Chelsea’s young talents are wasted at the Bridge
Chelsea had a hectic and gruelling summer tour, which makes you wonder whether they have put their players under damaging physical pressure, ahead of a season in which, as competitors in the European Champions Cup, they can no longer have those midweek rests which were something of a blessing in disguise last season.
With their splendid scouting and coaching programme, Chelsea turn out fine players in abundance; then, by and large, never give them a chance. At the end of last season they had some 38 players out on loan.
Now, having paid Roma a huge fee for German international centre-back Antonio Rudiger, they have sold Nathan Ake to Bournemouth, where he did well on loan last season. Will Rudiger really be such an improvement on the 22-yearold Ake, who admits he would have been worried had he stayed at Chelsea about being able “to come in and play”.
Chelsea were much put out when their highly promising striker Dominic Solanke, a great success in the England team which won the under-20 World Cup in South Korea, promptly decided at the end of his contract to walk out and join Liverpool. But given the endemic frustration of being a young talent at Stamford Bridge, who could blame him?
At least the highly promising Andreas Christensen is coming back to the Bridge after two successful seasons in the Bundesliga, though that is something of a rarity as many more go out on loan.
Isaiah Brown, who has joined newly promoted Brighton, impressed me in the Huddersfield Town attack last season. Tammy Abraham, after scoring all those goals for Bristol City, finds a berth at Swansea, having turned down promoted Newcastle, and the tall, powerful midfield attacker Ruben Loftus-Cheek, after frequent but sporadic appearances for Chelsea, should get a good many more games for Crystal Palace.
As long ago as 1952, after an astonishing match at Stamford Bridge, in which his young Manchester United side won 6-5, Matt Busby said to me: “If you don’t put them in, you don’t know what you’ve got.”
Chelsea don’t put them in, they put them out: 38 and counting.