Buying talent

[Beepu 1,714]

Chelsea has never been the club to promote youth from academy at a regular basis, but thats because as @ said, our academy were not that good.

Now we can see that our academy has come a long way and produces players that shows great potential, like Chalobah. But we still bought alot of young players and will probably keep doing that.

It's true that we need balance between youth and experience, unlike Arsenal. But buying young cheap players has lower risk than buying established players who would have higher transfer fees and wages. Young players also have resell value, someone like KDB was bought for 7m can now be sold for at least 15m(I am against selling him btw) that is double the price we bought him.

I dont mind buying young players as long as there are experience as well on the first team. And as long as those who truly shows promise to be given a chance, if they are good enough they will make it but I want them to make it in Chelsea.

[Yeboii 1,844]

Buying talent hasnt done any bad yet. We either make good money or get a new talented player to play in the first team.

Stockpiling on young talent has done worlds for Porto.

[Madmax 9,219]

It's an FFP consequence. Young players cost less in transfers and wages, they come under little pressure to succeed and the club has the bonus of selling them on at a decent price even if they don't become starters. If they do, you obviously hit the jackpot anyway.

Regarding buying youngsters instead of using ones from our academy, 2 things - in a historical sense our academy hasn't produced Chelsea calibre youngsters till the last couple of years and secondly, if they're good enough, they will get in. What I agree we can improve upon is that even if someone like Todd Kane isn't good enough to be a regular starter, he's a better rotational option than Ferreira, who pockets immense wages without providing a massive upgrade in his (rare) opportunities.

Competition is never bad, it brings out the best or worst (Stoch) in players, which is useful to know if you want to keep them around.

[DDA 9,924]

Stockpiling on young talent has done worlds for Porto

Yea but Porto push their exceptional young talents into the first team so the world can see how good they are. Then their value rises in correlation to the inflated market and Porto makes a huge profit. Unfortunately we haven't really done that yet.

Imagine if Kevin De Bruyne had played this season with us and had been as successful as he has been in Germany. He would be worth more than the reported sum's of money that Dortmund are prepared to pay for him, at least a good 5-10 million pounds more.

[The only place to be 11,313]

My point is that why we buy such talents if they never get real chance and we keep loaning them?

We bought De Bruyne for about £7 million. He's now worth at least double that and is one of the best young players in Europe.

We bought Courtois for around £8 million. He's now worth about double that and is probably the best young keeper around.

We're doing this so we have options, rather than waiting until these players are 'stars' (like Cavani, Bender or Modric) and cost four or five times as much.

Eventually the youngsters will get frustrated with a lack of opportunities/too many loan spells...and they will ask to leave...particularly when they see their mates of a similar age playing fairly regularly at other clubs.

I don't think that chimes with how footballers think in the slightest. A 17 year old's career has basically been beset by rejection and competition since he was 9. They understand that they have to claw and scratch for a shirt and that's good preparation for first-team football. I doubt very much they would throw their hands up and ask to leave, and if they do then they probably aren't the type of player we want anyway.

[SinineUltra 1,170]

A huge factor for lack of playing time and trust in our youngsters comes from the fact that we don't have a so called Chelsea B in a lower division like Barcelona, Bayern, Real Madrid have. Would the FA allow such policy, we would have a B team playing in fairly high intensity, molding them into the players who would fit the Chelsea's system. Implement the possibility of such reserve teams and English youth system would be on the rise.

I'll add one more thing. The purchases of de Bruyne, Lukaku, Courtois, Azpi, Oscar, Hazard are all successful in my eyes. Let's not jump to conclusion that the club is certain to loan the first three names out instantly again for the next season - we simply don't know what it going on behind the scenes really. Especially looking at the transfer market where every top name is rumored to be already sold to our rivals and we are left with mere scrapes.

[Styles 9,790]

For this approach to work we'd need a settled first team, a clear style of play/coaching and a manager wiling to trust young players. At present we have none of those things so we're stockpiling hoping some come off and making a profit on the others. There little method to the madness at present.

[Strike 7,474]

Would you sign 3-4 world class players and presumably challenge for the title next season or would you push de bruyne, lukaku and go through another transition season? Almost everyone would pick the former.

[The only place to be 11,313]

Would you sign 3-4 world class players and presumably challenge for the title next season or would you push de bruyne, lukaku and go through another transition season? Almost everyone would pick the former.

Sorry....how is signing 3-4 players any less of a transition than putting in players that we already own?

Let's not forget that signing these world class players actually costs a fair bit more, and there's nothing to stop the likes of Lukaku and De Bruyne from becoming world class.

For this approach to work we'd need a settled first team, a clear style of play/coaching and a manager wiling to trust young players. At present we have none of those things so we're stockpiling hoping some come off and making a profit on the others. There little method to the madness at present.

There's actually a lot of method involved and we have a fairly clear style of play throughout the club so I'm a tiny bit confused as to most of that post (the first team isn't settled and we don't actually have any manager at this point in time although the one we might get - think his name is Jose something - has shown a willingness to go with youth if they're good enough).

In fact I'm bemused at the existence of this thread to be quite honest.

Cavani is a good player and costs a lot of money. 7 years ago he wasn't quite as good, but he also wasn't quite as expensive. Now we have three options.

1. Sign Cavani now, spend lot of money, get good player.

2. Look to accrue more young players from around the world with the ability to become the next Cavani so we don't have to go for option 1 in the future.

3. Build a time machine, go back in time and sign Cavani before he's expensive.

Now option 1 is what we'll probably have to do in this case, and option 2 is what we'll look to do in future to reduce the instances of relying on option 1.

But option 3 is my personal favourite.

[didierforever 7,349]

No, if players are good enough, they make it, simple.

When Iniesta was 20, he was still to properly break into the Barca team and saw them sign Deco, in theory that should have blocked his path, but did it?

in their current 11 barca one player in the iniesta age bracket. but the problem with us is that we have a bunch of these players but no one to use that talent. (hopefully jose will change that)

[Styles 9,790]

There's actually a lot of method involved and we have a fairly clear style of play throughout the club so I'm a tiny bit confused as to most of that post (the first team isn't settled and we don't actually have any manager at this point in time although the one we might get - think his name is Jose something - has shown a willingness to go with youth if they're good enough).

A 'lot of method' is pushing it. There is a clear structure and style of play at youth and reserve level but not at the senior team. The senior team relies heavily on individual moments of quality/skill and isn't a well drilled team especially in comparison to the top European clubs who press as a team, have rehearsed patterns of play etc. In fact I've long thought one of issues regarding youth integration is they come up from a well oiled machine at youth and reserve level with clear roles and step up into a senior team that doesn't function well at all.

[ulsterchelsea 3,221]

Hard to comment too much on this as everyone panics a lot about whats happening with the young lads based on tabloid speculation. I think people give Chels grief based on our early roman transfer operations but we have been spot on recently with lukaku, courtois,hazard,oscar,kdb and wallace along with players like loftus-cheek,ake,christensen,bertrand coming through. I know theres concerns over kdb being sold but I do trust the board know what they are doing, really dont expect him to be sold. Think all in all we have an excellent squad of youth to come through and do think it'll be a matter of mixing them with experience in next few years. Futures bright