Are Chelsea still denying English kids a chance?
WHEN Ralf Rangnick calls, young players tend to notice. In football circles, Rangnick has a reputation up there with Jurgen Klopp.
The pair of them booted German tactics into the 21st century with their ‘gegenpressing’. And what Klopp did at Mainz and Borussia Dortmund was pretty much modelled by Rangnick at Hannover 96, Vfb Stuttgart and Hoffenheim.
Rangnick was interviewed for the England job in 2016 and is now sporting director and interim coach at RB Leipzig. So when Chelsea starlet Callum Hudson-Odoi was t old i n August t hat Rangnick wanted the 17-year-old on loan for this season, there was an understandable degree of excitement.
Hudson-Odoi would be learning from a tactical master and like his great friend Jadon Sancho at Borussia Dortmund, he would be getting regular Bundesliga games with a Europa League campaign to boot.
Maurizio Sarri was consulted, but it was felt that Hudson-Odoi would be needed for Chelsea’s first team. The loan did not materialise.
Since then, Sancho’s star has risen. He has six assists in 189 minutes, and has started two Champions League games and scored in the Bundesliga. This week he earned a new contract and a call- up to the England squad.
Hudson-Odoi started in the Community Shield. Since then he has been an unused substitute on the bench in the Carabao Cup against Liverpool. He has played for the Under- 23 development squad.
Hudson-Odoi and Sancho, along with Manchester City’s Phil Foden, Arsenal’s Emile Smith-Rowe and Wolves’ Morgan Gibbs-White were part of England’s Under-17 World Cup-winning squad last year.
Foden has five appearances at City, with two starts, Smith-Rowe scored for Arsenal in the Europa League on Thursday in his second start of the season, Gibbs-White has made six Wolves appearances.
Hudson-Odoi is 18 next month and is raw. But along with Foden, he was the best of the U17 team. He is approaching what Arsene Wenger described as the golden years of development, between 18 and 21. If you’re not starting games when learning capacity is at its greatest, you will struggle to develop.
Dele Alli, starting down leagues at MK Dons, had made 193 competitive appearances before his 21st birthday, 105 of those for England and Tottenham. Ruben Loftus-Cheek, who is three months older, had made 26.
Hudson- Odoi can’t afford the same, nor can Ethan Ampadu, the Welshman who has just signed a five-year deal with Chelsea. But Hudson- Odoi is under contract until 2020, so there is the pressing matter of getting him game time before his contract runs out. Loans look likely for the pair in January.
Chelsea are said to be relaxed about the situation. They believe Hudson-Odoi can fulfil their vision of nurturing a youth team player into the first team. Sarri is said to like him. But the bar is very high. Youngsters have to be good enough to play for Chelsea and to absorb Sarri’s tactical instructions.
Who’s to say Chelsea’s model doesn’t work? Mason Mount, currently on loan at Derby, was elevated to the England squad. They sell players like Nathan Ake for £ 20million. Loftus- Cheek performed well at the World Cup. Another g r a d u a t e , Nathani e l Chalobah, now with Watford, is in the England squad too. It’s not like they’re not producing players, just not often for Chelsea.
‘They are developing great young players in England, but normally the player has no chance to be in the first XI or even the first 18 of a Premier League team,’ Borussia Dortmund’s director of sport Max Eberl has said.
Chelsea’s former technical direc- tor Michael Emenalo is at Monaco. He’s already taken Jonathan Panzo, a young centre half, from Chelsea, who is developing in their Under-23 team but is expected to get starts next season. He would be one of those in line to take Hudson-Odoi on loan. But Chelsea would risk losing him in 2020, unless he first signed a new long-term contract.
Therein lies the dilemma — take the money and possibly tie yourself down to few opportunities or hold out and leave in eighteen months.
Paul Mitchell, who was head of recruitment at Tottenham and Southampton, works in that role alongside Rangnick at RB Leipzig.
For Dan Ashworth, the FA’s current technical director (soon to join Brighton) an exodus would be a mixed blessing. He said: ‘For young players to progress they need to be playing meaningful football, and if they’re playing in the top five leagues in Europe, getting big match experience, they will be able to progress. If our England players are picking that up in Spain, in Germany, Italy then for the national team that’s great. If they’re playing big games I’m not so bothered where they’re playing them.
‘However I do think it’s a shame that with all the investment into EPPP [Elite Players’ Performance Plan] and the club academies, it’s a shame for the clubs. Because I know there’s a lot of wonderful work goes on in our academies that is undervalued at times.’
Arguably Gareth Southgate has made the biggest statement: get out and play or risk withering away.