Chelsea’s lack of respect for some of England’s top talent
CHELSEA are one of only two clubs still competing in all four competitions of the English football season – and their supporters have a magnificent month of February in prospect. Pick and choose from the final of the League Cup, an FA Cup fifth round home tie against Manchester United, crucial showdowns with Manchester City and Tottenham in the Premier League as they chase a top-four place, and a Europa Cup tie against Malmo in a tournament for which the bookmakers reckon they are clear favourites.
That’s not too shabby, you might think, in the first season of a highly regarded manager imposing a new style of football on his team.
Pep Guardiola, Mauricio Pochettino and Jurgen Klopp all required a full opening campaign to deliver their brands of football at clubs here in England.
Yet there is trouble at Stamford Bridge – deep, festering, rancorous trouble. Inconsistent displays seem to betray lack of spirit among a superstar squad, while the new manager Maurizio Sarri has openly criticised his players as “difficult to motivate”.
Young talent Callum Hudson-Odoi put in a transfer request after a £35million bid from Bayern Munich was rejected.
Supporters are also fed up, chanting “you don’t know what you’re doing” when Sarri made a substitution they didn’t care for during a hapless 4-0 midweek defeat at Bournemouth.
There was a long dressing room inquest and the manager travelled home alone rather than sit on the team bus after that game.
Yes, folks, it’s yet another soap opera season at Chelsea and it will probably end the same way as it usually does – with the silent, blinkered, careless owner Roman Abramovich taking the routine option of changing the manager. That’s easier than changing the rotten culture of swift disenchantment at The Bridge.
Easier than backing a football manager and his style as Liverpool, City and Spurs, the top three in the Premier League table, prefer to do. Easier than confronting the egos of multi-millionaire players who have learned that switching off will not harm them.
Easier than allowing a club to reclaim its soul by building a team based around kids who grew up wearing Chelsea blue through the youth ranks.
The real problem at Stamford Bridge is not with the so-called Sarri-ball style of football, it is the mute reality that another season passes without commitment to their kids.
John Terry, nearly two decades ago, is the last youngster to become a first-team regular at Chelsea. He was aged 20 when he played virtually a full season and he was captain a year later. Chelsea today have the finest young central defender in the country on their books. He is first choice for England Under-21s after helping the U20s to win their junior World Cup. He has been exceptional all season on loan at Derby County.
Fiyako Tomori is now 21 but he is nowhere near a Chelsea side that he should be gracing rather than David Luiz.
Chelsea have lacked goals this season, for too long persisting with Eden Hazard as a false nine in the absence of a natural goal-scoring centre forward.
They have such a talent – but Tammy Abraham, aged 21, on loan at Aston Villa, is top scorer in the Championship with 19 goals in 23 games rather than hitting the net at The Bridge. He could have been recalled in the transfer window just closed, but instead the club signed veteran Argentine striker Gonzalo Higuain on a loan deal from AC Milan.
Abraham has played twice for Chelsea, a stark contrast to the 152 matches enjoyed by Marcus Rashford at Manchester United. The strikers were born in the same month, October 1997.
Consider all this, and then wonder how Chelsea have the nerve to be disappointed and angry that teenage winger Hudson-Odoi put in a transfer request following interest from Bayern Munich.
The kid had played 61 minutes in the Premier League this season before yesterday, and he had seen the club commit to spending £58m on young American winger Christian Pulisic, who will arrive in the summer.
Is it any wonder the 18-year-old Hudson-Odoi thinks getting out is his best career option?
Another contrast, too, just for good measure – Chelsea have midfielder Mateo Kovacic on loan from Real Madrid this season and he has performed passably well so far.
At the same time they have sent one of English football’s most promising midfielders, Mason Mount, out on loan.
He is good enough to make the national team squad while playing in the Championship.
All this is not merely the decision of manager Sarri, it is the club’s long-term attitude and strategy – and at heart it reveals a culture of disrespect towards young English footballers.
Winning trophies does not change that. ANOTHER week and another wander down the moral maze of football, this time trudging through the snow of Anfield.
How could Liverpool think it was okay to clear away the snow and ice in only one penalty area during the half-time interval of their midweek match against Leicester – the one they were attacking in the second half?
Home advantage has always been a powerful factor in front of The Kop; it didn’t need this extra helping.
The club has a fine tradition of playing fair and all this snow patrol did was to provide evidence of nervousness in the ranks as the title race intensifies.