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The Times Attacks Our Youth Policy - Harsh, But Fair?


Dorset

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Here, languishing under yet another of those doom-laden Chels headlines, is one of the best articles I’ve read on our youth development policy. Critical as it is, I found myself agreeing with every word:-  
 
‘Dominic joins Chelsea’s sad young exiles’ Oliver Kay (The Times 8th August, 2015)
 
It was one of those deals that seemed almost to slip under the radar, nothing like high-profile enough to merit the yellow-ticker treatment on Sky Sports News HQ, but it would be hard to find a transfer this summer that was of greater significance to the youth development debate in English football than Dominic Solanke’s loan move from Chelsea to Vitesse Arnhem. Why so significant? Because Solanke, 18 next month, is considered one of the great hopes for his club and his country - and because there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that, as far as young Chelsea players are concerned, Vitesse is becoming a graveyard of aspiration. Oh yes, and because José Mourinho said at the end of last season that it would be a “big mistake” to send Solanke out on loan when the “correct direction” would be for him to stay at Chelsea to learn his trade on the periphery of the first-team squad.
 
Somebody at Chelsea is clinging to the idea that Vitesse - with whom they have an informal but very clear relationship, stemming from Roman Abramovich’s friendship with Merab Jordania, the Dutch club’s Georgian owner - offer a high-class finishing school for the vast number of young players that a laissez-faire system allows them to stockpile. Solanke is the fifth Chelsea player to join Vitesse this summer and the 19th since 2010. So far, the only one to have become a Chelsea first-team player is Nemanja Matic, who did so via the most indirect route, being bought back from Benfica three years after his spell in the Netherlands. Bertrand Traoré, Vitesse’s leading goalscorer last season, is now back at Chelsea, hoping to force his way into Mourinho’s thoughts, but in general the trend after a year in Arnhem has been either to go on loan again, or to be sold. Except in the strange case of Matic, the pathway to Arnhem has never led to the Chelsea first team. There is little alternative for Nathan, the Brazilian teenager who has been parked there until he qualifies either for a work permit or an EU passport, but does a year in the Netherlands really offer Lewis Baker, Isaiah Brown and Solanke the best chance of forging a career at Stamford Bridge?
 
Even on a weekend that is filled with new-season optimism, that is a question worth asking. These are, after all, the three players about whom Mourinho said he would have failed if they do not become regulars for Chelsea and England. Chelsea have won four of the past six FA Youth Cups, as well as last season’s Uefa Youth League, but more than a decade has passed under Roman Abramovich’s ownership without a single youth team player, home-grown or imported, establishing himself in the first-team squad, let alone the starting XI. That would be troubling for any club, but far more so at Chelsea, where vast sums have been spent in acquiring as many as possible of the world’s best teenagers. Mourinho’s comments about Solanke at the end of last season hinted at a different approach, whereby he would try to integrate the teenager into his squad over the course of this season, allowing him to dip his toes into the first-team waters every now and then as cover for Diego Costa, Loïc Rémy and Radamel Falcao. Instead, Solanke will be in Arnhem and that whole integration process seems to have been put off for another year, if indeed he is considered ready for it in 12 months’ time. As Patrick Bamford, now at Crystal Palace, and others will tell him, even a successful loan brings no guarantees of a breakthrough at HQ.
 
Chelsea have begun to get an awful lot right over the past few seasons, playing the transfer market shrewdly if at times cynically and for once allowing a successful manager to do his job without interference, but, for all the excellent work done by Neil Bath’s staff at academy level, their approach to youth development remains a strange one. A policy of recruiting (and paying) young talent in such numbers, while showing little or no patience at first-team level, has resulted in stagnation in the cases of too many once excellent prospects. Mourinho suggested this week that any number of players are talented enough to play for Chelsea. He started off by citing André Schürrle, Kevin de Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku - three players who, he implied, lacked the stomach to fight for a first-team place at Stamford Bridge - but then went on to propose Yohan Cabaye, Georginio Wijnaldum and Max Gradel, recently signed by Crystal Palace, Newcastle United and Bournemouth respectively. The key, he said, is not talent but mentality.
 
There is a plenty of truth in that - even if the suggestion of Gradel seemed a step too far - but it is also true that the extreme resilience that Mourinho demands is seldom found in teenagers who emerge from the modern academy system. Raphaël Varane and Kurt Zouma have been wonderful exceptions, but the “kids” Mourinho likes are usually 22 or 23 years old with 250-plus first-team appearances behind them. Does Ruben Loftus-Cheek, the England Under-21 midfield player, have that toughness and that work ethic? “Ask him,” Mourinho keeps saying, which sounds an awful lot like a “no”. So how is he to develop it? One hopes by becoming a more integral part of Chelsea’s first-team squad over the course of this season, but Mourinho suggested that the onus is on the 19-year-old to “pick himself” rather than be handed opportunities. While that sounds entirely fair as a principle, it is more questionable when even Champions League dead rubbers and early Capital One Cup ties last season were viewed primarily as a chance to give the likes of John Obi Mikel a run-out while Loftus-Cheek was restricted to the odd cameo from the substitutes’ bench.
 
According to Mourinho, ten minutes of first-team action is long enough for a player to prove he is ready for the first team. The difference between Zouma and Loftus-Cheek, he implied, is that one made the most of his appearances last season and the other did not. Perhaps the real difference is that Zouma is a 20-year-old with 100 first-team appearances, having made his league debut for Saint Étienne at 16. Loftus-Cheek is a 19-year-old whose first-team experience amounts to 141 minutes. It is not just about the time on the clock, though. It is about the quality of the experience. Nathaniel Chalobah looks set to follow Michael Mancienne, Josh McEachran and Gaël Kakuta as a player whose prospects of making the grade at Chelsea have faded with every loan. All will have decent enough careers, but none has come close to fulfilling the potential shown in their youth team days. That has been a worrying trend, particularly at Chelsea, where, more than anywhere, there is such a wild disconnect between potential shown at 16 to 18 and potential reached by 20 to 22.
 
One can only hope that Vitesse prove more profitable for Baker, Brown and Solanke than they have for so many previous loanees and that, back at Stamford Bridge, Loftus-Cheek is able to measure up to Mourinho’s standards and blaze a trail for others. If Max Gradel is good enough to play for Chelsea, so are these kids. Sooner rather than later, they need the opportunity to show it, and know there is light at the end of a very long tunnel.
 
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It's easy to criticise us though, but plenty other teams whom neglect their youth. It is the nature of the current game, but I would really like to see the english vitesse loanees, aina and RLC break into the first team at some point. I would add traore and bamford too.

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This is the issue though with Mourinho and his mindset is so stubborn. He contradicts himself so much when it comes to youth, and personally i feel we have much more talented youth players than some of our first teamers if i'm honest. Someone like ola aina could play at right back and give a great show of himself. traore (although not youth system) would have provided something different in the team because he likes to score and be on the offensive.

 

RLC is not a holding or defensive midfielder, and will never be, he is a central attacking mid and mourinho seems to think he can mold him into a fecking defensive mid. this is the issue i have with mourinho and will always have with him. i get annoyed and frustrated that he doesn't see how talented our youth is and i regret at times guardiola never came here because he would have got us playing brilliant football and integrated youth too. 

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Our youth players have just not been good enough for us. Today was a good example. Say we bring RLC on instead of Zouma, he makes a mistake and we concede. Everyone would be lambasting Jose right now. Zouma, whos just as young, but not from our setup has his trust. If he makes a mistake is the headline the same?

Another example is Cork. Good enough for Swansea but where would he be in our squad? Does he even make the bench? Sinclair started today as well but is he good enough for us? We produce solid players, just none yet good enough to get a game for Chelsea. Id rather have Cork than Mikel right now or Bertrand over Luis but what young player is going to stick around to sit the bench his entire career?What top notch player have we ever froze out of the first team?

Its not as if we had 18 year old Ronaldo or Pogba and passed them over. Southampton have probably had the best academy in England in the past decade and they only had one world class player.... whom they sold before they knew what they had.

Edited by TheChelseaBlues
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Our youth players have just not been good enough for us. Today was a good example. Say we bring RLC on instead of Zouma, he makes a mistake and we concede. Everyone would be lambasting Jose right now. Zouma, whos just as young, but not from our setup has his trust. If he makes a mistake is the headline the same?

Another example is Cork. Good enough for Swansea but where would he be in our squad? Does he even make the bench? Sinclair started today as well but is he good enough for us? We produce solid players, just none yet good enough to get a game for Chelsea. Id rather have Cork than Mikel right now or Bertrand over Luis but what young player is going to stick around to sit the bench his entire career?What top notch player have we ever froze out of the first team?

Its not as if we had 18 year old Ronaldo or Pogba and passed them over. Southampton have probably had the best academy in England in the past decade and they only had one world class player.... whom they sold before they knew what they had.

 

We drew 2-2 and could have lost the game, and we had a full strength side out. I don't think playing youth would have made much of difference there tbh. 

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There's good posts above.

A good indication is how well have the youth kids done since leaving Chelsea?

Very few, if any are playing for top Teams ... there's your answer.

Personally, and esp. under Jose I think it may probably be best to just close down every youth set up, saving a small fortune in the process and just concentrating purely on buying in success for the first team only ... continuing the current status quo.

Edited by cfcblue
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We drew 2-2 and could have lost the game, and we had a full strength side out. I don't think playing youth would have made much of difference there tbh. 

but we didnt lose, and come the end of the season that point may be the difference

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Why single out Chelsea ?

Because despite the success our youth team has been having for quite some time now we as a club appear from the outside to be making little effort to integrate any of those players into our senior team.

Simple truth is that we are in the fortunate position to not need to rely on a youth academy but when you see how Salah and Cuadrado have turned out you do wonder why we didn't look to any of our 30 strong loan army instead.

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Our youth players have just not been good enough for us. Today was a good example. Say we bring RLC on instead of Zouma, he makes a mistake and we concede. Everyone would be lambasting Jose right now. Zouma, whos just as young, but not from our setup has his trust. If he makes a mistake is the headline the same?

Another example is Cork. Good enough for Swansea but where would he be in our squad? Does he even make the bench? Sinclair started today as well but is he good enough for us? We produce solid players, just none yet good enough to get a game for Chelsea. Id rather have Cork than Mikel right now or Bertrand over Luis but what young player is going to stick around to sit the bench his entire career?What top notch player have we ever froze out of the first team?

Its not as if we had 18 year old Ronaldo or Pogba and passed them over. Southampton have probably had the best academy in England in the past decade and they only had one world class player.... whom they sold before they knew what they had.

 

Three important factors raised in these paragraphs - the quality of our youngsters, the need for them to play at the highest level to achieve a [perceived] ultimate aim, and the viability of the system in the first place. To my mind, individual views on quality and need automatically leads to an opinion on viability, but only if you believe that a certain number of the kids should eventually reach first team status - if you don’t, you’re obviously quite happy with the Academy being run as a businesslike conveyor belt for financial gain, no more, no less. However, divergence of view on a single aspect such as this only serves to cloud the more major issues of quality and need and I think, if you come to a conclusion on these, it’s a lot easier to state a case for [or against] our youth policy. Let me explain…
 
TheChelseaBlues believes ’our youth players have just not been good enough for us’ and although I’m not sure how yesterday was a good example of this [none of them being within spitting distance of the pitch] it is nevertheless a commonly-held opinion. Clearly, if you are in this camp the quality is not there for you, any sort of need to reach first team status is something of an irrelevance, and therefore the viability of the system as a whole is questionable, to say the least. In part [financial/conveyor belt] it might work for you, but is it really worth all the effort and flak we take just to improve the club’s bank balance? Not sure Roman has ever regarded it as a money-making operation either, the real worth to him has always been on the development front.
 
Then again, big blue is ‘not too fussed about bringing through the youth, I used to really want us to give them a chance, but I've lost a bit of interest now tbh.’ - and who can blame him? I’m guessing he [like many] has been excited by the FA Youth Cup achievements, but that’s been dulled by lack of further progress and even though he once trusted in the quality of the players, the need to see them step up wasn’t satisfied and now, if push came to shove, he’d be in the ‘scrap the Academy’ camp as well. Not so for enigma though, who feels ‘we have much more talented youth players than some of our first teamers’ - here is an example of a far more angry foot stamped in the opposite camp. He appreciates the quality, has identified the need, does not doubt the viability of the system and consequently seeks answers from the hierarchy [Jose in particular] as to why they are not as frustrated as he has become.
 
To a certain extent and somewhat ironically, I can sympathise with all these differing points of view at the same time, with the possible exception of enigma’s ‘it's easy to criticise us though, but plenty [of] other teams neglect their youth.’, because I am more than happy for Oliver Kay to highlight the faults in our youth policy as opposed to those in others - it shows how close we are to getting it right compared to our rivals - and I don’t really care about the rest anyway. In fact, I’m hoping the hacks go even further with this type of forensic coverage if /when we increase our bid for John Stones and irrespective of whether or not the transfer ultimately goes through, as buying-in home grown talent is yet another viable alternative to a saturation level, Academy-based, growing of your own policy. Merely another muddying the waters side issue?  
 
Not at all, and my reasoning for pre-empting this proposed purchase is simple; Stones chosen pathway to fame and fortune is in complete contrast to that of Patrick Bamford, who at a similar age decided to fall in line with the Chelsea loanee template rather than move directly from Nottingham Forest into a Premiership team prepared to give him the platform of first team football. As he sits it out on the Crystal Palace bench eagerly(?) anticipating the jumping of another hurdle on his chosen pathway to Chelsea first team football, he must surely be giving some envious thought to the possibility of Stones queue-jumping him, let alone Chelsea’s active participation in the moneyed clamour for it. In his position, wouldn’t you?
 
And I suppose it is the sheer frustration brought about by this type of haphazard recruitment/transfer policy that finally plants me firmly in enigma’s camp - an angry, disillusioned, previous 100% backer of an Academy/loan/first team ideology, who now sees it fast-becoming the Mary Celeste of flagships, packed to the gunnels with the ghosts of in-the-making Chelsea players, inexplicably cast adrift and, when it comes to ideals, equally synonymous with unexplained desertion.
 
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Our youth players have just not been good enough for us. Today was a good example. Say we bring RLC on instead of Zouma, he makes a mistake and we concede. Everyone would be lambasting Jose right now. Zouma, whos just as young, but not from our setup has his trust. If he makes a mistake is the headline the same?

Another example is Cork. Good enough for Swansea but where would he be in our squad? Does he even make the bench? Sinclair started today as well but is he good enough for us? We produce solid players, just none yet good enough to get a game for Chelsea. Id rather have Cork than Mikel right now or Bertrand over Luis but what young player is going to stick around to sit the bench his entire career?What top notch player have we ever froze out of the first team?

Its not as if we had 18 year old Ronaldo or Pogba and passed them over. Southampton have probably had the best academy in England in the past decade and they only had one world class player.... whom they sold before they knew what they had.

 

Agree completely. I can't think of a single player who came through the ranks at CFC and who can improve our current starting lineup. Hell, none would even be good enough to make the squad. There's only a handful of young players in the world that are good enough to break into the Chelsea team or any top team for that matter.

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I wonder if Frank Lampard would have "broken through" if playing today... when I say broken through he obviously wasn't a youth player for us but a big money signing. But I remember him being pretty average at the start with us, hard working but far from spectacular. I can imagine today he would be chastised for not taking his chance (ala De Bruyne etc etc) and be swiftly dropped maybe sent out on loan elsewhere. Though of course what set Lampard aside from many others was his attitude and hard work.

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we could have the next messi in our ranks, but jose would still be reluctant to give the guy a chance - it is the jose way unfortunately. i am hoping he will change his attitude towards our youth, and i think he'll have to especially if roman is putting the pressure on, but who knows how long it will take. 

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actually since Don Claudio has been Gaffer, I don't think CFC attempts to bring in CFC products into the fold. I remember being very optimistic w/ Carlton Cole. He was given a chance to shine. JT, who gave him a break? Don Claudio. IMHO youngsters like Nathan Chalobah or Tomas Kalas need more time on the pitch w/ the First Team. Then you don't have to try to get players like Stones. I will always say 'Give our Youth a Chance'!!!

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Look at how united managed to bring in those youngsters 20 years ago, why was that such a success ? Was it it such a special occurrence ? It was success for two reasons, they were brought into the team together, and given time.

 

We give small pockets of time to the odd youngster here and there, we expect them to fit in and play with basically 10 strangers, and then ship them back to the u21's.

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I'd like to see a bit of forced integration of academy players. Coaches these days have the luxury of seven substitutions, if every club in the premier league had to include at least one slot for a home grown academy player under the age of 21 we might see more break through the ranks. 

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Why single out Chelsea ? 

 

Because we are one of the biggest clubs in England and have invested heavily in our academy. Plus we have that unbelievable recent record in the FA Youth Cup which has also put a number of players into the spotlight so it is no wonder we are being highlighted.

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Look at how united managed to bring in those youngsters 20 years ago, why was that such a success ? Was it it such a special occurrence ? It was success for two reasons, they were brought into the team together, and given time.

 

We give small pockets of time to the odd youngster here and there, we expect them to fit in and play with basically 10 strangers, and then ship them back to the u21's.

 

This is one of the problems, the youth team players generally get the chance to shine in cup games were the side is more of a scratch eleven of misfits who don't generally make the first team. Its hard enough for a fringe player to look good in those circumstances never mind a young kid.

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Id love to see some young players given a chance but its up to them to force Jose's hand. How many of our academy players do we regret selling? Matic is the only one I can think of.

I personally dont mind that one because it gave us 2 years of Sideshow Bob and 50 million on his way out the door

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For me articles about chelsea's youth policy is lazy journalism...they're not saying anything new from all the many articles they've written since roman bought the club...we are an easy target and ticks the box of painting us in a negative light, which appeals to most readers (we are envied/despised by most non chelsea fans)...you rarely see similar articles about other top clubs youth policy...eg...Man City anyone? Or Utd since the beckham generation...

Now of course I'm not pretending we don't have an issue...but these are the same journos that would be calling for Jose's head if we lost a bunch of games with loftus cheek, solanke, Aina, brown in the side...it's easier said than done to blood a youngster while playing for major trophies...unless we are talking Messi esque ability at a young age, it's understandable they will only get odd cl dead rubber, league cup game etc...who would seriously start solanke ahead of Costa, Falcao and Remy?

Reece Oxford gets a chance at west ham because their only goal is to stay up...players like JT and dalla bona benefitted from being at cfc when we were in turmoil after Vialli was sacked, were not a title contender and were looking at top six and a cup run...the competition has grown even harder since then.

Solanke's loan to Vitesse was just used as another excuse to attack the club rather than of any genuine concern over his future

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Id love to see some young players given a chance but its up to them to force Jose's hand. 

 

Compare Ivanovic at RB against Swansea, to Aina at RB against Fiorentina, the 18yo had pace, acceleration and never looked uncomfortable in that position, Ivanovic looked slow, clumsy and unfit.

 

Remember when Kalas kept Suarez out during slipgate ? He had a blinding game, but he never made the team since, 12 months later and we head hunt a youngster for £30m?? from Everton.

 

Bamford banging them in where ever he goes, we target manyoo reject Falcao and Bamford ends up on the Palace bench.

 

Being a youngster for Chelsea is like being a space cadet for Nasa.

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