Chelsea: Andreas Christensen should be unsurprised at this turn of events

Andreas Christensen debuted for Chelsea as a teen, is now 22 years old and has Maurizio Sarri as his coach. Perhaps his only mistake was thinking things would turn out differently.

Andreas Christensen is unsatisfied with his 253 minutes this season and is starting to think that number will not appreciably increase. Christensen’s father-agent said they will request a transfer – he explicitly and smartly ruled out a loan – if Christensen is not playing more by Christmas. Perhaps the operative question is: Why wait?

Chelsea’s history and Maurizio Sarri’s concretized patterns and preferences align against Christensen. Since 2003, Chelsea have given Premier League appearances to 28 teenagers. Christensen was one of them, when he was the last substitute of the season in the 78′ of a 3-1 win over Sunderland. He was just over 19 years old at the time. He would wait two years – his loan at Borussia Monchengladbach – before donning Blue again.

Since then Christensen has, er, rocketed up the chart of teenage debutants. Only two other players who debuted for Chelsea as a teen have played more games for the club than him: Mikel John Obi with 372 appearances and Kurt Zouma with 71. Christensen has 43.

As we have unpopularly chronicled here since May, Maurizio Sarri has little record or apparent interest in playing anyone who could be classified as young. Beyond his first two seasons at Empoli, as far as Sarri is concerned players who are under 23 belong with the U23’s, not his first team.

Last season at Napoli, no player under 23 years old accumulated over 1,000 Serie A minutes. The two 23-year old’s with more than 1,000 league minutes were Elseid Hysaj and Piotr Zielinski, two of the Empoli youth players Sarri favoured then and never let go.

On either side of the age-by-playing-minutes matrix at Napoli were Jorginho and Amadou Diawara. After Hysaj and Zielinski, the then-25-year old Jorginho was the youngest player among Sarri’s most-used (>1500 minutes) dozen. Diawara had the most minutes of anyone younger than Hysaj and Zielinski: 642.

If Christensen pere spends half as much time on TransferMarkt as we do, he knows his 22-year old son is in for a long season of spectating.

Since it needs to be said, Andreas Christensen must deserve his place at Chelsea. He is not entitled to the XI or the squad because of his 43 games last season under Antonio Conte, his strong performance and development at Borussia Monchengladbach or his status as a Chelsea academy graduate. Christensen must earn his way in.

But this requires the opportunities for him to do so. Just as his or any other player’s past should not constrain the squad decisions of today, Chelsea can not allow the immediate present to hold hostage their future.

Chelsea are on course to lose Andreas Christensen and Gary Cahill this January. An injury to either Antonio Rudiger or David Luiz would strand Chelsea in an absurd position. The obvious choice would be to play Ethan Ampadu.

But if Christensen is leaving because there was no inclination to play a 22-year old with three seasons in the Premier League and Bundesliga, the 18-year old Welshman with a handful of appearances in League Two, the domestic cups and 10 minutes of the Premier League has no chance. Cesar Azpilicueta would become the most experienced option for centre-back, which means Davide Zappacosta could become the starting right-back. Or, Marcos Alonso could become the next ersatz centre-back given his skills in the air, and Emerson Palmieri becomes a starter.

Even if Rudiger and Luiz stay healthy and match-fit and Luiz continues his surprisingly undamaging form, the Blues would still be short centre-back depth. Luiz has at most one more season left in him at this level. Chelsea bought him as a stop-gap when Antonio Conte needed another centre-back for his three-man defence in 2016. He was never supposed to be a long-term solution for the starting XI. Two years later, Chelsea could lose his natural successor because of him. This is the perfect opportunity to bring up 347 days without a technical director.

This would push Chelsea into the transfer market in either January or next summer in their usual position of desperate weakness. Sarri is supposedly interested in another of his ex-players, Daniele Rugani, or Alessio Romagnoli. Italian clubs, in particular, love exploiting Chelsea in the transfer market. The Blues would have exactly zero leverage to shape these negotiations, unless Kurt Zouma or Matt Miazga somehow return from loan and make their way into the first team.

Andreas Christensen needs to buckle down and work harder than he has ever worked in his life to earn a spot in Chelsea’s side. Maurizio Sarri needs to make both the opportunity and the reward a real possibility. Otherwise, predictable cycles will continue and – long after Christensen, Cahill, Luiz and Sarri move on – Chelsea FC will be trying to restore what they gave away so cheaply.