The "blocking development" argument

[Tomo 21,727]

Quite often of various football forum's i have seen "sign player x and player y's development will be blocked", an argument i have never brought because i believe if some player on the books off the club is good enough and have patient's, eventually they will find a way to break through.

Look at Ryan Bertrand as the prime example, in 2009 we signed left back Yuri Zhirkov for £18m while we sent Ryan on his umpteenth loan, this time to Reading. Not only did he have 2 experienced LB's in Cole and Zhirkov ahead of him, another young left back Patrick Van Aanholt was widely regarded by the club and fans as the better prospect.

A year later, despite impressing greatly at Reading (where he was part of a run to the FA Cup quarter final), nothing changed and PVA getting included fully in the first team squad looked like it was the end of his Chelsea career, but he came back from Forest mid season and made his debut against Birmingham in April 2011.

A year on and he hasn't looked back, a MOTM display at The Emirates aswell as an appearance in the CL final, his patience through numerous loan spells has payed off and he is now the only real candidate to replace Cole when the latter retires/slows down.

Miroslav Stoch is another player that would have made it but he just didn't have the patience, he would have been part of the squad in 2010/2011 after his succesful loan at Twente and judging by the form of Malouda, Kalou and Anelka that season it would not have been too long before Carlo started playing him.

If we have a young player on our books who is genuinely good enough to play for Chelsea and is patient enough to seize his opportunity they will make it regardless of who we sign while he is 'developing', Ryan Bertrand is the prime example.

[Joker10 946]

Last summer we were strongly linked to Alvaro Pereira, and even AVB commented on our interest. There was definite interest and intention in signing him.

So Bertrand being given his chance is due to our failure of not signing Pereira. Also AVB Sparingly used Bertrand, and preferred Bosingwa on the right, so RDM appointment and his trust in Bertrand was also key. His future outlook with the club wouldn't be what it is now if RDM wasn't appointed or if we were successful in signing Pereira.

I also disagree on your comment about Carlo eventually using Stoch. Because Sturridge didn't get his chance even though Kalou, Malouda, and Anelka were shit. So I am not sure if there is any evidence of him being used, and i also remember Carlo using Paulo at CB even though we had Bruma.

So overall I completely disagree, being patient and good enough is not enough, because that opportunity might never come.

Bertrand case only shows how unique and rare his case is. The blocking development argument is very valid imo, it is the reason why we only have Terry from our academy in our starting squad, and Bertrand the only one in our rotations.

[KonohasOrangeFlash 2,607]

^ What he said. Bertrand was lucky to be given opportunities and he took them. However it will not be the same for all our other youth players.

[manpe 10,861]

Bertrand hasn't broken through yet. Yes, he had a few games under his belt due to the conditions of the team (he played whenever Cole needed rest at the end of the season and in the final against Bayern he played because Ramires was suspended, under AVB all of this would have been unthinkable). Once Cole is sold/retires, we might sign someone who overtakes Bertrand's position, and that would most likely be the end of his Chelsea career. Or we will get a new manager in a year or two who doesn't rate him or ignores him.

I will say that Bertrand has really broken through when he is trusted more often and if he successfully succeeds Cole. At the moment, it looks likely that he will succeed, but you never know.

[Badboy 1,526]

I genuinely believe that young players development can be held back just by being ''patient''. Players blossom at different ages and the vast majority start at about 21-23 which is fine because not all players can do a Messi. The problem I have is that managers in this league are under so much pressure that even if a young player is as good as what you might have in the first team then the manager tends to go with the ''safe'' option. I'm not advocating for our whole team to be filled with youth players I'm just pointing out that young players will greatly benefit from playing for the first team if they can provide as good as what we have in the first team. Borini is now scoring goals in Italy (The hardest league in the world to find the net) and he has made the Italy squad and he's really highly rated in his home country.

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

Last summer we were strongly linked to Alvaro Pereira, and even AVB commented on our interest. There was definite interest and intention in signing him.

So Bertrand being given his chance is due to our failure of not signing Pereira. Also AVB Sparingly used Bertrand, and preferred Bosingwa on the right, so RDM appointment and his trust in Bertrand was also key. His future outlook with the club wouldn't be what it is now if RDM wasn't appointed or if we were successful in signing Pereira.

I also disagree on your comment about Carlo eventually using Stoch. Because Sturridge didn't get his chance even though Kalou, Malouda, and Anelka were shit. So I am not sure if there is any evidence of him being used, and i also remember Carlo using Paulo at CB even though we had Bruma.

I completely disagree, being patient and good enough is not enough, because that opportunity might never come.

Bertrand case only shows how unique and rare his case is. The blocking development argument is very valid imo, it is the reason why we only have Terry from our academy in our starting squad, and Bertrand the only one in our rotations.

Good post...It's a very tough balance because you need to have international quality players on your bench at this level but you also need to give younger players a shot. There is room for younger players but it needs to be at the end of the bench so to speak. Ideally for me, is we'd replace Malouda with a younger player. We have the depth at midfield/winger where the player wouldn't be relied on and wouldn't need to start even with an injury, but Malouda still started 11 games and came on as a sub in 15 and that would be pretty decent development. It's also tough, because you can't predict injuries. Lukaku was our third striker and third strikers can get in a lot of game time if there's an injury. Look how depleted our central defence was at the end of last season. We were using our 4th and 5th choice central defenders at one point. Had Torres been hurt when Drogba was in Africa or late in the season when Drogba needed to be rested, Lukaku would have had a ton of game time. As it is, he only started one game in the Premier League which was awful for his development. It's a tricky balance.

[Blue-in-me-Veins 4,067]

bertrand is one out of the how many youth products??

[BlueDutchy 63]

I disagree with you, Tomo. You are right about Bertrand, but I don't really see the point of your post. You now have found one youth player who got into the first squad (not even as a regular starter) even though he had many disappointments and didn't always have a bright future. I'd rather see it like we should be happy that Bertrand stuck with us even though we didn't really give him a lot reasons to do so. Many players wouldn't have done that and Bertrand is probably extremely patient.

However, we can't assume every youth player will be like this. We'll lose a lot of talented players if we always buy players of positions instead of looking at our acadamy. Not everybody is as patient as Bertrand and we can't expect them to be. Talented players don't like to wait until they're 22/23 to make their (European) debuts. Buying a lot of players wíll block the development of youth players.

It's a good post but you have overlooked so many things. Bertrand, fortunately, had succesfull loan spells. Sometimes the player is to blame when the loan spell turns out to be a disappointment, but at other times it was just the wrong choice and the player couldn't help it. Bertrand had a lot of succesful loan spells which gave him experience and maybe even confidence that one day he would make it into the first squad. I already pointed out the difference in patience/mentality of players.

[Tomo 21,727]

@BlueDutchy

Breaking through works both ways, they have to be patient and determined, like Berty he wasn't going to rest until the club noticed him and it eventually happened. Same would have happened with Stoch.

@Joker10

Regarding the use of Stoch, he was in a different situation to Danny that season, Danny was still inexperienced and without a decent spell on loan or with regular first team football, Stoch just finished a successful loan spell in Holland, so im sure Carlo would have deemed him "experienced" enough if it came down to it.

@Blue-in-me-Veins

That's the point, very few products these days are good enough for first team football and most that are have not patients.

[royg 96]

IMO, Academy players involvement and appearances will also depends on how we play, if we are scoring a lot of goals consistently then it wont be hard to let young players to have their regular cameos. For example last season, Piazon and Lukaku had been in our bench several times, if the score margins were 2 or 3 up chelsea in about 60 minutes or so then they would have their opportunity to play. Basing on our current squad look we are built to have these opportunities for multiple goals per game.

That being said, young players needs to have patience and to wait for their opportunities. Looking at our recent signings we are totally building up our squad with top class youths (KDB, Lukaku, Feruz, Piazon, Thibaut are almost ready for first squad!!). My only conclusion with these kind of signings is they have very immediate plans for eventual first team opportunity.

[Jype 6,398]

IMO, Academy players involvement and appearances will also depends on how we play, if we are scoring a lot of goals consistently then it wont be hard to let young players to have their regular cameos. For example last season, Piazon and Lukaku had been in our bench several times, if the score margins were 2 or 3 up chelsea in about 60 minutes or so then they would have their opportunity to play. Basing on our current squad look we are built to have these opportunities for multiple goals per game.

That being said, young players needs to have patience and to wait for their opportunities. Looking at our recent signings we are totally building up our squad with top class youths (KDB, Lukaku, Feruz, Piazon, Thibaut are almost ready for first squad!!). My only conclusion with these kind of signings is they have very immediate plans for eventual first team opportunity.

The youngsters don't develop if they're only trusted to play when the team is leading safely by a couple goals or destined to lose and already given up, like it mostly was those few times Lukaku got a sniff of first team football last season. Of course I don't mean they have to be thrown straight into the deep end like Bertrand in the Champions League final but the occasional start every once in a while wouldn't hurt.

[YouNameIt 1,511]

Quite often of various football forum's i have seen "sign player x and player y's development will be blocked", an argument i have never brought because i believe if some player on the books off the club is good enough and have patient's, eventually they will find a way to break through.

Well, you do realize that the "eventually"-part could also be counter-productive? Look at Lukaku last season, sitting there and doing nothing with Drogba and Torres available, do u think he ever had a chance of making it through even if he'd score 3 goals in a game he jumped in to?

In order to show yourself, break through etc you must be given playtime, and enough of it. Jumping in for a few minutes now and then wont do much good, so I dont really buy your arguement.

[EskWeston 696]

You have to play the youngsters to allow them to develop into the squad. Even a player who was brought in as a first team player like Romelu Lukaku doesn't get given minutes. Oriol Romeu, despite some excellent performances didn't get the number of games he should. Even Ryan Bertrand should have got many more appearances than he did, the only reason he has been talked about so much is because on the CL Final appearance, over the season he was massively under utilised. It is far easier for a manager to use the "experience" argument.

At first team level we DO block the development of young players. The crappy reserve set up did not help things at all but we are very poor at giving youngsters a chance. Players who have shown real promise when given a first team chance have very quickly been put aside and never seen again: Borini, Stoch, PVA, McEachran all players that have not looked out of place when given their chance in the first team but have been quickly put aside again.

[Tomo 21,727]

You have to play the youngsters to allow them to develop into the squad. Even a player who was brought in as a first team player like Romelu Lukaku doesn't get given minutes. Oriol Romeu, despite some excellent performances didn't get the number of games he should. Even Ryan Bertrand should have got many more appearances than he did, the only reason he has been talked about so much is because on the CL Final appearance, over the season he was massively under utilised. It is far easier for a manager to use the "experience" argument.

At first team level we DO block the development of young players. The crappy reserve set up did not help things at all but we are very poor at giving youngsters a chance. Players who have shown real promise when given a first team chance have very quickly been put aside and never seen again: Borini, Stoch, PVA, McEachran all players that have not looked out of place when given their chance in the first team but have been quickly put aside again.

Van Aanholt did look out of place in a defensive aspect, that side to his game is terrible.