Whilst it would be nice for Nathan to become a first team regular with us, at this stage in his career he needs regular game time to develop.The simple facts are we are now in the business of seriously competing for trophies, youth development is part of this, but at some stage we have to let the young fledgling gain his wings and only the truly outstanding apprentice candidates will make it here straight away. We have achieved a good price for him and have the option of a buyback if he progresses like we all expect him to. This is a win/win for both club and player, he is going to a good club with a manager who's main pressure is to keep them in the Premier League. Good Luck Nat, fingers crossed we will excercise the buy back in about 4 yrs time.

Its really irritating to see such a talented youngster like Ake go, but I do understand why he and we were happy to let it happen.  Hopefully he will return in the future and that by him leaving the likes of Zouma and Christensen become first teamers. What will really irritate me is if neither of these two youngsters become first teamers and we lose them too and end up overpaying for VVD or someone like that (not that I have anything against VVD but if Manolas is worth £30m I really don't think VVD is worth £40+). It also worries me that it sets a bad example to youngsters as he did all the hard work, got a successful prem loan and became and international for Holland but still wasn't really given a chance (still think it was a bad decision to recall him).

 

I understand we are a business and we are here to win trophies and make money but at the rate we are going we might as well not have an academy... (yes that a vast over exaggeration but I liked Ake :( ).

Hopefully he will return a better and stronger player. 

Disappointing. I can see him ending back up here in 2 years time though. 

Why would he want to come back, if we didn't show any faith in him?

10 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Was class in the semi against Spurs. Think this is proof that even if you prove yourself you're unlikely to make it at Chelsea unless you were signed as an already established player or for a large fee.

That does seem to be the situation. I'm disappointed but have got used to it. Think we all just have to accept that as we are who we are and we're expected to challenge with the other elite clubs for all the top honours every season, that the chances of us trusting youngsters who have little experience of top flight football, well they are pretty much almost zero. A shame but it's the way it is.

24 minutes ago, enigma said:

real madrid are really the only club in spain if we're honest. real madrid don't have to make effort to sign the best players and they will almost always win the league. it is so much different in england and if we concentrate too much on youth we will fall back. i want a few more youth players in the squad, but ake simply was never going to get the chance here with christensen coming back and being promised a good chance in the first team. ake won't be a lwb, he won't get a chance in midfield, and centre back is highly competitve with arguably a superior player in andreas waiting in the wings alongside him. £20 million for him is a great fee for a player we won't have much space for next season. 

Except Madrid have to compete with a certain Barcelona. Did you forget about them? Madrid STILL consistently go for the best players, sh*t league or not. There's also Atletico and very good teams like Sevilla (who'll beat pretty much all PL teams outside the top 6 and can even beat any of the top 6 teams on a good day). Let's not also forget Madrid have just won 3 CLs in 4 years, including 2 back to back. Is the CL made of sh*t teams too? And they won the CL with youth players like Casemiro (whom they decided to place trust in, getting rid of Khedira) and Carvajal starting, as well as others like Vasquez and Asensio playing a part. There's no excuse for Chelsea.

We CAN buy quality AND promote youth at the same time. We have an opportunity now to integrate Baker into our midfield in addition to Bakayoko, Cesc, Kante and Chalobah. The lad has everything in his locker to one day be a top all round midfielder. But I'd bet we send him on loan again and buy another CM. We just never learn.

2 minutes ago, Zeta said:

Why would he want to come back, if we didn't show any faith in him?

On the contrary, we have shown him we want him to develop as a player. Sitting on our bench  only produces the next John O Shea, play now and learn his trade will be the making of him.He isn't yet at Champions league standard. Madrid have been doing this kind of deal for years, it gives the club he is going to the incentive to properly develop the player that a loan doesn't. Zidane yesterday even sold his own son on a similar deal. This no matter what the press report is a success for our academy, I fully expect to see similar deals struck for our starlets in the future.

1 minute ago, Barrettinator said:

Except Madrid have to compete with a certain Barcelona. Did you forget about them? Madrid STILL consistently go for the best players, sh*t league or not. There's also Atletico and very good teams like Sevilla (who'll beat pretty much all PL teams outside the top 6 and can even beat any of the top 6 teams on a good day). Let's not also forget Madrid have just won 3 CLs in 4 years, including 2 back to back. Is the CL made of sh*t teams too? And they won the CL with youth players like Casemiro (whom they decided to place trust in, getting rid of Khedira) and Carvajal starting, as well as others like Vasquez and Asensio playing a part. There's no excuse for Chelsea.

We CAN buy quality AND promote youth at the same time. We have an opportunity now to integrate Baker into our midfield in addition to Bakayoko, Cesc, Kante and Chalobah. The lad has everything in his locker to one day be a top all round midfielder. But I'd bet we send him on loan again and buy another CM. We just never learn.

I agree with this post but not about Baker. Looked well out of his depths with England and only really played in the Dutch league recently. An English loan is needed for him.

Just now, RIP Mourinho said:

I agree with this post but not about Baker. Looked well out of his depths with England and only really played in the Dutch league recently. An English loan is needed for him.

Didn't watch the whole tournament but I watched the match against Germany and he was played as a second striker. Never seen a dumber tactical decision by a manager. Completely took away the influence he could have had in midfield. I don't know how he was played for the entire tournament but I wouldn't doubt he was misused often judging by that match. sh*t tactics can make a good player look terrible.

I am disappointed at the fact we've sold him.

 

However, hopefully this is us preparing for a massive spending spree and his sale is in order to balance the books (pressuming we do actually spend £250m odd).

 

Also, hopefully we have a buy-back-clause so we don't get stung up like we will do if we sign Lukaku!

28 minutes ago, Zeta said:

Why would he want to come back, if we didn't show any faith in him?

Maybe because we gave him the opportunity to progress to where he is now, a premier league player who has just broken Southampton's transfer record ?

12 hours ago, The Brit said:

Not sure what's more depressing...chelsea cashing in on Ake or how the topic of debate has gone a bit astray over the last few pages

Haven't been on for a while and all I'm seeing is petty arguments and bickering everywhere, You wouldn't of thought we won the league looking around the shed lately lol

On 5/18/2017 at 10:31, gojo_ed said:

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/may/17/bournemouth-nathan-ake-asmir-begovic-bids

£30m for Begovic and Aké is good money. I'd be inclined to let Asmir go if we can find another HG keeper of similar standard. Aké on the other hand we should keep, depending on who we buy/call back he will have a bigger role next season.

 

Pretty much exactly what we got haha! Not a bad prediction

On 6/28/2017 at 20:36, Deino said:

The Guardian says he'll fetch 20m. Am slightly torn about this, good bit of business but had hopes that he'd make it here.

But my word, Ake + Traore + Matic = 68.8m. 

Lets not get ahead of ourselves, Matic deal still hasnt gone through. 

 

But its fair to say we have got some great deals in selling players in the past couple months. Not to mention we sold Cuadrado for almost 23m, Atsu for 6m and Begovic for 10m. And there seems to sound like there are still plenty of players that might be leaving in the summer like Matic, Zouma, Costa(?) which can fetch even higher fees

On 6/28/2017 at 20:55, TheChelseaBlues said:

In other words, one Alex Sandro

Id happily take that seeing as Matic was fairly poor last season and the other 2 hardly ever got games.

To be fair, whats really the downside in selling him for 20m with a buyback clause? If he does really well in the next xouple seasons, we can get him back cheaper and if he doesnt get upto standard then we've got 20m for a fringe player?

 

I had high hopes for him and wanted him to succeed, but 20m is a good piece of business by the club

We might well have done some good business in the last year or so with selling players, but I really hope that they do invest it properly and soon. My main concern is that we've seen Oscar, Mikel, Ivanovic, Begovic, Ake and Traore go, and quite possibly Matic and Costa to follow. In my eyes that leaves us seriously thin in squad depth - especially when you also consider that Conte was at times reluctant to use some players (mainly Cesc and Bats) in any circumstances. And of course we could be short of Eden for several weeks.

I just hope we don't spend really big on two players and fail to address the loss of quite a few good quality squad players.

https://www.vavel.com/en/football/premier-league/chelsea-fc/803001-chelsea-continue-to-fail-their-youth-players.html

24 minutes ago, Zeta said:

https://www.vavel.com/en/football/premier-league/chelsea-fc/803001-chelsea-continue-to-fail-their-youth-players.html

FAILURE ? We just sold him for £20 mill and they call that a failure, muppets.

To be fair, it's another academy player that failed to break in to the first team, which is unsurprising. 20 million is a lot of money and at least there is a buy back clause, still dissapointing to see another young player leave though. We need to start replacing players we've sold in this auction.

Edited June 30, 20179 yr by Floyd25

Good player. Not great. A club of this stature can buy better (Which it looks like we'll do) People get too hung up on the romanticism of developing youth. Made a decent bit of money out of it that we can put towards a player capable of bettering a title winning side. Happy with this for both parties.

All the best to the young man! Wee bit gutted but hey ho.

 

When you look at it from a holistic point of view it's a brilliant piece of business by the club.

 

We've got £20m for a squad/fringe player and if he develops to a truly top class level we will have the option to buy him back at a lower price than we're being quoted for the likes of Lukaku.

Of course it also gives the buying club more incentive to play and develop the player than a loan does.

 

Say for arguments sake he develops in to a JT calibre player in a few years, we get the buy back at £30/35m. Would you pay £10/15m for a JT in his prime? Of course you would! And if he doesn't develop to the required level, then we've pocketed £20m for a player who never had a future at Chelsea anyway.

 

A lot of us criticise the club for transfer policies and the like but I think they deserve a pat on the back for this, very shrewd move!

It's a failure in the sense that if a player of Ake caliber can't make the step up from youth to first team then no one else stands a chance unless they are Messi 2.0.

Great business to sell him for £20m and as long as our youth end up playing in the top leagues then the academy is doing it's job, just a shame we aren't personally benefiting from these players. 

Still unsure whether it was best to keep him or sell him. Hopefully it doesn't come back to bite us in the arse. Wishing Ake all the best.

5 hours ago, Barrettinator said:

It's official.

Really disappointed with this sale tbqh. Shows the club aren't really that bothered about bringing youth through. It's actually possible to buy world class players AND bring youth through, you know. Just look at Real Madrid. Considering how much they spend on players, it's actually embarrassing that they have a much better record of promoting youth than we do.

I guess the silver lining is that there's a buy back clause.

I agree, we only brough Chala through last season, going to bring Christensen this and gave Bertrand 3 years of top level exposure ready for a solid PL career.