CHELSEA’S YOUNG STARS CAN REJECT THE CLUB ... BEFORE IT REJECTS THEM
GOOD player, Tiemoue Bakayoko. Broke into the Rennes team at 19; sold to Monaco before his 20th birthday. Hasn’t looked back since. That’s what they do in France. They give young players a chance.
For that reason, Bakayoko may go straight into the Chelsea team, at 22, if his transfer is completed. Who else will be 22 when the season starts?
Nathaniel Chalobah. No chance of him walking into the team any time soon, though.
For a start Bakayoko plays in his position and costs £35.1 million. And, last season, while Bakayoko started 25 Ligue 1 matches for Monaco, plus 14 in Europe, Chalobah started one for Chelsea. With the title already won, he made the line-up against Watford on May 15.
So, as it stands, once the deal for Bakayoko is complete, Chalobah will be pegged behind four central midfielders: N’Golo Kante, Nemanja Matic, Cesc Febregas and the new guy. For how long is up to him.
Chalobah’s contract expires next summer. Chelsea say they want to talk about a new one. Yet, to what end? So they can sell him for top price at some indeterminate point of their choosing? It surely isn’t because they see him in the first team at Stamford Bridge. If that were the case, why buy a player of his age, in his position? Now, here’s the twist.
What if Chalobah does a Solanke? In fact, what if all of Chelsea’s young players follow that example? What if they all turn the tables and reject the club, before the club gets a chance to reject them? And, worse, what if they do it in a way that threatens the precious revenue stream?
On May 30, it was confirmed Dominic Solanke – a striker Jose Mourinho once considered Chelsea’s outstanding academy player – would join Liverpool on July 1, when his current contract expires.
As Solanke is under 24 there will be compensation decided by tribunal, in the region of £3m. It was known Solanke would leave, having rejected a new contract last season, and Antonio Conte did not give him a minute of game time.
Yet now he is free and Chelsea are frustrated. They have lost a good prospect – to a rival, no less – and also good money. And what if Solanke gives others ideas?
Chalobah, for instance. What if he now takes the signing of Bakayoko personally and decides that, 23 in December, he is running out of time to be noticed?
He can let his deal run down, as Solanke did, and leave on the cheap, too. Maybe the club will react with annoyance and this will cost his place in the squad. But, even if he is frozen out this season, what is he actually missing?
One start when it no longer matters? A few substitute appearances that lead nowhere. Chalobah has a title-winners’ medal from 2016-17, but it is not the same as the one Bakayoko got for Monaco’s campaign. It marks appreciation, not involvement.
Chelsea use youth to generate money but that may change. Maybe the academy graduates will start to use them: their fantastic facilities, their excellent coaching and care, their wealth, the loan spells for experience at clubs such as Vitesse Arnhem, Bournemouth and Swansea.
Maybe they will take all of that and then, when the time comes for a first professional contract beyond the teenage years, say thank you and farewell.
Could you blame them? Could you blame any young player who decided to use rather than be used?
Josh Harrop scored a lovely goal against Crystal Palace on his debut for Manchester United last season. Just 33 days later he agreed to join Preston, having rejected a contract at Old Trafford.
Harrop will be 22 in December. All the club have ever done is sign players in his position. So, he has moved on. He gave United their chance; they didn’t give him his. It wasn’t as if that cameo had purpose.
Chelsea appear almost to have given up on the final, vital stage of youth development. Nathan Ake returned from his loan at Bournemouth with high hopes but has now returned there permanently.
Each year a knot of young players are on the brink of breaking through but never do.
John Terry needed to be the greatest defender of the Premier League era to get his chance from the Chelsea academy. He had to be not just good, not just great, but the absolute best. And would it happen now? We’d like to think so, but possibly not. If Terry was 22 today he’d be mad to sign his Chelsea contract; like Solanke, like Chalobah. – Daily Mail