Chelsea FC Interviews Michael Emenalo: The Comprehensive Report
The Academy And Loan Army
Another strategic approach that the club take is to make Chelsea’s youngsters play 2 levels above their age group. The Under 18 squad is made up of largely 15- and 16-year-olds, whilst the under 21 squad is flooded with 17- and 18- year-olds. Additionally, Emenalo pointed out that it is rare for the club to have any 19-year-olds in the academy.
Discussing 4 players specifically, Emenalo uses Dominic Solanke, aged just 17, Izzy Brown (18), Lewis Baker (20) and young French star Jeremie Boga (18) as examples of players that have reached the point at which their development is better served playing in first teams around Europe.
It is a ploy that Emenalo states the FA is pleased about saying that they are “happy for players to go abroad, as it is valuable experience that they couldn’t get in the Championship or in the Premier League”.
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When discussing Chelsea’s loan programme, Emenalo “predicts confidently that others will follow suit”.
The loan strategy first started to come to prominence for Chelsea “because of the quality of training they are receiving in our academy, people started asking us for our players.”
One of the core reasons for such an extensive approach to the loaning of young players stems from the “gap between the academy players aged 18- and 19-year-old and the first team”. As Emenalo points out we are “not talking about any other first team, this is Chelsea Football club.” The club “can’t expect 18- and 19 year-olds to be ready” to come into the first team and “win games, titles, games that mean something, [with] no room for error.” As Emenalo so eloquently puts it, these are “huge demands” for those so young.
With perhaps a nod to a couple of our European rivals, our Technical Director points out that Chelsea have to take this approach to ensure that players develop as we do not have “the benefit of ‘B’ teams”. Furthermore, we could not simply have them playing for the under 21 team as the “under 21 league doesn’t offer players the opportunity to play in important games”.
The welfare of the players out on loan is clearly of high importance for Emenalo, referencing the important work that the aptly named ‘Temporary Loan Department’ do with the young stars living and working abroad.
The department headed up by former Chelsea midfielder Eddie Newton and ably supported by ex-right back Paulo Ferreira are tasked with “ensuring that the players don’t feel like outcasts”.
Despite being in different countries the club will obviously still need to keep track of their development and the club “want to give them the impression that we are with them and monitor everything they do”.
Working with Newton and Ferreira are teams of sports psychologists, physiotherapists and medical teams whose objective is to make sure that the loanees “had their own pre-season, so that they are ready” to start playing first team football straight away.
Emenalo used Oriol Romeu as evidence of the department’s hard work paying off, where the young Spaniard has joined Southampton permanently and has played 3 games straight away, despite not previously being a first team regular.
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However, the loan strategy wasn’t always as considered as it is today. Where Chelsea would “initially go with the first club” to show an interest in taking a player, “now we can take our time, as the players are so good.” When a request comes in for one of our youth products, Emenalo now sits down with Jose Mourinho and Head or Youth Development Neil Bath, to “map out, plan ahead and see what clubs are good for the players.”
Emenalo is keen to stress that the whole exercise of loaning out players is not one entirely used for making money: “we send our players so they can develop and be better players and hopefully come back and go into the first team”.
It is an obvious observation to state that clearly not all of Chelsea’s loan army are going to return to the club and get their chance to play, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the academy has failed to deliver.
Emenalo is very aware of the criticism levelled at Chelsea for not producing enough first team players, but the Nigerian counters this argument with listing a selection of names who are “staples in the Premier League and for international teams”.
The players named were Miroslav Stoch (a Slovakian international), Turkey international forward Gokhan Tore, Jack Cork and Ryan Bertrand (both Southampton), Liam Bridcutt and Patrick Van Aanholt (Sunderland), and Jeffrey Bruma who will be playing in this season’s Champions League for PSV Eindhoven.
As far as Emenalo is concerned, the academy has produced some very good footballers, but as yet there aren’t many that have been good enough to wear the Chelsea shirt. Hopefully Loftus-Cheek will be the first to break that mould.
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