Gareth Southgate has no use for Ruben Loftus-Cheek on Chelsea bench

Before anyone can talk about whether you win or lose or how you play the game, you have to simply play the game. Gareth Southgate’s latest England squad shows the importance of Chelsea players going anywhere necessary to simply play football.

What’s the difference between Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Jadon Sancho? Oh, about 308 minutes. Sancho pushed for a permanent move from Manchester City to Borussia Dortmund last season – not a loan, a full transfer – in search of maximum playing time in his later teen years. His gamble paid off as he has over 1,000 minutes in the Bundesliga and Champions League for Dortmund, and now his first call-up to the England squad.

Sancho’s Manchester City academy teammate Phil Foden took the Loftus-Cheek route and decided to stay with his boyhood club this season. Foden currently has 31 minutes in the Premier League – two fewer than Loftus-Cheek – and, like the Chelsea man, will be watching England’s Nations League matches from home.

In response to a question in search of a headline, Southgate left no ambiguity about the wisdom of Sancho’s decision over Foden’s.

"[G]oing and playing is really important, because coaching programmes can give you a certain amount but then there is the experience of matches and high‑level matches… They have to be in those types of games to progress. So that message is there. The evidence is there on what we need to do. And the best way for the players to progress is to play. – The Guardian"

Along with Sancho, Southgate called up Leicester City’s James Maddison and Chelsea loanee Mason Mount for the first time. Maddison has over 600 minutes for the Foxes in this his first season in the Premier League. Prior to transferring to Leicester he amassed over 5,000 minutes in League One, the Championship and the Scottish Premiership.

Mount is perhaps the most dramatic example of the value of any and all minutes. Last spring there was some question over whether Southgate would entertain naming a player from the lower tiers to his squad. But in looking to add youth to his lineup with many of his senior players unavailable through injury, Southgate did not hesitate to give Mount credit for his 975 minutes this season in the Championship and 2,000-plus minutes in the Eredivisie and Europa League with Vitesse.

Just how important were those minutes in England’s second tier? They outweighed Ruben Loftus-Cheek’s 274 minutes in the World Cup. In football terms, last summer was ancient history. This season is the present. And Mount, Maddison and Sancho are the future.

It’s also telling that the conversations about the young players in the upcoming England squad do not even mention 20-year old Trent Alexander-Arnold. He’s barely noteworthy at this point. Jurgen Klopp put him on display throughout the second half of last season, culminating in a start in the Champions League final. Any player starting there will attract his national team manager’s attention. Alexander-Arnold was no exception, and went from the Champions League final to the World Cup.

The Liverpool right back is two games away from having more Premier League minutes to his name than Ruben Loftus-Cheek.  By the end of the group stage he will have more minutes in the Champions League than Loftus-Cheek has at Chelsea in all competitions.

Maurizio Sarri has little reason to track or care about such things. Whether Loftus-Cheek or any of the other depth / fringe players makes their national team is relatively low on his list of priorities. This is the sort of thing that falls squarely on the shoulders of a technical director, which Chelsea have not had in 335 days. Of course, Michael Emenalo presided over the first three years Loftus-Cheek was floating around the first team in addition to Loftus-Cheek’s previous years at Cobham as The Next John Terry. This is a long-running, systemic failure, which Loftus-Cheek and his advisers compounded by turning down another loan to Crystal Palace this season.

Whoever at Chelsea FC is judged on players – English ones, in particular, the kind who supposedly are the end product of the academy system – making their national team should learn the lessons of Loftus-Cheek and Phil Foden on one side, and Mason Mount, Jadon Sancho, James Maddison and Trent Alexander-Arnold on the other. Minutes matter. Any minutes, anywhere. If the only way to play is to take a transfer to Germany or a loan down the table or down the pyramid, you take it. The road to first-tier football and international call-ups runs through pitches at all levels, not the Chelsea bench.

Fighting for your place at Chelsea (or Manchester CIty) is admirable… to an extent. Playing every week is more so, and incomparably more valuable.