Chelsea and their Futile Youth System

Published September 29, 2011 | By James R Shaw

The ‘next big thing’ is no more than a marketing term at Chelsea for a product that, more often than not, fails to live up to its early promise. You may argue that Chelsea would be nothing without John Terry breaking through their youth ranks, but essentially he is the only player to do so in the last ten years.

So why have Chelsea failed to deliver? They have invested heavily in youth players over the years and currently home the talented: Gael Kakuta (who was once lauded by Zidane himself), Oriol Romeu, Romelu Lukaku, Jeffrey Bruma, Tomas Kalas, Philipp Prosenik, Milan Lalkovic and Daniel Sturridge. Not to mention homegrown talents that include: Patrick Van Aanholt, Ryan Bertrand, Nathaniel Chalobah and Josh McEachran.

But previously they have let go of a host of players who failed to break into the Chelsea first team despite showing early promise. These included: Michael Mancienne (£2.5m Hamburg), Miroslav Stoch (Fenerbahce, £2.5m), Jack Cork (Southamton, £750k) Scott Sinclair (Swansea, £1m), Nemanja Matic (Benfica, Undisclosed), Slobodan Rajkovic (Hamburg, undisclosed), Fabio Borini (Parma, Undisclosed) and Franco di Santo (Wigan, undisclosed) – All of which have departed in the last two years*.

Now, It’s not just Chelsea who seem to loose their patience with their youth players. Manchester United famously released Gerard Pique, while shutting the door on class acts such as Giuseppe Rossi and Zoran Tošić. But unlike Chelsea, Manchester United have given the youngsters more of a chance. Last season for example, with Injuries to Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand, Mr. Ferguson introduced the relatively inexperienced Chris Smalling to great effect. When Chelsea had a similar problem against Sunderland last November they opted to play seasoned Right-back Paulo Ferreira at Centre-back ahead of Jeffery Bruma. Suffice to say, it didn’t go too well.

So, why do Chelsea fail to take the risk? Well essentially, there is too much at stake. After that crushing Sunderland defeat Chelsea found themselves in fourth place and 8 points behind leaders Manchester United. With their lead and form slipping the Chelsea board and Carlo Ancelotti hit the panic button, which in footballing terms means; spend, spend, spend! As a result Chelsea invested in over-priced players avoiding their youth system installed to give you squad depth when injuries do occur all together. Did Chelsea need to buy Torres with Daniel Sturridge showing while on loan at Bolton what Chelsea where missing? Did Chelsea really need David Luiz, who, despite his goal scoring promise, has difficulty holding his position? The answer is no!

Some may comment that this year will be different under Villas Boas, but I’m not too sure. Josh McEachran for example was denied a loan move to Wigan (a move that did wonders for Tom Cleverley last year) and them opted to purchase Oriol Romeu, a player who like Josh will play understudy to one of, Frank Lampard, John Obi Mikel, Raul Meireles, Michael Essien and Ramires. Daniel Sturridge also finds himself in a similar position behind, Juan Mata, Salomon Kalou, Florent Malouda, Didier Drogba, Romelu Lukaku, Fernando Torres and Nickolas Anelka in the attacking pecking order.

So with that to consider I pose a final question: With so much money and risk at stake, is there much point of having a youth academy?

*You may notice that many of these players are now at Hamburg. Well that’s an interesting point because their director of football is now Former Chelsea head of talent. (He’s the guy that Mourinho had a big falling out with)

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This post is outdated and riddled with inaccuracies. Sturridge didn’t go out on loan to Bolton until torres came in. Rajkovic had to be sold because of English visa issues; the team was quite high on him. Romeu plays a different position in the midfield than McEachran, so there’s no way McEachran will be his understudy. Sturridge has started several games this year and is certainly not behind Kalou or Malouda in the pecking order (let alone Lukaku, but then he is another world class prospect so how can you be upset about one player being young ranked higher than another)? And the players who were shipped off were clearly part of the old arneson regime; by any metric, the current crop of youngsters is rated far more highly than they were. Thanks for coming out.
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True for Sturridge, but he was there nonetheless.

I wasn’t saying that Romeu would be Josh’s understudy I stated that both those players would be understudies to three of Lamps, Essien, Mikel, Meireles & Ramires. As for the new regime, I regard them higher than the last. But they need to be playing more football to progress in the game, at the moment it’s limited to substitute appearances.