HOUGHTON’S STILL SINGING THE BLUES
Now MK benefit from his loan days
SCORN is often liberally poured on Chelsea’s youth policy – but Jordan Houghton reckons he wouldn’t be the player he is today had he not earned his stripes as a loan legionnaire.
Having joined the west Londoners as an Under-8, the former FA Youth Cup winner cut the apron strings this summer and is standing on his own two feet at MK Dons, doing so with over 100 senior appearances under his belt following loans at Gillingham, Plymouth and Doncaster.
A contemporary of Danish defender Andreas Christiansen and England internationals Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Dominic Solanke to name but a few, the 22-year-old midfielder looks back on his days under the Chelsea banner with fondness, despite never making his first-team bow.
Maximum
This season, the Blues have a whopping 40 players out on loan, with FIFA proposing limiting teams to a maximum of six, but Houghton wouldn’t have had his ‘education’ any other way.
“I got to an age of 18 or 19 where I’d just come back from a first-team tour and still wasn’t really near the first team,” said the Dons man, who won promotion from League Two with Doncaster in 2017.
“I’d been there since I was six-years-old. There’s a lot of talented boys that are more talented than myself and haven’t got anywhere near the first team, and have ended up dropping right out the game.
“It wasn’t a disservice to me that I never got a chance with them. I just looked at it as I got a really good education at Chelsea and now I can really push on and have another home here.
“The loan system comes under a lot of criticism and some of it might be too much but it worked for me.
“Now, I’m in my early 20s and I’ve played 100 games, whereas a lot of players that are looking to get into the men’s league are struggling because they haven’t got that experience and managers don’t want to take that risk.”
A Checkatrade Trophy clash against Peterborough earlier this month was the only Dons match Houghton hadn’t started going into this weekend. The first post-Chelsea chapter of his career is being penned under the stewardship of Paul Tisdale, left, and he’s been captivated by the ex-Exeter manager’s atypical manner around the training ground. Houghton said: “It’s been quite refreshing. He’s a bit different to how your stereotypical manager would work and it’s been quite enjoyable.
Different
“Coming through the academy, all the coaches are quite similar, so coming here and working with this manager, I’m learning different aspects of the game,
“I can tell he’s very well educated. He does speak in a different way to a usual manager.
“Before I signed, I had a sitdown at the stadium with him for a good hour-and-a-half and had a good conversation, talking football, talking life, and it was the main pressing point to why I came here.
“I had a couple of offers in League One but when I weighed it up, coming here was a longer-term thing and I want to build something, and, hopefully, I can go on a bit of a journey here with MK Dons.
“It’s an amazing stadium, an amazing facility. The management staff are new too, so we’re coming here with a point to prove and to try and get MK Dons back up to where they should be.”