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Good player, Tiemoue Bakayoko. Broke into the Rennes team at 19; sold to Monaco before his 20th birthday. Hasn’t looked back since. That’s what they do in France. They give young players a chance. For that reason, Bakayoko may go straight into the Chelsea team, at 22, if his transfer is completed.
Who else will be 22 when the season starts? Nathaniel Chalobah. No chance of him walking into the team any time soon, though. For a start Bakayoko plays in his position and costs £35.2million.
And, last season, while Bakayoko started 25 Ligue 1 matches for Monaco, plus 14 in Europe, Chalobah started one for Chelsea. With the title already won, he made the line-up against Watford on May 15.
So, as it stands, once the deal for Bakayoko is complete, Chalobah will be pegged behind four central midfielders: N’Golo Kante, Nemanja Matic, Cesc Febregas and the new guy. For how long is up to him.
Chalobah’s contract expires next summer. Chelsea say they want to talk about a new one. Yet, to what end? So they can sell him for top price at some indeterminate point of their choosing?
It surely isn’t because they see him in the first team at Stamford Bridge. If that were the case, why buy a player of his age, in his position?
Now, here’s the twist. What if Chalobah does a Solanke? In fact, what if all of Chelsea’s young players follow that example? What if they all turn the tables and reject the club, before the club gets a chance to reject them? And, worse, what if they do it in a way that threatens the precious revenue stream?
It appears it is not just the Conservative Party that has much to fear from youthful insurgence.
On May 30, it was confirmed Dominic Solanke — a striker Jose Mourinho once considered Chelsea’s outstanding academy player — would join Liverpool on July 1 when his current contract expires. As Solanke is under 24 there will be compensation decided by tribunal, in the region of £3m.
It was known Solanke would leave, having rejected a new contract last season, and Antonio Conte did not give him a minute of game time.
Yet now he is free and Chelsea are frustrated. They have lost a good prospect — to a rival, no less — and also good money. And what if Solanke gives others ideas?
Chalobah, for instance. What if he now takes the signing of Bakayoko personally and decides that, 23 in December, he is running out of time to be noticed? He can let his deal run down, as Solanke did, and leave on the cheap, too.
Maybe the club will react with annoyance and this will cost his place in the squad. But, even if he is frozen out this season, what is he actually missing? One start when it no longer matters? A few substitute appearances that lead nowhere.
Chalobah has a title-winners’ medal from 2016-17, but it is not the same as the one Bakayoko got for Monaco’s campaign. It marks appreciation, not involvement.
Chelsea use youth to generate money but that may change. Maybe the academy graduates will start to use them: their fantastic facilities, their excellent coaching and care, their wealth, the loan spells for experience at clubs such as Vitesse Arnhem, Bournemouth and Swansea.
Maybe they will take all of that and then, when the time comes for a first professional contract beyond the teenage years, say thank you and farewell.
Could you blame them? Could you blame any young player who decided to use rather than be used?
Josh Harrop scored a lovely goal against Crystal Palace on his debut for Manchester United last season. Just 33 days later he agreed to join Preston, having rejected a contract at Old Trafford. Harrop will be 22 in December. All the club have ever done is sign players in his position. So, he has moved on. He gave United their chance; they didn’t give him his. It wasn’t as if that cameo had purpose.
Chelsea appear almost to have given up on the final, vital stage of youth development. Nathan Ake returned from his loan at Bournemouth with high hopes but is likely to return there this summer, permanently.
Each year a knot of young players are on the brink of breaking through but never do. John Terry needed to be the greatest defender of the Premier League era to get his chance from the Chelsea academy. He had to be not just good, not just great, but the absolute best.
And would it happen now? We’d like to think so, but possibly not. If Terry was 22 today he’d be mad to sign his Chelsea contract; like Solanke, like Chalobah.
More boys of the Parish? Don’t bet on it
Steve Parish, the Crystal Palace chairman, said Brexit could bring a sea of change to English football. He cited Premier League rules stating eight of the 25-man squad had to be homegrown. As it stands, this includes youngsters who come from European Union countries, but do not qualify to play for England, Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales.
‘Because of Brexit, in theory that will change,’ said Parish. ‘We’ll be able to have a rule that says five or six of the eight have got to be English and the rest from the home countries. It’s a fantastic opportunity.’
Actually, this opportunity always existed. There is nothing to stop Palace, or any other club, putting local talent first — just as Bayern Munich have always prioritised young German players and Barcelona’s youth group is predominantly from Spain. EU rules don’t make it compulsory to scout talent on the continent; they merely afford that option. So, with the Brexit negotiations beginning, how did Palace greet this impending independence? They will appoint a Dutch manager, Frank de Boer.
It’s words, people. That’s all it ever is. Just words.
Even in its earliest stages, one of the big problems with video technology in football is coming to the fore. Its impact on the spectacle is largely negative, because it will chalk off many more goals than it will add on.
Basically, unless the ball goes into the net, and is wrongly disallowed — a rare occurrence — the video assistant referee cannot add to the scoreline.
Say the striker has broken away and is flagged offside. If the play stops, which it will, the VAR is then redundant. He cannot recreate that attack even if, plainly, the linesman has got it wrong. The whistle has been blown, the moment lost.
Yet if a goal is scored, the play has also stopped, and there is now time to analyse every aspect of the build-up.
At the Confederations Cup, Portugal’s Nani had a goal disallowed for an offside that occurred much earlier in the move. There was no flag around the goal itself. So, yes, justice was done.
But say an incorrect offside is given halfway up the field. There is no way the VAR can put that play back together to create a goalscoring opportunity. The balance is skewed to the negative.
Equally, it depends on the specific question being asked of the VAR. Rugby referees sometimes say: ‘Is there any reason I cannot award this try?’ That’s too vague. How far do we wind back? There could be an infringement in a previous phase of play. It would be the same in football.
Asking if the scorer was offside is markedly different to seeking a reason the goal cannot be given. There might have been a minor foul on the halfway line, 45 seconds earlier.
So yes, we’ll get greater accuracy; but it will become frustrating if excitement and entertainment levels start to fall because goals get scrapped over petty infringements long passed. Particularly as, unlike rugby, cricket and tennis, football has an obstructive aversion to informing those inside the stadium. Fans are not allowed to listen in on the officials’ conversations, so do not even know what is up for discussion. There is confusion off the field as well as on it.
Considering the time football’s rulemakers spent poring over the VAR system, it seems ludicrous that some very obvious nuances, complications and weaknesses were not foreseen. What else did they have to think about?
As expected, Mauricio Pellegrino is the new manager of Southampton.
‘He has an excellent understanding of the “Southampton Way”,’ said vice-chairman Les Reed. ‘His style of play and aspiration matches the philosophy, culture and ambition of the club. He knows our players and believes we have a great squad that with some fine-tuning will be able to deliver continued success.’
Continued what? Southampton’s success is largely financial. They haven’t won anything since 1976. They have made it into Europe three times since 1985. They haven’t progressed beyond the group stage or first round of a European competition since 1982.
Last season’s EFL Cup run was their first domestic final since 2003. They have had a decent team for a number of years, but are not successful by recognisable sporting standards because they sell their best players.
So, they can’t have it all ways. They can’t duck the responsibility of genuinely aiming for a major trophy, then pretend that eighth place is success. Leicester won the Premier League with half the squad that Southampton could have had with a little more ambition.
If there is a ‘Southampton Way’ it involves a fine academy that generates revenue and helps maintain an upper mid-table position.
It is, indisputably, a very well-run club. But that’s all it is. In the modern game, there are plenty of clubs that survive in the Premier League. Stoke, Swansea and West Brom have all been in the top division longer than Southampton. Are they considered successful, too?
Let’s see. Swansea won the League Cup in 2013 and have gone further than Southampton in Europe, while Stoke have reached as many domestic finals this decade and got to the Europa League’s last 32. One could argue they’re more successful.
Claude Puel having been dumped because his football was deemed dull, Pellegrino already has a difficult job emulating last season’s League position, while upping entertainment levels. He may also find out more about the ‘Southampton Way’ if a better offer comes in for Virgil van Dijk.
It is hardly a surprise that FIFA are now investigating whether Russia’s 2014 World Cup squad were part of a state-controlled doping programme. As just about every sport was in on it, the more logical question surely is: why wouldn’t they be?
Twelve years on, the consequence of the infamous spear tackle on Brian O’Driscoll in the first Test of the 2005 Lions tour still rankles.
O’Driscoll, captain and a talismanic figure, lasted 75 seconds before being planted into the ground like a tent peg by All Blacks Tana Umaga and Keven Mealamu.
Referee Joel Jutge took no action. O’Driscoll took no further part in the tour. More than a decade on, Jutge has finally admitted his mistake.
‘It should have at least been one red card,’ he said. ‘Maybe two. We didn’t see it so didn’t sanction it. When I reviewed it at the hotel, I was very unhappy. We don’t care what the crowd think. If we have to give a red card, even if it’s against an All Black in New Zealand, we give a red card.’ No they don’t. That’s never happened. Only two All Black players have ever been sent off, both away from home and it’s almost 50 years since the last one.
Cyril Brownlie was first, against England in 1925, followed by Colin Meads against Scotland in 1967.
There were no cards back then, so Meads was asked to depart. Irish No 8 Willie Duggan and Geoff Wheel of Wales were the first to be sent off in a Five Nations game, after a fight in Cardiff in 1977.
According to Duggan’s team-mate, the late Moss Keane: ‘Duggan always maintained he was never sent off. He said the referee came towards him and asked if he would mind leaving the field. And Duggan says: “Sure not at all, I was bolloxed anyway”.’
Those were the days.
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