Nathaniel Chalobah

[The only place to be 11,313]

Palace thoroughly deserved that and Zaha has a lot of raw potential for United to work with. Holloway just stopped Watford from playing their normal game and Zola had no answer.

As for Chalobah, time to come back home for pre-season and try and win a spot in the squad next season. Didn't have a good game but no-one on the Watford team did apart from Almunia, but he can look back on a great first season of first-team football and he's shown a lot of promise. Exciting to see what Jose can do with him.

[Stats 7,142]

Zola done well to reach with Watford here but tactically he needs to be better. Some of the football Watford played was very enjoyable to watch but did not have a back up plan. Palace set up well for them and even near the end, he stuck with same formation, he should change formation or something but that is a weakness he needs to improve on IMO. Interesting for Chalobah next season...

[SinineUltra 1,170]

Zaha class above the rest. In my mind it was a fair penalty, the right back was a bit naive not to predict the toe poke in the end and just smashed his foot against Zaha's shin pad. Calm finish by Phillips, last time I remember him in the EPL is his Birmingham City days.

[lucio 5,418]

he had a rubbish game but what watford player didnt? they all decided to be garbage at the same time and it cost them

[didierforever 7,349]

Yep. :lol2:

Sums up a lot of the criticism in this thread over the last few hours.

were u not the guy who said chalobah>>>> mikel... seems about right... :lol2:

i have seen ake play only four times (aston villa final in next gen+villa in the PL, and a couple of europa league matches+ 5 mins here and there as a sub). seen chalobah just once and he was mightily disappointing. and i say this because i expect our board's judgement about him being a good player to be true (the part of my post which u very easily neglected to suit your convinience). hence there is not much reference for me or most of the chelsea fans. by what i have seen ake>> chalobah.

as i said in my previous post, i hope he had an off-day and he is as good as people claim him to be.

[yuvala 2,167]

Nathaniel Chalobah ‏@chalobah2m

This year has been by far the best year in my footballing career so far, n I'm grateful for all the support I've had from everyone.

Nathaniel Chalobah ‏@chalobah4m

Would like to say a very big thank you to Watford, Gianfranco Zola and his team, the back room staff,my team mates and the fans

Nathaniel Chalobah ‏@chalobah1m

Today wasn't meant to be. I hope and pray that Watford can push and make it to the prem next year.i will never forget my time here.thankyou

[Stats 7,142]

Chalobah joined Watford at bloody 17 years old and now at 18 has been considered not just one of the best midfielders; but one of the best players in the Championship this season - period.

Sorry he doesn't have the finishing of Messi, tackling of Makelele and consistency of Juan Mata yet.

But what he does have is better finishing than Mikel, better tackling than Mikel, and the consistency of Rami/Mikel/Lampard/whoever.

Even if he does have that, we can never say he has more consistency than anyone because he has not played a game in the hardest game in the world. Big difference. If Mikel was playing for Watford right now, he would look much better as well.

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

Chalobah had a very good season and has a bright future, but short-term expectations for him were always insane. He's still a fairly raw Championship player with only one year's experience and still some doubt about his final position and the jump to even the bottom of the Premier League is enormous. You could take the best team in the Championship and they'd be a poor side in the Premier League. The jump to any sort of meaningful playing time with a team like Chelsea is almost insurmountable. Let the lad develop at the pace he should. Hopefully, he'll be loaned to a Premier League side where he will force himself into some regular playing time and show that he can hold his own at the top level.

[Tomo 21,751]

If Watford want to keep him, he should spend another season there.

There's no real rush for him, is there?

[nono 791]

If Watford want to keep him, he should spend another season there.

There's no real rush for him, is there?

There is no rush for a player who isn't good enough at the moment to play for us. If he'd come here he wouldn't be able to get a game at all. He should stay at Watford or go on somewhere else on loan where he can improve.

[The only place to be 11,313]

If Watford want to keep him, he should spend another season there.

There's no real rush for him, is there?

There's nothing to be gained from loaning him to another Championship club.

There is no rush for a player who isn't good enough at the moment to play for us. If he'd come here he wouldn't be able to get a game at all. He should stay at Watford or go on somewhere else on loan where he can improve.

There were 'supporters' like you trashing Lukaku in his thread about 12 months ago. I suppose that's sort of a good sign for him.

I'm hoping Jose has watched more than one game (where his coach was completely outmanoeuvred by his opposite number) and told him yesterday that he'll be moving on.

But this thread has revealed there is a part of our support that really doesn't give a fuck about our future, a future that this player represents and should be celebrated. We've got a fantastically exciting academy and players like Ake have put paid to this notion that the jump to first-team football is insurmountable by giving very good performances when given the chance.

[TorontoChelsea 4,064]

There's nothing to be gained from loaning him to another Championship club.

There were 'supporters' like you trashing Lukaku in his thread about 12 months ago. I suppose that's sort of a good sign for him.

I'm hoping Jose has watched more than one game (where his coach was completely outmanoeuvred by his opposite number) and told him yesterday that he'll be moving on.

But this thread has revealed there is a part of our support that really doesn't give a fuck about our future, a future that this player represents and should be celebrated. We've got a fantastically exciting academy and players like Ake have put paid to this notion that the jump to first-team football is insurmountable by giving very good performances when given the chance.

The notion that Ake has proven that he's good enough to play for Chelsea in any important role is absurd. He played in 6 games, 2 of them came as literally a 90th minute sub and the rest of them were in second-tier games. He hasn't proven anything at all. You are conflating two issues. Chelsea's future with our prospects and young players. The reality is that they don't matter very much because we spend 60M pounds a year. We can spend 5 years developing someone who might turn into a good player or we can buy Hazard, who is already the best player in France two years in a row at 21 and Oscar who is already Brazil's #10. That's the way top teams do things.

Chalobah might turn out and he might not, but it will be at least a year and more likely 2 or 3 before he is ready to even play for that role. We are a team trying to compete for everything. The goal of the club is not to develop youngsters, it's to win. Developing young players is a very small part of that. We have been one of the most successful clubs in the world over the last decade and have developed nobody particularly noteworthy in that period. Taking someone like Chalobah, with one year's experience in a vastly inferior league, into the first team would be ridiculous for a team trying to win. It'd be fine for Southampton, not for Chelsea. Developing young players is nice and people always like tracking their progress, but I'll never understand the fascination with and massively overrating of youth players. It just leads to massive disappointments when they inevitably fail to live up to what were unrealistic expectations to begin with.

[The only place to be 11,313]

The notion that Ake has proven that he's good enough to play for Chelsea in any important role is absurd. He played in 6 games, 2 of them came as literally a 90th minute sub and the rest of them were in second-tier games. He hasn't proven anything at all. You are conflating two issues. Chelsea's future with our prospects and young players. The reality is that they don't matter very much because we spend 60M pounds a year. We can spend 5 years developing someone who might turn into a good player or we can buy Hazard, who is already the best player in France two years in a row at 21 and Oscar who is already Brazil's #10. That's the way top teams do things.

Sorry, but top teams do a variety of things. The best ones seem to find a balance between homegrown players and expensive purchases. That is what I and many other Chelsea supporters want to see this club doing.

For every Ribery in the Bayern team, there was a Lahm. For every Dante an Alaba. For every Martinez, a Schweinsteiger.

Plus there's a great joy in seeing someone like Nat come up through the youth team, taking his first tentative steps in the first-team and then (hopefully) establishing himself.

That's the way top teams do things.

Chalobah might turn out and he might not, but it will be at least a year and more likely 2 or 3 before he is ready to even play for that role. We are a team trying to compete for everything. The goal of the club is not to develop youngsters, it's to win. Developing young players is a very small part of that. We have been one of the most successful clubs in the world over the last decade and have developed nobody particularly noteworthy in that period.

Which is what people like Neil Bath were warning people about, saying it would 8-10 years before the academy would start rattling out products like it seems to be on the cusp of now.

Taking someone like Chalobah, with one year's experience in a vastly inferior league, into the first team would be ridiculous for a team trying to win. It'd be fine for Southampton, not for Chelsea. Developing young players is nice and people always like tracking their progress, but I'll never understand the fascination with and massively overrating of youth players. It just leads to massive disappointments when they inevitably fail to live up to what were unrealistic expectations to begin with.

That's where you and I differ. For me it's one of those tiny connections you have to the club, seeing players like JT come up and tracking their progress over decades. Chelsea Football Club isn't just about the trophy cabinet to me.

[Gilvorak 3,734]

Amazes me how people on here overhype almost every youngster the club has on it's books.

Nat simply isn't good enough on the ball to play DM for a club of Chelsea's stature. That shouldn't be a slight on him either considering he's a CB and all.

Same thing goes with Ake. While Josh and Romeu are also equally overhyped on here because of the bizarre hatred for Mikel and Ramires.

Some people are massively under rating the lad on here though. He's not the Yaya/Essien type player the over-zealous fans make him out to be and he will never be better than Mikel/Ramires in that role but he most certainly does have a bright future at CB.

Needs to bulk up though, lad's way too skinny to play there for now, then again he's still only 18....

[IliyaDamyanov 43]

Crystal Palace don't have players for Premier League , do you agree with me ?