Chelsea’s record with Brendan Rodgers shows importance of vetting loans
By George Perry
Charly Musonda has compounded his problems at Celtic, but loanees’ Instagram habits should not be Chelsea’s key takeaway from his loan.
Chelsea often need to be fooled more than twice before the shame kicks in. Charly Musonda is the third young Blue to go on loan to a Brendan Rodgers’ club. His loan is following the precedent of Josh McEachran at Swansea and Victor Moses at Liverpool. Hopefully, his career path will come to resemble to the latter’s rather than the former’s.
McEachran was one of the true serial loanees. Chelsea sent him on five loans: three in the Championship, one in the Premier League and one in the Eredivisie. Of those five loans, he had the fewest minutes (215) and fewest appearances while at Brendan Rodgers’ Swansea City. Moses’ three loans look light in comparison, but Moses too had the least playing time while under Rodgers at Liverpool: 852 minutes in 22 games. By comparison, he had 1,663 minutes in 23 games at Stoke, showing the quality of his appearances at Anfield.
Charly Musonda is on his second loan. Last season at Real Betis in La Liga he had 1,502 minutes in 22 appearances. In the first half of 2017/18 at Chelsea – that club that never plays the youth – he made seven appearances totalling 214 minutes. Since going to Celtic for more minutes and greater opportunities to develop, he has only one more appearance and 121 more minutes.
Charly Musonda’s experience at Celtic is now part of a demonstrable pattern. He is not on the bench because of his Instagramming. His attitude certainly leaves much to be desired, but that, too, is part of player development. Rodgers is the manager and he has his lieutenants on his staff and in the locker room. None of them are doing their job with Musonda.
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Musonda’s loan shows the importance of Chelsea matching the player to the right club and the right coach. The club and the coach must be considered independent of each other. Swansea has been a decent loan destination for Tammy Abraham. Josh McEachran did not suffer because of the culture of the club.
For the most part, Chelsea make good loans and they are improving every year. The number of Chelsea loanees who win awards or become fan favourites at their temporary club – Mason Mount, Michy Batshuayi, Andreas Christensen, to name a few – testify to both sides doing their homework. The Blues have a special relationship with Vitesse, making them an extreme example, but Vitesse benefit from and appreciate the regular flow of loanees. They welcome these youngsters as their own.
Not every loan will be a productive encounter for the club or the player. Simply being a Chelsea loanee should not outweigh poor performance, attitude or training. Loan players must recognize they are battling for a place in the XI just the same as every other player. Matt Miazga had an inconsistent first season at Vitesse, and started his second inauspiciously: 60 minutes over the first three games of 2017/18. After that, he scarcely missed a minute in the Eredivisie and Europa League.
If both sides are diligent, the Blues will send the right player to the right club for the right purpose. Like anything else in football or life, the loan system comes down to relationships. Chelsea need to build relationships with clubs and managers who can do right and want to do right by their loanees. Teams like Hull City, if they remain in the Championship, can become a domestic version of Vitesse.
Whittling down the number of loan destinations will also drive Chelsea to reduce the size of the loan army. By having a limited number of loan partners – limited by quality (i.e., first-tier clubs only, plus the Championship) and willingness of the club – Chelsea will make more of the difficult but important choices around player retention.
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A smaller, higher quality loan army distributed among a smaller, more motivated group of teams will make for better development of first-team prospects. An easy rule of thumb to start: no more Brendan Rodgers clubs.