Chelsea may have one of the best youth academies in the world, but when the youngsters come of age, the Blues tend to loan them out to some other club while going for expensive buys themselves.
Apart from that, they can even scout good talent, but once they have got the talent within their grasps, they are loaned out. More often than not these players go on to shine in those other clubs and Chelsea are left to rue as to what might have been.
This time around one of their loanees, Brazilian Lucas Piazon, has spoken out against this method.
The Blues have loaned out as many as 38 players this season including the likes of Juan Cuadrado and Loic Remy, while Piazon himself has been sent to Fulham.
The 22-year-old joined Chelsea as a teenage sensation back in 2011, but since then has managed a mere 15 minutes of Premier League football.
Fulham is the fifth loan spell in the last five years for Piazon. The midfielder has previously played for Malaga, Vitesse, Frankfurt and Reading.
But now, after he was loaned for a fifth consecutive time, he expressed his irritation.
Piazon told the Daily Mail, “I’m tired of moving abroad. One, two, three loans, maybe that’s enough. It’s time for me to stay somewhere more than one year. When they know you’ll stay whatever happens, people look at you with different eyes. It makes no sense to go on loan all the time. It is not good for any player in my experience — or the experience of the other boys. I don’t see it as a positive thing any more. To be in a different place every year is not good for me at 22.”
For all their faith on the loan system, Chelsea have not benefited much, apart from Thibaut Courtois. Another successful loanee, Kevin De Bruyne, was controversially sold and has gone on to become one of the best midfielders in the world.
Chelsea have won the UEFA Youth League two years in a row and it is surprising how the Blues ignore the wealth of talent they have at hand. Instead, big money moves are what they normally go for. Perhaps they should reconsider their options and give the youngsters more game time.
