Chelsea are a curious club. A club devoid of any real history or achievement prior to their sugar daddy oligarch intervention yet deluding itself that it is somehow owed a permanent seat at the top table of European football. A club hopelessly riddled by player power, with the latest incumbent of the very temporary managerial hot-seat, Maurizio Sarri, growing increasingly paranoid and fearful of the demons that accounted for Jose Mourinho (twice) and his immediate predecessor Antonio Conte. Both Mourinho and Conte won the English Premier League and were still ousted by the delicate egos that manifest within the Chelsea dressing room. Sarri in contrast has never won a major club honour. The tell-tale Machiavellian rumblings and murmurings of Chelsea’s traditional behind-the-scenes unrest are slowly moving through the gears; Eden Hazard’s thinly-disguised “come and get me” flirtations towards Real Madrid provoked an ill-advised public rebuke from Sarri while the normally subdued N’kolo Kante has made little secret of his unhappiness at playing second fiddle to the statuesque Jorginho.
So it should come as no surprise that Chelsea’s inbred short-term mentality has seen the arrival of veteran Gonzalo Higuaín – a 31yr old striker whose potency has declined to such an extent that Juventus were happy to loan out their once-£75M record signing to a one-time title rival AC Milan, while the Rossoneri were more than accommodating of Chelsea’s wish to take over that loan deal – in the very same January transfer window that it seems the Blues will lose one of their brightest young talents to the German Bundesliga. Callum Hudson-Odoi has never started an EPL game for Chelsea yet FC Bayern see such potential to warrant an eye-watering £35M investment. Higuaín meanwhile arrives at Stamford Bridge for a loan fee nobody wanted to pay, on a salary that nobody would entertain and on terms that Chelsea themselves would usually refuse. It is a desperate panic-stricken move by an insecure manager who knows his position is vulnerable; clinging to past memories and praying that by reuniting with the Argentine – Higuaín enjoyed his most prolific campaign under Sarri at Napoli almost four years ago – Sarri can somehow reassert his authority on a squad that already seem to have cast him adrift as an all too familiar cloud of disruption looms over the club.
Higuaín will join 32yr old Olivier Giroud at Stamford Bridge and therein lies the frustrations for promising youngsters such as Hudson-Odoi. While Chelsea are at least on paper reaping the belated rewards of their vast investment into their youth academy under the direction of scouting guru Frank Arnesen a decade ago, the route from the academy to their first team remains as insurmountable as ever. Since featuring in the 2018/19 curtain-raiser Community Shield Hudson-Odoi would have to wait almost three months for his next taste of first-team football, and that in the oft-disregarded Europa League. Perhaps spurred on by FC Bayern’s pursuit of the player, Sarri included Hudson-Odoi in his FA Cup line-up, but at the time of writing the young prospect has yet to start a Premier League match. But it seems clear, despite the encouraging noises originally made by Sarri regarding the importance of promoting from within, when push comes to shove an embattled manager is always going to trust in experience over youth.
The obvious solution is to either appoint a manager who does have faith and trust and confidence in a cohesive youth academy structure or turn to an iron fist character, in the mould of a Jose Mourinho, but grant him the absolute power required to instil unquestionable authority on one of the most unprofessional dressing rooms in Europe. Chelsea’s organisational structure is overly-complex with no clear direction on who is exactly responsible for what, especially in the key area of player recruitment. Andrei Shevchenko and Fernando Torres were prestige arrivals that seemingly had little input from the manager and ultimately had a negligible impact on the team – other than play pivotal roles in the dismissals of the Head Coach at the time. While Higuaín at least on the face of it appears to be an acquisition with Sarri’s blessing, the uncertainty created by employing multiple chiefs inevitably diminishes the authority of the manager.
It is a crushing indictment of Chelsea’s muddled planning and short-term priorities that they find themselves scavenging like starving raccoons through the scraps of the January transfer window. Despite the vast resources at their disposal the last academy prospect to establish himself in the Chelsea first-team was John Terry almost two decades ago. And this is no run-of-the-mill set-up; Chelsea’s youth team have lifted the FA Youth Cup in nine of the last eleven seasons. Some prospects have moved on and that the likes of Dominic Solanke and Tammy Abraham have struggled to impact on the English Premier League perhaps suggests that they were never quite good enough?
But where is Chelsea’s Harry Kane, Marcus Rashford, Declan Reid or Trent Alexander-Arnold? Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Ethan Ampadu have seen almost as much international football for England and Wales as they have in west-London. In their place Chelsea have recruited a wealth of players who have barely troubled the statisticians; Danny Drinkwater, Tiemoue Bakayoko, Martin van Ginkel, Marko Marin, Juan Cuadrado, Loic Remy, Davide Zappacosta, Radamel Falcao, Michy Batshuayi, Emerson Palmieri and Kennedy being just a fraction of their inglorious alumni.
It is not just a Chelsea problem, nor indeed one limited solely to the English Premier League. FC Barcelona’s revered La Masia academy has seen only Sergio Roberto emerge to establish himself in the first-team for the Catalan giants since its glorious heyday of Xavi and Iniesta and Messi. Real Madrid have a similar paucity of youth barring the recent elevation of Marco Asensio and Theo Hernandez.
The route to first team football in England is far from straight-forward and the monies demanded by mere prospects and their agents is often far beyond their merit and status. That Chelsea have been forced into a corner with the interest in Hudson-Odoi from FC Bayern – a rumoured £100,000 per week salary and a £5M signing-on fee for a player who has never started an EPL match – is a case in point; although that Chelsea have reportedly agreed to match the offer suggests it is also one entirely of their own making. Jadon Sancho has flourished in the Bundesliga with Borussia Dortmund since abandoning hope of snaring a first-team place at Man City while Ademola Lookman has grown frustrated at his lack of football at Everton behind the occasionally average Theo Walcott having spent a year enjoying consistent first-team football at RB Leipzig.
But the question ultimately for Chelsea is to identify the purpose of their youth academy system. Is it a long-term project to embed their culture in a structured and productive youth system to coach young talent to eventually feature in their first team? To preserve a sense of identity with the club and an association with the supporters that can only be generated by ensuring a local homegrown presence in the team. Or is it to serve solely as a cash cow; a revenue stream where short-term fixes supersede longer term planning?
Both objectives carry significant risk; on the one hand you may uncover a generation of superstars such as Barcelona’s Xavi, Iniesta and Messi or Man Utd’s Class of 1992 vintage of David Beckham, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs but there will also be years of comparative drought too. Or alternatively you continue to primarily sell your youth players, risking disillusionment among your current and future prospects and all the while hoping you can maintain enough objectivity amidst this soulless Quest for Cash to safeguard against a repeat of Sir Alex Ferguson’s error in allowing a fledgling Paul Pogba to leave for Juventus. The Old Lady of Turin signed the promising Frenchman for a nominal fee in 2012; just four years later it cost Man Utd £90M+ to bring Pogba back to Old Trafford. That was shrewd….
The Eye of the Fly 