Chelsea FC- A place forbidden for the youth?

After a memorable double winning season, Chelsea have finally announced Roberto Di Matteo as the permanent manager for the next two years. Now, even before his appointment, Chelsea have signed two top class players in Marko Marin for a price that’s totally not proportional to his talent and potential, and the hottest property after Neymar in international football, Eden Hazard. If two signings aren’t enough, Roman Abramovich and Ron Gourlay are observing the market with a magnifying glass, searching for more reinforcements in order to add depth and experience to the squad. The names doing the rounds are Gregory Van Der Wiel, Mathieu Debuchy, Hulk, Victor Moses, Adam Johnson, Cesar Azpilicueta, Lucas Moura, Piszczek, Stefan Jovetic, Emmanuel Emenike and even Bastian Schweinsteiger.

Of all the names Chelsea have been associated with, the one that is most striking is that of Victor Moses of Wigan Athletic. One can see this as a late development considering the fact that the Hulk deal seems to be drifting from Chelsea’s hand. The stunning switch from Hulk to Moses raises many eye-brows. An experienced Hulk signing is seen as Roman Abramovich’s desire to strengthen the midfield and become serious title contenders for next season. Pursuing a twenty two year old Moses doesn’t make sense at all, especially with so many youngsters waiting for their chance to step up and deliver for the senior team. There can be no doubts about Moses’ talent. Victor Moses made 256 dribbles in the League last season, which is the most by any player. But is he ready for the European challenge that Hulk has been exposed to? If not, what about the youngsters Chelsea already have in their squad?

I think it’s a topic that raises more questions rather than answers and one may never understand the Chelsea system. The pressure in football is enormous and every single club has some amount of pressure on them. The quantity varies in terms of expectation, monetary strength or playing ‘beautiful football’. In simpler terms, the expectation is of three categories- whether to challenge for honors, to finish in the top half of the table or to avoid relegation. With the entire brand of Barclays English Premier League going global, the pressure is mounting on clubs to generate revenue via television, merchandise etc. The only way to achieve them is to become popular and create a huge fan base. For this the club should grow and challenge for titles. It is this demand that is costing the youngsters in football, denying them their dream to play for their club. The unequal distribution of wealth amongst different leagues and clubs has driven players rather than the crest on their shirts. Players will realize the value of the number behind their shirt only if they earn it by playing and developing an emotional attachment with the club. It’s hard to find a Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes or John Terry nowadays. Especially at Chelsea, there is always plenty of debate about the youngsters.

Quite a few of the young stars have been given chances, some have been loaned out season after season and some have taken the decision of leaving the club/ sold out to continue their careers in the game elsewhere. Great prospects like Joshua McEachran, Sam Walker, Tomas Kalas, Milan Lalkovic, Miroslav Stoch etc. belong to one of these categories. One wonders if the club even have a plan to implement.

There are quite a few ex-Chelsea youngsters who have been sold for some reason and they are reaping the rewards for it at various places. We all know how important Scott Sinclair is to Swansea, and Miroslav Stoch has just been rewarded with a new contract at Fenerbache. The question to be asked is whether Chelsea have been poor judges of talents or the coaching/training at the other respective clubs have resulted in the metamorphosis of the player.

The reason why Carlo Ancelotti’s was sacked even after going trophy-less only for one season, was because he did not encourage the youngsters in the second season after winning the double. Big players (Carvalho, Belletti, Joe Cole etc.) left the club and Carlo was told to bring some youngsters into the first team squad to replace them. The likes of Jeffrey Bruma, Patrick Van Aanholt and Gael Kakuta came into the squad. The error that was committed is that as soon as results started to go against Chelsea and when key players suffered from injuries, the youngsters had to step up and unfortunately the results never improved. After that period, Chelsea had their backs to the wall and had to make the youngsters sit on the bench and focused on playing the strongest eleven week in week out in order to climb back up the table. Can one even blame Ancelotti if Borini or some youngster left the club?

We now shift focus to two other promising youngsters – Josh McEachran and Ryan Bertrand. The former has loads of talent that it may even explode because it isn’t being tapped properly. Under Carlo Ancelotti, he broke into the team and was getting to play some football only to be loaned to Swansea in 2012 where he was promised with much needed game time, but hardly got on the field. On the other hand, Ryan Bertrand, who is groomed as an able replacement for Ashley Cole, featured on loan spells of three years in five different clubs, before flourishing under Roberto Di Matteo this past season.

With Roberto Di Matteo taking over from Andres Villas Boas, he cleverly mixed the youth with the veterans. No one expected Ryan Bertrand to start on the left wing ahead of Florent Malouda in the Champion’s League final. He stepped up his game and did what was expected. Sometimes, one needs to be patient and take the leap of faith. The basic problem any manager has at Chelsea is the level of challenge – finish in the top four and also challenge for every trophy, every season, without thinking about the fatigue of the players and the possible squad rotation needed to be done to keep every player match fit.

Without question, Chelsea have some very good youngsters in Kalas, Kane, Feruz, Chalobah, Piazon, Davila etc. coming through and hopefully they will get more of a chance this season at Chelsea. The problem Di Matteo will have is if things aren’t going so well. If they do go well, the youngsters may feature in the league cup games and against lesser known sides. For things to go well, the big signings seem mandatory. The pressure will be on him for Chelsea to win games week in, week out and that’s when he won’t have a choice but to play his strongest side available. With the amount of money in the game and especially when the new £3 billion Sky Network Deal comes into play, there will be even more pressure on clubs and managers. Going by the trend, will the investment on the youth club and youngsters go to waste? Will they really ever get enough chances to make it or would we have to continue to purchase young talent to come straight into the squad instead? The financial fair play rules have been implemented to control this harmful trend. But will FFP alone solve the purpose? Maybe even time doesn’t have an answer.