I'm genuinely pissed. What the ******** are doing? I understand why he wants out, what I don't understand is how in the hell we can undervalue our academy so much.
Bakayoko has had 1 good year of top flight football. All he needed was a chance. We are now buying that one ********ing season at £40m. Neat.
The way things are going with our young talent, he'll be sold in January after only appearing in 6 games (5 as a substitute and one start in the League Cup).
I really hope the club learns from this. Traore, Ake, Chalobah, Solanke.. I had such high hopes for these bunch. Same goes for RLC who will prob be sold to Palace next summer. The integration of youth in this club is non-existent. The youth department is purely for profits. The club needs to learn soon that £30-40M a summer is not worth it anymore when first team players cost over £40M each.
I dont understand the anger at the selling of the youth. That is the business model now so I would get used it. We run a for profit academy loan system. The academy will no longer function (if it ever did) as a feeder for the first team. It is a cash cow plain and simple. If we are selling Matic and Nate we have to be the market for other midfielders besides Baka. Not sure who we can entice to play a bit part in the rotation but I am sure they will cost 50m.
From a sporting perspective it its terrible for the club in numerous ways IMO. It hurts our recruitment process, youth players will choose clubs to sign for that they actually have a chance to earn a chance into the first team. The clubs images is very poor because of our approach to youth develop which should be a huge priority for the club. Lastly, the financial benefits are quickly running out. We can sell players like Ake, Traore, Chalobah, who all looked extremely promising, for a total of £33M. You may think £33M is a lot, unfortunately, in today's market it buys you 1 player who could become a good signing or a flop. Bakayoko £40M, Morata £80M, Belotti £87M. All these players were given playing time and proved that they can play at a high level. If we gave our players like Ake, Traore, RLC, Chalobah, Solanke, an actual chance to succeed and earn a place in the squad then I am positive we would have brought through more youth players. It is really embarrassing that are youth teams are winning every competition year in and year out and all we do is farm them off for a few ££ rather then integrate them in the team.
It's extremely tough considering the immense pressure that teams are under at the highest level now. Barca would have been my immediate answer a few years ago but even they are losing youth players who feel they are not given an opportunity earn a spot in the squad. They still would be my first answer. Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Fabregas, Pique, Busquets etc. Even if we sell 3-4 youth players a year for the next 5 years we wouldn't have enough money to buy a player of Xavi, Iniesta or Messi's caliber. Bayern Munich also do a great job, Scweinsteiger, Lahm, Muller, Kroos, Mats Hummels. Bayern's youth academy cocst only £3M a year to run. Money well spent. Also forgot Alaba and Emre Can. Ajax have a great youth system that brought up legends like Van Basten, Rijkaard, Bergkamp, Cruyff. Recently they brought through Klaassen and Cristian Eriksen. Madrid are actually doing great with youth talents recently like Morata, Carvajal, Arbeloa, Lucas Vazquez. Southampton is not an elite club but they bring through youth players nearly as good as anyone, Walcott, Lallana, Oxlade Chamberlain, Bale, Shaw. Atletic Bilbao is another team, not elite but a staple in La Liga, 118 years and never relegated. 63% of their first team squad last season emerged from the clubs youth academy. I'm not saying we need to have a squad primarily built on youth players, but we have definitely had the talent over the past 5+ years to bring some into the squad. We just never gave them an actual chance.
So, in modern football, your answer is none, really. Barca haven't had a youth player come through since their golden generation, that you're claiming Hummels for Bayern is bizarre (or Can), and Alaba was at Bayern's youth for all of one year. Ajax aren't a real European power anymore and are in a completely different position. Real have one starter. Bilbao and Soton aren't wortwhile mentioning. So, in short, no big clubs currently do a good job of bringing in youth. We're not particularly different. Again, the problem is you have to be genuinely elite. Of all the players we've sold so far, the only one who might be is Ake, and he's the one who's at our deepest position.
You can't go and pay silly money for RM's second choice striker and be able to justify to the owners. Which is why James went out on a loan, and United refused to pay RM's asking for Morata, and it appears so does Chelsea.
The Chelsea youth system (maybe all the academies) are like college football now. Kids choose schools that get players drafted as much as they do for success at the college level. This is why Chelsea's for-profit system won't dry up. The system isn't meant to be one-in, one-out; it's just another revenue stream, along with the gate, merchandise, TV rights, sponsors, etc. etc.
Not recently they haven't. If you want to compete for leagues and the CL, it's not feasible. Real and Barca have a slight leg up, because they're up 3-0 at the half so often in the league, and even they don't do it.