Michael Emanelo, upon his resignation said that he was proud of Chelsea’s loan system and went on to add that Andreas Christensen was proof that the system worked wonders. While Christensen’s development testifies Emanelo’s comment, his statement is far from complete.
Chelsea have produced excellent youth products over the last few years. These kids have won every major trophy in the youth level. They have then been loaned out for further development. After that things go horribly wrong. Christensen is probably the only second player after John Terry to rise through the club ranks and the only one in Emanelo’s ten year tenure at the club.
Chelsea have lost fine young products in the process, many they have gone on to rue. However, despite losing such players Chelsea have firmly stuck to the plan of bringing in players from all over the world at an early age and then giving them a platform to make it to the first team. Chelsea currently have an excellent youth squad but as mentioned before the problem lies in the fact that very few of them have gone on to make it to the first team.
The transition to the first team remains a difficult jump to make with Chelsea buying world-class talent at the top level on almost a daily basis and with the priority being placed on success rather than growth, the youngsters are given rare chances to settle into the first team.
A new player who has signed for Chelsea recently is Thierno Ballo. The highly rated striker is just 16 years old but it seems Chelsea want to waste no time in snapping up another youth talent. Ballo will want to be the first player to change the situation at Chelsea about youth team players and the 16 year old has all the time and talent in the world to do that.
The Guinea born striker who has been raised in Austria is one of the hottest young properties in Europe right now and since joining Viktoria Koln from Bayer Leverkusen in 2016, he has gone on to score seven goals in 25 appearances for the club’s under seventeen side.
Ballo, who turned 16 on 2nd January, 2018 has signed a scholarship deal with the Blues alongside the sponsorship deal he has with Adidas. The 16 year old represented his country’s under seventeen side at the mere age of 14 but has made it count since by scoring seven goals in 22 games at the international level. Only time will tell if he can keep up his impressive start to professional football; Chelsea will be hoping he does.
