-wages

Don't click on it but mail tonight have written a very crawly, suck up piece about him and his performance against arsenal...clearly they've had their knuckles wrapped after the shoddy piece written earlier in the week...not that they need much help in losing any more credibility, but the fact they're now trying to be so nice after being so cruel just exposes them for the tossers they are..as if he and us would be stupid enough to think they've done right by him now...pricks

Personally, I wouldn't even use the Mail to wipe my arse with.

Not heard much mentioned on here about him breaking into the squad, 18 years old, the next JT imo, squad number 31.

 

David Luiz OUT  

£50M + Christensen from our youth IN

 

Gotta love Mourinho.

Edited August 21, 201411 yr by coco

Mourinho: "For Nathan Aké and Izzy Brown it was just to feel like champions on the pitch. I will do the same with Christensen." [bBC]

Talks of a new deal, but also with part of that being a loan to the Bundesliga (Wolfsburg)

Sorry, Gladbach, not Wolsburg

 

http://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation.com/2015/5/27/8665543/report-andreas-christensen-offered-long-term-chelsea-deal-and-a-two

That Gladbach steal smells of the Hazard one, sell with a buy on and hope he'll work out.

been called up to the Danish full squad

66% - Percentage of dual success by Andreas Christensen. It is the second best record in Bundesliga. (1. Mats Hummels : 70.5%) #cfc

I would assume JT will retire at the end of this season, so would be good to give this guy a real chance. Him and Zouma and we could be set at CB for the next decade,.

But you know we would rather spend £30m on a player who may not be as good but because they are playing 1st team football elsewhere they must be worth it.

I actually think the decision made on Christensen will tell us more about whether we will ever see a young player come through than rlc. It's ideal next season to bring him back and play him.

His loan was supposed to be for 2 seasons, I would guess there is a clause which would allow us to bring him back at the end of the season but I am not sure.

One thing is for certain he is performing well and is progressing very quickly. 

I actually think the decision made on Christensen will tell us more about whether we will ever see a young player come through than rlc. It's ideal next season to bring him back and play him.

Very true. If we continues like this and we still go out and buy a young CB to replace JT it doesnt look good for the chances of any of our young players.

We are looking at Stones who will cost us £40,000,000, but we have someone who is home grown, younger than Stones, playing Champions League football, playing better than Stones and performing as well as the best CB's in the Bundesliga..........surely we need to give him a go once his loan deal ends.

We are looking at Stones who will cost us £40,000,000, but we have someone who is home grown, younger than Stones, playing Champions League football, playing better than Stones and performing as well as the best CB's in the Bundesliga..........surely we need to give him a go once his loan deal ends.

 

Good joke, this is Chelsea.

See Christensen played the whole 90 minutes in the Gladbach side that beat Bayern Munich 3-1 at the weekend.

 

We DON'T need to spend £40M on another defender.

I was lurking around some Monchengladbach forum the other day, and although my German isn't very good it was clear to see how they rated him.

Most think he is has the potential to be word class, and eventhough they don't think it's likely, some wouldn't mind if their club chucked 20mil at us for him.

 

Apparently some of their CB's are/were injured (I just scrolled through pages so I didn't pay attention to the date) and they are very interested to see if their manager will keep playing Christensen once they're back. Most of then certainly hope he does.

 

Exciting times for him, only 19 years old and he is currently in the starting 11 of a side that's third in the Bundesliga and just beat Bayern 3-1.

And as if that isn't enough he has been called up to Denmarks senior team as well.

 

One of these days a loan was bound to go well for one of our players.

Edited December 8, 201510 yr by CFCholland

I was lurking around some Monchengladbach forum the other day, and although my German isn't very good it was clear to see how they rated him.

Most think he is has the potential to be word class, and eventhough they don't think it's likely, some wouldn't mind if their club chucked 20mil at us for him.

 

Apparently some of their CB's are/were injured (I just scrolled through pages so I didn't pay attention to the date) and they are very interested to see if their manager will keep playing Christensen once they're back. Most of then certainly hope he does.

 

Exciting times for him, only 19 years old and he is currently in the starting 11 of a side that's third in the Bundesliga and just beat Bayern 3-1.

And as if that isn't enough he has been called up to Denmarks senior team as well.

 

One of these days a loan was bound to go well for one of our players.

Hope he can be the next Courtois, loan him 2 years and call him back to slot straight in our squad as starter or maybe first back up (like Cahill now).