Isaiah Brown is the latest player to perform the Chelsea two-step: sign a new contract and head out on loan. Brown will spend the season at Brighton & Hove Albion, becoming the fifth Blue on loan in the Premier League.
Isaiah Brown helped Huddersfield gain promotion to the Premier League while on loan there last season. He will spend his first season of top-flight football on loan with another Premier League debutant, Brighton & Hove Albion.
Brown is Chelsea’s fifth player on loan to a Premier League club so far this summer. This exceeds Chelsea’s tally from last year, when four players scattered temporarily across the first tier.
The increase in the number of loanees in the top flight represents the latest evolution of Chelsea’s loan policy. Over the last 10 years the Blues have sent progressively more players on loan in the Premier League.
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The 2008/09 season was the last in which no Chelsea players were on loan in the top division. Three players spent a season elsewhere in the Premier League in 2009/10, followed by two in each of the next three seasons.
From 2013/14 to 2015/16, the Blues sent three players out into the Premier League in each season. This span was notable because it was the last time Chelsea loaned players to their challengers at the top of the table.
Victor Moses spent his first loan year at Liverpool, who finished two points ahead of the Blues that season. They also loaned Romelu Lukaku to Everton, who finished 10 points but only two places back. The following season, Christian Atsu served a term at Everton, who finished 11th while Chelsea won the title.
Last season Chelsea loaned four players across the Premier League. Nathan Ake is the success story out of that group, and arguably the loanees in the Championship fared better in terms of building a platform for success.
Despite the understandable aversion to loaning players to rivals, there are still plenty of options for additional top-flight loans. Of the five loans so far, two are to teams who earned promotion last season and the other three teams finished 13th-15th.
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Newcastle are the other club coming up this season, and they have been in the loan rumour mill for much of the summer. The Blues like the idea of Rafael Benitez developing some of their young players, and Newcastle still have several years before they will threaten Chelsea.
Watford is another highly-rated loan destination from the bottom half of the table. A player on loan there could temporarily reunite with Nathaniel Chalobah. Kenedy and Nathan Ake both had Premier League loans at Watford, as did Chalobah when Watford were in the Championship.
The expansion of Premier League loans is a welcome addition to the club’s development pipeline. The academy and youth development systems should prepare players to play at the highest levels of football possible, whether that is at Stamford Bridge or elsewhere. A loan to a lower-level league – either down the pyramid in England or a smaller league in Europe – only prepares players to play at that level.
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A loan to a Premier League club is the final evaluation for whether a player is Chelsea-calibre or not. If he is not, the Blues and any interested buyers have an accurate assessment of his talent and potential. Chelsea are finally making use of the full spread of loan options at their disposal.