The Big "Paucity of English Youth Talent" Debate!

Definitely this as well. It's especially bad with any discussion about Man City. They have the smallest long term fanbase so they seem to be mostly represented online by the ever insightful and even-handed opinions of twelve year old Americans.

 

To be honest, I stopped posting on Bluemoon years ago due to the insults you get if you go against the grain who permanently have their blue tinted glasses on as saying anything in a constructive way that's deemed negative against the Club is met by insults etc. Just not worth the effort.

 

Combined minutes of football in 16/17 in the top 6 levels in Europe:

38891 - Spain
31352 - Germany
17914 - England

 

"Something Special Happening for English Football"
The FA's new era is delivering with a new generation of player https://t.co/Q9LQLrofVV pic.twitter.com/0MEDRLUoJX

— Whitehouse Address (@The_W_Address) June 26, 2017

 

Yep, I did, those two drove me up the wall whilst at work, what a load of absolute nonsense they we're going on about. Why an earth those two are on TalkSPORT is anyone's guess.

 

I'm never amazed by the English football fan, I mean we are a breed on our own I'm sure with mass joy and optimism ( U20's success, Toulon win, U17's reaching final ) to doom and gloom and the mass extinction of English football ( U21 performance). I mean those two clowns coming out with we are not producing any talents ,so shut down the academies ( Porky being an Everton fan and obviously not realising Tom Davies came through Everton academy) despite quite clearly not knowing anything about youth football and how they get air time on a Sports radio show is beyond me, along with David Gold and his views that no youngsters will be getting a chance with Premier League Clubs don't help either.

 

John Terry on home-grown kids: 'Monaco have a couple & everybody’s saying how good they are. Believe me we’ve got better players at Chelsea'

— Henry Winter (@henrywinter) July 3, 2017

 

Lmao hes a dunce

Can see him being Stuart Pearce like as a coach

 

Monaco have Mbappé and Germain in their squad as academy-produced HG players fwiw. Don't let the young player excitement cover that up when leaping to criticise Terry.

 

Could you elucidate on what you mean by this? All the criticism I'm seeing of this statement stems from people not thinking Chelsea have the talent (because they haven't seen it in senior football) not doubt that Monaco have a couple of good home grown players.

Although they have now sold Germain this summer, and Mbappe was being chased by every club under the sun when he signed for Monaco at 14, so there is very little "homegrown" in their impressively youthful squad.

 

It's a bit of both but, because Monaco had a spectacular season with a young squad, people have automatically equated them to being some bastions of academy development when really they're the same as Dortmund; happy to sign a lot of good young players and then actually use them.

I don't think there's much of a dispute that Chelsea have talented youngsters, but people won't take it seriously when it comes from Terry simply because it's Terry.

 

Do you think they have one on the level of Mbappé though?

 

It's kind of ridiculous to suggest because of the manner in which Mbappé has skyrocketed but yeah, if they gave Musonda or Hudson-Odoi or Boga those sorts of opportunities at 17 then they could've gotten somewhere close. Mbappé looks like a generational talent reminiscent of Brazil's Ronaldo so to ask anyone to compare to him is asking a lot but those three, in terms of attacking play, are/were capable of truly excelling (they lack Mbappé's physical development though, which has been a huge part of his success).

 

Someone like Rashford wasn't thought of particularly highly and when he got the opportunity has been brilliant. Agree that it's no great leap to suggest some of Chelsea's could have had a similar projectory had they been given the opportunity.

 

Trajectory?

I kind of agree but someone like Mbappé really has everything in place: technical ability, physicality, footballing intelligence and vision, incredible drive to succeed and understanding of what it takes, and yeah, opportunity. Musonda in particular has the technical ability and footballing intelligence, but is perhaps a little way behind Mbappé on more elements than just his chances to play for his parent club. Neither he nor Boga has absolutely nailed his loan spells in the way that you might expect someone who had Mbappé's skillset to do. And Hudson-Odoi is great, but I think the consensus very recently was that he was half a level below the likes of Sancho and Gomes. More gifted than Mbappé but not the best in England's under-17s? It sounds a bit implausible.

Like you say, Juni, Mbappé has the appearance of a generational talent, and I think by implicitly saying that Chelsea's youngsters are better than Mbappé - without even having seen him come through the ranks - Terry has overstated his fairly speculative point. That said, to say that Chelsea have talents who could be important players for big clubs and for their countries if only they were given the chance is nothing too absurd.

 

Only outside of United.

The comparison with Mbappe is ridiculous though. That boy is Ballon d'Or material. If Chelsea has a future first team regular out from the current batch it would have been a success. It's not like Monaco had given opportunities en masse to teenagers. Mbappe played because he's too good not to. Should not use an outlier like him to compare Monaco with Chelsea though.

 

Mbappe is ridiculous and a massive outlier. But to say that just cause Chelsea haven't produced a player of his level that it cancels out the players they have is kinda weird. It'd be like saying Armenia are better at football than the Republic of Ireland because Mkhitaryan is the best player from either country.

Monaco's academy hasn't produced much talent at all recently. I mean it's even a little difficult to argue if they produce any true HG players anymore cause they basically fill their youth teams with players that are signed in at 14+.

Terry's point was completely salient. Anyone who has paid attention to youth football over the past five years knows that Chelsea are churning out great footballers for fun but people just want to be snarky about CAPTAIN LEADER LEGEND JOHN GEORGE TERRY.

People were out there tweeting 'did he not watch Monaco beat City?' and 'who have Chelsea produced on the level of Silva and Bakayoko?' without even considering for a minute that he might be right. If people want to go down that road then Chelsea can start claiming De Bruyne, Courtois and Lukaku as HG.

 

Don't think anyone's even vaguely implied that. What Terry said, according to that quote, is this:

"Monaco have a couple & everybody’s saying how good they are. Believe me we’ve got better players at Chelsea."

So he's only right if Chelsea have young talents who are better than Mbappé, which is questionable to say the least. As I say, I think he's taken a salient point and overstated it to the point where it appears ridiculous. Someone is going to have to massively exceed expectations to prove him right.

 

Exactly

He's saying these kids are that level. It there is no proof

 

Chelsea are producing lots of talented young players who will go on to be good players at Championship and lower PL level, but they have yet to produce a legit young talent like a Giggs, Rooney, Owen, Fowler etc etc, and until they do then Terry's claim means nothing.