Loftus-Cheek succeeds for the thwarted
Ruben Loftus-Cheek starting for England in a World Cup game would light a beacon for all the young Premier League players who are blocked on the path to first-team action by clubs who would rather buy a solution than support their home-grown talent. By his own admission, LoftusCheek started this campaign not sure he would make Crystal Palace’s starting XI, on loan, never mind Gareth Southgate’s expedition. Back then, Loftus-Cheek was just another name on Chelsea’s dispersal sheet, which has featured as many as 30-plus players deemed expendable, or at least not ready for first-team duty. No club get it in the neck quite like Chelsea for achieving so few graduations to the senior team, yet Loftus-Cheek is emblematic of a wider lack of faith in the English game – but also a failure of logic.
While packing him off to Palace, Chelsea also spent heavily on Danny Drinkwater, Ross Barkley and Tiemoue Bakayoko. Drinkwater has been a late, game-closing sub while Barkley has disappeared. Only Bakayoko, who started badly at Stamford Bridge, has shown form in the same class as Loftus-Cheek’s at Palace.
But the beauty of this England set-up is that Southgate and his coaching staff are attuned to the talent coming through the national system from 16 up. It is that knowledge and confidence in the supply line that informed Southgate’s decision to promote a Crystal Palace loanee to his World Cup squad – and then to his starting team, when Dele
Alli was injured against Tunisia.
Hallelujah. For young players, England can now be a place they go to assert their capabilities – to make a breakthrough
– rather than a ship of doom. This might seem a subservient role for the England operation. International football is meant to be the game’s highest form, not a showcase for the lost and lonely. Yet, a unified England system from 16 up, with equality of opportunity, is a welcome riposte to clubs who would rather spend £30million on an average full-back than give their own “kids” a chance.
National recognition can expose as folly the unwillingness of big Premier League clubs to show patience with good young players who may need a season or so to adjust to what LoftusCheek has called “men’s football”, which, he admits, has placed a strain on his sometimes troublesome back. Having Roy Hodgson as his manager at Palace will have helped him along the road to Russia, and being a star at Selhurst Park has served his interests better than League Cup starts or Premier League cameos at Chelsea. Without the loan, he might have been stuck in development, another Chelsea novice with potential but no clear career path.
Jose Mourinho was always hard on him, questioning his grasp of the modern obligation to run and chase relentlessly. But Mourinho did once admit that he would have failed if Loftus-Cheek and fellow Stamford Bridge graduates Dominic Solanke, Izzy Brown and Lewis Baker were not picked by England.
A fat lot of good that sounded when Loftus-Cheek left for Palace, where he is highly unlikely to return. Hodgson told the Daily Mail on the eve of the Panama game: “I do think he’s ready, yes. We missed him enormously in the three months he was injured with his ankle problem. I think he is absolutely ready and I think he showed that in his cameo against Tunisia the other night.”
Glenn Hoddle’s comparison between Loftus-Cheek and Michael Ballack found favour with Southgate’s predecessor. “He could play in a central role in a four, but luckily for me he can also play as a wide player in a four. But if you play with a defensive midfield player alongside him he could certainly do that, I’m sure. I’d say he goes by people more than Ballack did. But I think he’s got Ballack’s power and his pace and his strength, he’s definitely got that.
“He’s maybe got more strings to his bow than even Ballack had. That’s a bold thing to say, I know, but he’s so good at going past people. He’s got that deceptive turn of pace.”
Chelsea’s new manager will make that judgment for himself, while Loftus-Cheek weighs the risk of disappearing again in west London. “I want to play. I want to play as much as I can,” he says. “And even this past season I didn’t play as much as I would have liked to because of the injuries and stuff. So I still feel I need a proper season of playing wherever it is.”
In Russia, he represents a pleasing example of England charting a course to World Cup football for someone from a large native talent base which, for commercial reasons, provides only a third of Premier League starters. Born in Lewisham, Loftus-Cheek has been at Chelsea since the age of eight, and is one of innumerable FA Youth Cup- winning players to have found life turning complicated after that triumph. He was even tried as a striker by Antonio Conte.
A strong ball-carrier, good in tight spaces, and with a creative tinge to his game, Loftus-Cheek embodies what can be achieved with a player who passes through all the England age levels. Such a journey would be considered routine in Spain or Germany. England’s style though has always been to experiment with managers and simply make it up as they go along.
Loftus-Cheek is therefore a victory for forethought, coaching and patience. He will carry the flag for the thwarted generation.
‘I want to play. I want to play as much as I can. I still feel I need a proper season of playing, wherever it is’