Which you can't be mad at really, because people are literally paying you to take your players temporarily, develop them and give them game time, increase their value and then give them back. I'm more annoyed we aren't good enough to do it yet
We are slowly getting there, Greavesy, Fleming, KLP, Bowen all in recent years. Now we finally have teams in the top 6 flights of the game trusting our academy rather than having to send players to Cleethorpes etc
Vale probably needs a L1 loan. But they'll be lucky to find someone in L1 willing to pay £5k a week, never mind the £20k he's on. From what I've heard/read about Vale, he's not really a winger so it's surprising that we've played him there. Then again, he doesn't have the physicality to play centrally either
It’s criminal he’s earning that already. It’s almost like they couldn’t fathom the fact that they’d had an age group come through without anyone really talented enough to make a long term claim for the first team so they’ve just used their reputation and given him that honour of “next big thing”. Musiala would’ve come through at the same time but they lost him to Bayern.
But that's how they kept him. I think he'll be a decent PL player in the end. The only reason you'd stay at Chelsea is if they blew the competition out the water. There would've been plenty of PL sides offering him £15-20k. It's just the mad cost of young British talent and it's no surprise you get clubs like Brighton going to South America to pick it up for a fraction of the cost. He should never have come to us, I remember at the time they said Chelsea and Harvey picked us because of how we develop young talent but I can't remember the last time we had a straight loan on a player that we actually developed well
In terms of comparing it to recent years it’s a real drop off. So they’re riding the recent wave of success for their advantage as any team would when in reality none of them are really anything special. Will have good careers in the football league but plenty of equally talented lads without the pedigree of a big 6 academy behind them
Looks like Huddersfield are set to sign Anthony Knockaert on loan. That's a good signing at this level, though the fact he was on loan at Volos tells me he might not be the same player that tormented the league while at Leicester.
That's who I was thinking of too. Can't remember any others. You always go through peaks and troughs with academy products. I reckon Simons could go on to good things, there's a lot to like about him for a 19 year old. But the current Chelsea crop is miles away from previous batches. We seem to be going through a quieter spell with our youngsters, we've done great but it doesn't seem like there's anyone coming through of the calibre of a Greaves/KLP
Decent is probably at the higher end of the description I’d give for Tomori. I was astounded he got a move to Milan and even more so that he’s flourished. Fair play to him. As for the earlier comments re Vale, there’s obviously a good player in there just like Tomori but at the moment he looks a million miles of the pace of championship football. The physicality thing seems to be a big issue as well, so not sure dropping down to league 1 or two would do him any favours.
Thought Tomori was the best of the 3, Hector looked ok at times but awful at others and Aina didn't do too much either.
Di’shon Bernard has potential. Looked ok when he played. I’d have tried signing him again on loan or as a permanent.
