Ruben Loftus-Cheek

[BlueLyon 9,359]

Prefer Solanke.

A reasoning in what makes a club 'big' is not necessarily it's history and success alone, but their ability to produce home grown youth products.

That is why I despise Real Madrid, as a club of their size they have absolutely no reasoning to only have Iker, Raul, and Guti being the last youth products to be promoted to the first team and instead continue to make due with their galatico policy.

Carvajal is their youth product too.

[Spike 12,049]

He's not 21[emoji47] [emoji15]

Psst, it's 18 in England [emoji12]

18 in Australia too.

[iseah100 5,612]

Prefer Solanke.

A reasoning in what makes a club 'big' is not necessarily it's history and success alone, but their ability to produce home grown youth products.

That is why I despise Real Madrid, as a club of their size they have absolutely no reasoning to only have Iker, Raul, and Guti being the last youth products to be promoted to the first team and instead continue to make due with their galatico policy.

That's true. I guess, but I'd still like to see Bamford here, he seems like a hardworking, honest guy. Cole wasn't our product, but he's our legend. Not saying Bamford will be our legend, but still. Why not have em both?[emoji16]

18 in Australia too.

Fuck you guys[emoji35] [emoji16] [emoji23]

[lionsden 4,689]

So Jose made a huge deal out of giving RLC a debut both pre match and post match interview in a completely dead rubber game only to bring him on in the last 8 minutes. it's overly cautious and unneccesary approach. Why even play some of the first teamers like Fabregas,Costa,Matic at all nevermind starting them in a meaningless game.

[Atlas Lion 1,223]

Carvajal is their youth product too.

Not necessarily. He came from ADCR Le-mans youth academy, but i'll give you that one.

[Strike 7,217]

But Luis and Schurrle ARE getting a look in, they just haven't proven to be better than the regulars. Its all about making the most out of the opportunities given to you, the manager needs to know he can trust you in every situation. In Schurrle's case he hasn't done that and Luis' he hasn't been better than Azpili...

The youth have to prove to be top level not just academy grads. If they're given the chance they have to perform at a high level. Ake is doing that when given chances and he will play more...

The Sporting match thread is locked so I'll leave this here

You're wrong. Youth integration does not happen this way. If Schurrle and Luis, two fantastic players who would walk into any other team in England, have to impress in such limited windows, what about the actual youth players? You cant expect Loftus Cheek to walk in and impress in 8 minutes of a dead rubber. Look at how the best youngsters were blooded into the senior team. Wilshere, Pogba, Varane, Zouma, Sterling etc Sometimes you have to give them a chance and see how they handle it.

At Chelsea, it is tougher I agree, the competition is obviously very high and Mourinho is a competitive man who will stick to the best choice of players. But this is precisely why I don't have faith in his promises whenever he talks about youth integration. Yesterday he talked up RLC, in August it was Bamford, last year it was Chalobah and so on..

[termninja 5,290]

So Jose made a huge deal out of giving RLC a debut both pre match and post match interview in a completely dead rubber game only to bring him on in the last 8 minutes. it's overly cautious and unneccesary approach. Why even play some of the first teamers like Fabregas,Costa,Matic at all nevermind starting them in a meaningless game.

Yeah, but I gotta admire José's ability to make a huge deal out of something like that. Even the birds on the trees heard that Ruben was making a debut.

On the other hand, I'm fairly sure some people thought it's some porn actress making a debut and she was called Loftus - Cheek hahaha

[lionsden 4,689]

Yeah, but I gotta admire José's ability to make a huge deal out of something like that. Even the birds on the trees heard that Ruben was making a debut.

On the other hand, I'm fairly sure some people thought it's some porn actress making a debut and she was called Loftus - Cheek hahaha

The whole pre match ceremony and the wine/champagne comment were very cringe worthy and even more so considering the youth player that he so ethusiastically used, to express his commitment to bringing through an academy player only got 8 minutes of playing time.

After all the hype the least he could do was to introduce him once we were ahead 2 nil in the 1st half or even start him. God knows what will happen the day he manages to start one of the academy lads in a competitive match. The whole world will know about it.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

He's not 21[emoji47] [emoji15]

joke

dʒəʊk/

noun

1. 1.

   a thing that someone says to cause amusement or laughter, especially a story with a funny punchline.

[Jase 43,479]

So Jose made a huge deal out of giving RLC a debut both pre match and post match interview in a completely dead rubber game only to bring him on in the last 8 minutes. it's overly cautious and unneccesary approach. Why even play some of the first teamers like Fabregas,Costa,Matic at all nevermind starting them in a meaningless game.

And the funny thing was, Mourinho himself called it the "Academy Day" yesterday but only brought one youth player and that was on 82-83 minutes. At times, he's really too cautious/pragmatic for his own good. He cares more about results than look to introduce players from the academy, especially in dead rubber games like yesterday.

[lionsden 4,689]

And the funny thing was, Mourinho himself called it the "Academy Day" yesterday but only brought one youth player and that was on 82-83 minutes. At times, he's really too cautious/pragmatic for his own good. He cares more about results than look to introduce players from the academy, especially in dead rubber games like yesterday.

Also the game presented a great opportunity to rotate and rest the senior players that have been run to the ground this season. What would have been his justification had one of our important players (fabregas,costa and matic) picked up an injury in that game. Why even risk it when there's absolutely no need.

Any other manager in his position would have rested more players and start atleast one youth player

[DH1988 1,273]

Crazy first team from Jose in my opinion, no need to risk any first teamers here that looked like they need a rest.

[Madmax 9,219]

Also the game presented a great opportunity to rotate and rest the senior players that have been run to the ground this season. What would have been his justification had one of our important players (fabregas,costa and matic) picked up an injury in that game. Why even risk it when there's absolutely no need.

Any other manager in his position would have rested more players and start atleast one youth player

He laid his cards bare in this regard with the team selection and the subs for the Shrewsbury game. In a way it's good because it helped me (completely) temper expectations after I'd let myself get carried away with his comments about Baker, Solanke, Brown etc in preseason.

[Rekin 835]

I have to say that I too find Mou's decision poor this time.
The success this season depends very much on players such as Fabregas, Matic and Costa, not to mention a few others, and yet they get to play most of a basically meaningless game. Imagine if Matic or Fabregas got a serious injury in the 80th minute, how idiotic and needless would that have been?
Injuries are hard to guard against, but one thing the manager can do is not to risk key players in games that are utterly meaningless, and certainly refrain from keeping them on the pitch even after the game is all but won.

The argument in favor of doing what he did could be to improve moral by winning after having lost to fucking pardew again, but with 2-0 at halftime and 3-1 with a good portion of the game left, even that argument falls flat.
I understand that introducing youngsters gradually might be beneficial, but 15-20 min is the least RLC should have received.
I guess it was meant as a carrot to RLC, to show him that there is more to get if he provides the effort, but I still think that the decisions of Mou were poor yesterday.

[Ledg 638]

18 in Australia too.

18 in most countries in the world. Even in some you don't need to have 18 to buy it, you just need to have money.

Verry impressed too. I want finally to see an academy player make his way into the first team in the Abramovich era.

[dee25 1,044]

I don't blame Mourinho for deciding not to start him or for bringing him on so late or for even playing Cesc & Matic. Firstly, I think without the stability both Cesc & Matic provided, we probably wouldn't have played as cohesively as we did with the number of changes that was made to the starting lineup.

Secondly, people keep saying that this was a nothing game so why not start RLC and some of the youth.....yes the result of the game meant nothing but it means something to the fringe players. If we're going to be successful this season then it's important that players like Mikel, Schurrle, Salah, Zouma, Cech, Luis etc are ready to step up when called upon. So I think when we get these sort of "nothing games" then it's important to use them to integrate fringe players and to try tactical changes like playing Luis and Azpi on the flanks or playing a midfield of Mikel, Matic and Cesc. If we can do these things while securing a win that's huge because it then allows these players to feel a sense of purpose and helps to boost team morale. City could not have gone away to Roma and won without Toure, Kompany, Augero and a half fit Silva if their squad players were under utilized.

Honestly, I get the criticisms people are making but I think people are focusing on the wrong things. Even if RLC had come on with 20 mins to go, what difference would it have made? Even if he had started, so what? What would that have achieved? 10 mins, 20 mins, 30 mins....it makes no real difference. The kid at the very least came on, got a great welcome from the crowd, had some nice touches and hopefully this would make him thirsty for more and keep him motivated. The only thing I blame Mourinho for is allowing RLC debut to be turned into some kind of tokenistic, PR agenda.

[The Skipper 20,593]

I don't blame Mourinho for deciding not to start him or for bringing him on so late or for even playing Cesc & Matic. Firstly, I think without the stability both Cesc & Matic provided, we probably wouldn't have played as cohesively as we did with the number of changes that was made to the starting lineup.

Secondly, people keep saying that this was a nothing game so why not start RLC and some of the youth.....yes the result of the game meant nothing but it means something to the fringe players. If we're going to be successful this season then it's important that players like Mikel, Schurrle, Salah, Zouma, Cech, Luis etc are ready to step up when called upon. So I think when we get these sort of "nothing games" then it's important to use them to integrate fringe players and to try tactical changes like playing Luis and Azpi on the flanks or playing a midfield of Mikel, Matic and Cesc. If we can do these things while securing a win that's huge because it then allows these players to feel a sense of purpose and helps to boost team morale. City could not have gone away to Roma and won without Toure, Kompany, Augero and a half fit Silva if their squad players were under utilized.

Honestly, I get the criticisms people are making but I think people are focusing on the wrong things. Even if RLC had come on with 20 mins to go, what difference would it have made? Even if he had started, so what? What would that have achieved? 10 mins, 20 mins, 30 mins....it makes no real difference. The kid at the very least came on, got a great welcome from the crowd, had some nice touches and hopefully this would make him thirsty for more and keep him motivated. The only thing I blame Mourinho for is allowing RLC debut to be turned into some kind of tokenistic, PR agenda.

Summed it up perfectly for me, just couldn't be bothered typing this out.

[Gilvorak 3,734]

He didn't sum anything up. That's just a strawman. He's bigging up the use of fringe players yet Remy & Ramires didn't start, Salah was subbed off early. There's absolutely no excuse for Jose's antics last night. RLC won't buy another game this entire season and you can quote me on it.

He needs to stop selling these kids dreams so they can further their careers by moving elsewhere.