Eden Hazard still a target for Real Madrid next Summer
This week, Chelsea under 18’s take on Tottenham Hotspur in the semi-final first leg of the FA Youth Cup. Within recent years, the Chelsea youth teams have been incredibly successful within this competition. The Blues have won this competition consecutively for the last three years and have been the most successful club in this particular competition for the last decade.
Despite this overwhelming success from Chelsea youth teams, how many of these players have progressed into the first team? When the Chelsea youth team won there first competition of the 21st century back in 2011-12, striker Islam Feruz particularly stood out.
Nowadays, Feruz currently plies he’s trade at Swindon Town in League One. Additionally, Feruz has had unsuccessful loan spells at Blackpool, Hibernian and Excel Mouscron and at the age of 21, he is still yet to score his first professional goal.
A key criticism of Chelsea Football Club is that they don’t give talented young players the chance to thrive in the first team. Instead, they rely on foreign talent to strengthen the squad which forces plenty of young native footballers to go out on loan to the lower leagues. This hinders there development as a footballer as these leagues rely on physical attributes rather than technical ability, we only have to look at Wycombe’s Akinfenwa to support that statement.
However, what if these players were given the chance? Chelsea youngster Tammy Abraham recently became the youngest player to reach twenty goals in the history of the Championship. Not bad for a Bristol City side that are sitting just above the relegation zone. On the other hand, Michy Batushayi joined in the summer of 2016 and has only scored one league goal in 16 substitute appearances, while also costing Chelsea £33 million.
Isn’t it time to give these players a chance, what is there to lose? John Terry is a key example of why Chelsea should invest in there youth and with four Premier Leagues, five FA Cups, three EFL Cups and one Champions League trophy, I suppose he did ‘alright’ in his career.
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