There’s been a lot of talk about giving Chelsea’s youngsters a chance to play.
It’s understandable. The senior players have gone through a very bad spell. And it’s human nature to think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.
No matter which side of the fence you’re on.
In American gridiron football, the most popular man on the team is often the backup quarterback, a man who spends his life on the bench.
That’s because fans often endow the untested player with all their hopes and dreams. Then the guy actually plays and the dreamers abruptly wake up to unpleasant reality.
Typically, it turns out the coach knows what he’s doing and the youngster is on the sideline for a good reason.
Admittedly, it’s not unusual for a coach to prefer the sense of security he gets from fielding his old reliables instead of taking a chance on unproven younger players. At AC Milan Carlo Ancelotti had a very old squad. So it’s understandable if fans think that he’s somewhat biased against youth.
But I’m a little suspicious of Chelsea fans demanding that the kids get to play ahead of the veterans.
Why? Because very few of these youngsters have had any playing time. They’ve done next to nothing to prove that they can hold their own, let alone prosper better than their senior teammates, at the highest level of the game, the Premier League. Without knowing how good these guys are, how can supporters reasonably clamor for their inclusion?
That’s why I’m going to try a poll. Cast your vote for the two (2) young players you’d most like to see start on Tuesday at Sunderland in an important Premier League match. (Not the FA Cup tie at Everton. I’m sure we’ll see youth get playing time there.)
Pretend that players on loan are available. Any and all of them.
I think there are really only two young players that Chelsea fans know much about. One is Josh McEachran. The other stretches the definition of “kid” because, at 21 and with a fair amount of Premier League experience at Manchester City, I’m not sure Daniel Sturridge is in the same boat as a Bruma or a Kakuta. Still, I’m including him because there will be outrage if I don’t!
I predict those two will get the lion’s share of the votes. After that, will anyone else even get a shout? It’s my sense that after Sturridge and McEachran, fans really don’t know much about Chelsea’s youngsters. Certainly not enough to vote for them over a veteran.
Yes, I’m hoping to make a point here. The point is that talk about playing the youngsters is cheap.
But in truth, most of us don’t know enough to second-guess the manager when he decides whom to entrust with Chelsea’s future in the Premier League.
Prove me wrong!
I’ve already been informed that this is an unfair poll.
Do you agree? *evil smile*
No Danny Sturridge? He’s my favourite
If Matic and Bertrand are on there he should be
Ryan Bertrand is a lot better than Patrick Van Aanholt, not only because of his current ability, but he is vastly more experienced.
Rajkovic and Matic are really good. Matic should be in the Chelsea squad, pushing John Obi Mikel for his spot.
Neither Mancienne or Bruma are good enough for the first team squad, though i have more hope for Mancienne than Bruma. Bruma just isn’t good enough aerially.
Even though Kakuta hasn’t performed many times for us i still have major hopes for him. He’s so damn skillful. He can play anywhere in the midfield and upfront. His only problem is his ego. He thinks he’s there already. But after somethings he said in an interview I’m hoping that’s all over. Good to see he’s getting experience at Fulham and hopefully he’ll start a lot of games
McEachran is great, though a tad bit overrated at the moment, though he is still a delight and one of the best talents in England and is a sure star.
No Sturridge?
So here . . . the continuation of our chat. I don’t think we expect a host of youngsters to be played week in week out. The expectation is to play the cream and look for opportunities to play them. Set the pecking order by performance, form and ability and not just by age and experience.
We are now creating a trend of losing all our youth to smaller clubs. The youth academy has been around for many years now that that should have produced at least a couple of batches by now. Well, you can blame Arnesen all you want but how much have tried his products – I’m talking about all here – Mourinho, Grant, Hiddink, Scolari and Ancelotti. Look at the number of young players that we saw some promise only to see them sold off. They could have been sold because they aren’t Chelsea material. But I’d say we didn’t groom them well enough make them Chelsea material. This is where old Fergie trumps year after year. Honestly, Fergie has the courage to experiment and throw the kids in the big stage and you know what, they respond!
It’s like you have the ball and you take a shot when you have to. Don’t take it too early or too late. Mostly we delay so much that this kid is no longer a kid and then he becomes not-so-good for Chelsea and moves on. Kakuta was a type of player we badly wanted – most pacy of our players, can dribble, beat his men – great option to introduce. But we are too impatient. We played him in a couple of matches and failed to see magic and he’s off.
It’s not Carlo or Arnesen or Roman. It’s our collective approach towards kids that’s concerning.
Shoot, I meant to include Sturridge. I shall fix that.
I would say Ferguson does a better job because he’s better at finding talent. Clearly Arnesen isn’t great at it. Chelsea’s current approach is to play the numbers, scoop up as many promising youngsters as possible and then see who’s any good.
Fair point. With the little that I’ve seen of Man Utd and Chelsea youths, I’d say McEachran, Bruma, Matic and Kakuta would be getting more games at Man Utd than they are getting at Chelsea. Rednose wouldn’t think twice to drop Nani to teach him a lesson and give his place to Kakuta. This is the guy who played Johnny Evans in central midfield at Stamford Bridge – something we’d never do. We wouldn’t have considered Johnny Evans. Well, that’s my view.
None of them, they aren’t experienced enough and aren’t very consistent. If i had to vote it would be Kakuta and Matic.
Voting for Kakuta and van Aanholt is kind of irrelevant.
Wxwax,
May I remind you that Frank Arnesen discovered major talents, such as Brazilian striker Ronaldo and Dutch players Jaap Stam, Ruud van Nistelrooy, and Arjen Robben.
I think the comparison of the Chelsea youngsters to back up quaterbacks in American football is a bit silly and not at all the same. Most people in the states would be terrified if their starting QB went down, they wouldn’t have high hopes for the back up, they be thinking: “This is no good at all, now our offense can’t function at high enough level.” This is the case for almost all teams, save a Pittsburgh Steelers (for an example at the top) who have experience on their bench when it comes to back up QB’s, and teams like Arizona, Carolina, Minnesota, and San Francisco (some of the worst). Arizona and Minnesota are both losing (or just lost) 2 decorated veterans, and Carolina and San Francisco have been on a QB hunt in the draft for years now, these last two are your teams that have high hopes for the man on the bench, hoping that an injection of fresh blood will be the key to fixing the team’s woes.
What does all this have to do with Chelsea? That’s simple, Chelsea are not in the same boat as San Francisco and Carolina, Chelsea has talent on it’s team, a wealth of it in fact. And if you think about it, last season, and the years before Chelsea was like the Pittsburgh Steelers, they had a vast amount of depth, so players could be plugged in as the manager pleased and everything would work out alright. But now Chelsea are approaching the state of the Arizona Cardinals and the Minnesota Vikings and their QB situations. Last year the Cardinals lost Kurt Warner, one of the best of his time, and this year was the downfall of Brett Favre, a top 5 all time QB, on the Vikings.
This is Chelsea, with some key injuries throughout the season and an aging starting line up, there may be some need to play our youngsters. Unlike the NFL, Premier League teams are entered in more than one competition in a season, which gives youngsters time to play, all-be-it against inferior talent in some cases, but at the most basic level a match is a match. This is what creates hope in the minds of win hungry fans, the NFL does not have this, so to compare the two is kind of off. From an NFL fan’s point of view (and most times coaches) untested, raw, young talent is a scary thing to unleash on a game. This brings me to my main point, which is to agree with BlueChampion, what Chelsea needs to do is find the proper time and situation to play these youngsters. Say when Chelsea is up 3-0 over a Bolton. This is when American football fans have high hopes for the back up,, when the game is essentially won, and inexperienced players have time and flexibility to learn how the game is to be played at the highest of levels. I’m not saying that these chances come often, or that everytime we have a 2 or 3 goal lead we should go ahead and throw all our youngsters in. I’m just saying that I would like to see youngsters incorporated when they have the flexibility to be young, and make mistakes in a situation where it will not automatically hurt the team if they do.
I added Sturridge. Sorry for the editing mistake. I meant to include him, as the post says, but lost him in my list!
And he may yet get credit for future Chelsea stars.
But he’s been at Chelsea for five years and his results are slim…. so far, anyway.
Zeke,
Fair.
Things have changed a lot in the NFL in the last five to ten years. Promising QB’s rarely sit and grow anymore. They usually get thrown right onto the field.
But do you remember when they were forced to apprentice for 2-3 seasons? I remember the calls for Joe Theismann to be given the start over Billy Kilmer. Was George Allen the Carlo Ancelotti of his day? :)
He has not found a Ronaldo or a Messi. But we have some real good players who if not played or groomed could end up wasted. When we have these youth players available in one season – Josh, Bruma, Aanholt, Matic and Kakuta – I’d say we’re doing rather well with identifying talents. This is a crop probably as good as in any other top premier league team. We’ve talked so much about finding talents. We should also look at what have we done with talent? The number of starts and chances given to Kalou was a luxury considering Franco di Santo and Scott Sinclair weren’t given a run. It’s not about the talent. It’s about our long term strategy of how to blend youth with the seniors. Probably, this is where a football director would be useful. We need someone to think for the next 5 to 10 years for the club. The coach can’t and won’t. His job is based on how he performs this season.
Didn’t feel like reading all the comments like I usually do. All I can say is, Josh is the only one who deserves a match and even so NONE of the youth deserve a match. You all are just saying Josh needs a starting place, because he has had 5-10 minutes on the ball with a few nice touches. Physicality may not seem a big problem for Chelsea but do you know why? Because Chelsea IS the MOST PHYSICAL team in THE WORLD. Jose has built Chelsea around that. This is why we ALWAYS bullied other small teams. Note how we bullied Barcelona because their most physical player is Puyol, no threat to our defence is he, cause he is a defender.
I voted for Josh and Bruma
Are you saying that the reason Scott Sinclair and Franco di Santo aren’t stars with Chelsea is because they didn’t get playing time?
Surely not?
Talent will out. The reason they’re where they are is because they’re not good enough to take Chelsea where we’d all like it to be.
The reason we have Bruma etc all available in one season has less to do with their quality than with the absence of any more capable alternatives. When they go on loan we shall find out if they’re top quality, or something slightly lesser. That’s what we’re in the process of finding out with Michael Mancienne.
In an earlier comment to another post you’d mentioned you fear that putting players on loan ruins them (I hope I’m accurately remembering what you wrote.) If that’s so, why didn’t Marseille ruin Drogba, or West Ham ruin Terry or Lampard? Or Lyon ruin Malouda. Etc, etc. Clearly it’s because talented players rise to the top wherever they play.
That’s why I’m excited that Kakuta and van Aanholt will get playing time at lesser clubs with a chance to demonstrate their quality. I don’t believe they’ll be ruined. I believe they’ll get a chance to be fully evaluated under the stress of league competition without costing Chelsea points in the process.
The whole point of this post is to assert that it’s blind faith to claim that the youngsters are really top players who should get playing time ahead of the veterans. They need to prove they deserve it.
As for a director of football, we have one. His name is Frank Arnesen. It’s one of the reasons Mourinho left in a huff.
I agree completely that clubs need a long-term plan. Abramovich has been pursuing a youth policy since he hired Arnesen in the summer of 2005, I think. It’s just that in his five years he hasn’t produced the expected results. It’s my belief that that’s why Arnesen is on his way out.
It would be unfair to say he’s a flop. As DanaBlue says, let’s see how the current crop of young players turns out. And he also claims credit for John Mikel Obi and Solomon Kalou. Make of that what you will. :)
Anyway… good discussion!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1351275/Liverpool-reject-35m-bid-Chelsea-Fernando-Torres.html
I hope torres wants to come to chelsea.. and we get him.. i would be so happy
wxwaxwxwax,
I’ll split my responses in parts, so they are less confusing :)
1. Why are players sent on loan? Not to identify if they’re talent as you mention. If they are all in the youth team of a top European club like Chelsea, there should be something in them. They are not brought in randomly. In other words, talent is there, otherwise they would be in the youth teams of some smaller clubs. This is the period where we identify whether they have the attitude, discipline and courage to play at the big level. So we’re not loaning out to see if they have the talent, we’ve certainly established that they are talents. They are being loaned to get some playing time, just to get playing time. Here is my point. We can give them playing time right here in Chelsea (because of our injuries, form, lack of squad depth), why send them to clubs and teams where the experience is not the same as playing for Chelsea?
2. Scott Sinclair and Franco di Santo are not with Chelsea because of various reasons – one of them is how well we developed them. Mikel is our best young player for seasons. One is, he is a great talent. Two is, At the age of 18/19, he got 24 starts and 17 sub appearances in the season. That made develop. We were willing to put him in the big stage and see him develop. If you were to go by the first few performances of Mikel we’d have dropped him and loaned him to freaking Fulham. A Kalou gets so many opportunities and if the same number of opportunities to a Franco di Santo or Scott Sinclair, we might have unearthed them.
3. I don’t think I said loaning will ruin a player. There are many successful loans. By the way, Drogba, Malouda and Lampard weren’t on loan from Chelsea. In any case, none of these players you mentioned were on loan for half a season worth of matches or more. They were all playing for top top clubs in their respective leagues. You’re asking if Marseille ruined Drogba or Lyon ruined Malouda. The answer is, the fact that Marseille and Lyon were not the big fish did impact these players. Working with top players and training with them is a great experience and a maturing process. Drogba is a classic case. By the time he was considered to be top striker in Europe, he was already 27 or 28. Proper development at top European club much earlier in his career would have taken him places. I’m not against loans but my very point is, when we have the opportunity to use these players because of our injuries or form or whatever, why do we turn a blind eye and send elsewhere on loan?
4. My view on the place in a starting eleven is that the veterans and the youngsters have equal stake. They both need to show that they deserve that they can start. In fact, it’s the veterans that need to demonstrate this more than the youngsters because of the headstart they have. With youngsters, it’s chicken and egg story. How will they demonstrate that they deserve a place if they don’t get the opportunity which we expect them to show that they deserve?
5. Frank Arnesen is not our football director. He is our sporting director. There is a difference. In UK, we do not have the role of football directors. Sporting directors is used interchangeably with football directors. Football director is a very senior position which concerns the big picture while the sporting director is still so much about internal relationships and co-ordinations. So I wish we had a proper football director.
I guess the whole topic has been around ‘have the youngsters shown enough to deserve a place or do they really need to?’. Because that’s what it all boils down to. It’s not about whether they have talent or not, but about whether they deserve a start or not. If the question is on whether they deserve a start or not, why would we not ask this question to every single player, young or old, experienced or otherwise? This is not so much about young and old, it’s about who deserves a start this weekend.
My votes are for McEachran and Cork!
I think our youth haven’t really been given a chance to play more or to play without much stress. I have usually seen Carlo bring the youngsters in only at around 70-80th minute and that too, more when we are losing than not. What i would like to do is bring in these boys when we lead a game by a good margin, the best example is our boys should have been brought in at around the hour mark in our last game against Bolton. That would give them more playing time and also the pressure wouldn’t be as much heavy as when they were fielded during a closing minutes of a losing game. Youth in manure are getting more playing time because rednose bring them on in exactly the situations that i submitted above, moreover, rednose sometimes start his boys and give them a chance to showcase their talent – a thing so rare in Chelsea. Anyway, i have full trust in Carlo as much as he have it in his senior players.
BC, yes you got it spot on talking about the gravatar. I wouldn’t dare question a bit if it is of Zola, so on that note i accept your gravatar. I have a soft corner for ‘i sink’ guy. He really had sunk many of our opponents during his stay with us!
Lol Karma! Yes . . . ‘I sink’ . . . ha ha