DON’T HANG AROUND
CHRIS DUNLAVY SAYS YOUNG, TALENTED PLAYERS SHOULD FOLLOW JADON SANCHO’S EXAMPLE AND MOVE ON IN SEARCH OF FIRST-TEAM FOOTBALL…
Young guns need to fly nest
CHELSEA don’t have a striker. No, really. A 27-man squad. Thirty-seven more out on loan. A 25-strong squad of Under-23s.
And there’s Eden Hazard running around up top, holding it up like an overly-talented Lawrie Sanchez. Even the brilliant Belgian looks a bit confused by it all.
Yet the Blues do have a striker in blistering form. At the time of writing, Tammy Abraham had scored 16 times for Aston Villa in the Championship this season. The golden boot is hoving into view.
Consider, too, that he netted five times for a dreadful Swansea team last term – the same amount the listless Alvaro Morata has managed for the Blues in 2018-19.
The only difference is that Morata cost Chelsea a club-record £60m while Abraham came through the youth ranks - a situation indicative of problems not just at Stamford Bridge but with youth development across the Premier League.
These days, the kids are more than alright. No longer does stone-age English coaching produce technically-deficient hulks.
Where once British clubs poached teenage starlets from Spanish academies, now Bayern Munich, for example, bid £30m for Chelsea’s Callum Hudson-Odoi. Our youngsters are the envy of the world.
At the highest level, however, those players remain starved of opportunity.
Clubs at the business end of the Premier League can afford to sign, keep and even stockpile the most talented players on the planet.
Those players are, by definition, consistently excellent. Even when they aren’t, as is the case with Morata, the financial outlay tacitly - or overtly, as many managers will privately attest - compels a place in the side.
Take Liverpool, whose 22-year-old winger Harry Wilson is - like Abraham - ripping it up in the Championship.
The boyhood Koppite, on loan at Derby, is far too good for the second tier. With his pace, vision and lethal left foot, Wilson could walk into any Premier League side south of the top six.
But what future does he have An- field? Yes, Jurgen Klopp has shown faith in homegrown youngsters before. But for all the talent of Trent Alexander-Arnold and former Charlton youngster Joe Gomez, their ascent to the first team was greatly aided by Liverpool’s dearth of world-class defenders.
The same cannot be said of Wilson, who has Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino in his way. It’s like a novice boxer having to beat Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali and Joe Lewis just to get his name on the bill.
Then there’s Adam Lallana and Xherdan Shaqiri, signed this summer for £13.5m simply to be an impact sub. All internationals. All supremely talented. All in their prime.
Not many players in the world would dislodge a front three hailed by Pep Guardiola as the best in Europe. What hope, then, for a 22-year-old kid?
Very little, as Wilson acknowledged in December 2017, when he rejected a new deal and privately stated his intention to leave in search of first-team football.
He has since been convinced to remain at Anfield - presumably with assurances and a hefty wage - but the situation hasn’t changed and even success at Derby will have little bearing.
Patrick Bamford, after all, won Championship player of the Year on loan at Middlesbrough in 2015, yet Chelsea didn’t even give him a squad number the following season. Ruben Loftus-Cheek, after a stellar World Cup,
remains a bit-part player at Stamford Bridge.
Look, too, at the current trajectory of Phil Foden and Jadon Sancho. Both 18, both products of the Manchester City academy, both touted as future superstars.
Unwilling to wait for a chance, Sancho joined Dortmund in the summer where he boasts six goals, seven assists and a regular berth in the starting XI.
Foden, stuck behind David Silva, Kevin De Bruyne and myriad other superstars, has played a grand total of 187 minutes.
Sancho has proved - in his case, at least - that he is perfectly capable of cutting it at the highest level. And now, not later.
So too have Harry Kane and Dele Alli. The latter, in particular, was not wanted by Mauricio Pochettino, who had to be persuaded by erstwhile technical director Paul Mitchell that the teenager, then playing in League One for MK Dons, was equipped to command a first-team place at Spurs.
Four years later, Alli is one of Europe’s leading young players with two major tournaments under his belt.
This season, David Brooks has been in revelatory form for Bournemouth. Goals, assists, that Spanish ability to flit between the lines.
And all with the frame and face of a 12-year-old. Would he have got that opportunity at a top-six side? No chance.
Nor will Abraham. The Blues would rather flog him to Wolves for £18m and buy 31-year-old Gonzalo Higuain for £40m. By the time you read this, he could already be gone. Wilson, too, is doomed. Klopp says the winger “will be back” next year, but what’s the point? At 22, Wilson has only ten peak years left and would be crazy to spend even a month stuck behind Salah and co, waiting for a chance that never comes. And how long will Foden watch his peers score goals and play games before he, too, tires of waiting? This is not a criticism of City, Liverpool or any other rich and powerful club. They are entitled to buy and play whoever they want. Equally, however, they can hardly expect their most talented youngsters to show inexhaustible patience in an industry where the average career lasts just eight years. Sancho, after all, has demonstrably done the right thing in walking out on City. Too many hang around in hope and end up like Loftus-Cheek, wasting good years warming benches or making up the numbers. It doesn’t build patience or character, it just stymies development - and robs the wider football world of special talents. The solution? In the absence of providing genuine opportunities, big clubs need to be honest about a young player’s chances of breaking into the team. Temper the hope and you remove the temptation to stay too long. And whilst loans are all well and good, why not sell talented players like Foden and Wilson with a buy-back clause included in the contract? That way, the player’s development is accelerated, the buying club gets a world-class talent and the selling club can get him back at his peak for a knock-down rate. Financially and ethically, it makes a lot more sense than developing boys from the age of ten, then either losing them for a pittance or fettering their careers. But that, right now, is what the big clubs are doing.