Chelsea: First group of returnees signal early loans and ends of the road

The first batch of players left Chelsea’s training camp in Ireland to await reassignment in London. This could mean the development team, the loan army or maybe a permanent transfer.

Eight Chelsea players left Dublin for London on Thursday, presumably bringing their preseason with the first team to a very early conclusion. While they could rejoin the club, it is unlikely Frank Lampard would want them in Japan but not against St. Patrick’s Athletic on Saturday.

The returnees break down into two pretty clear categories: players in their mid-20s with 5-6 loans each, or players age 20 or under with no more than one loan. Ike Ugbo is the closest thing to an outlier, being 20 years old but with three loans, but he is much closer to the latter group.

The Carefree Youth account subsequently pointed out that the development squad has a preseason match on Saturday. Lampard may have sent Ugbo, Trevoh Chalobah, Marc Guehi, Dujon Sterling and Conor Gallagher back to prepare for and play that match. He saw them with the first team against Bohemians, and has to integrate a few more returning first team players into the squad against St. Patrick’s Athletic. Rather than keep them around where they will not play, the coaching staff are sending them to pick up valuable game time.

Those players had minimal chance of staying with the first team for the season, regardless of how much they impressed in preseason. The question is whether they will play first-team football somewhere else or continue developing with the U23’s.

Sterling and Chalobah completed their first loan season last year, meaning another is in the cards. Ugbo has three seasons on loan (one in the Championship and two in League One), so he too, is on his way back out, hopefully to a higher league.

Guehi and Gallagher could go either way. They are at the point of their careers where they could start to serve their time elsewhere, and their showing earlier in the week suggests they are ready for first-team football.

The decision to send back Gallagher is slightly surprising, given Gallagher received almost unanimously positive reviews for his performance against Bohemians. Even with the additional first-team players joining up and being in the squad for the next preseason game, Gallagher could still have played on Saturday. His performance, though, should be enough to warrant a season playing senior football somewhere, rather than another year with the development squad.

For the other three players – Lewis Baker, Isaiah Brown and Lucas Piazon – this feels like the end of the road. They are 24, 22 and 25 years old with six, five and six loans, respectively. All three were already on the fringe of the club, and the early decision is a sign that, whatever questions Lampard and his staff had about them coming into preseason, they were few and have been answered.

Of these three, only Piazon is coming to the final year of his contract. Brown is a Blue until 2021, and Baker until 2022.

Brown and Baker played a season together on loan at Vitesse, at the height of the Dutch club being “Chelsea B.” That loan at that time seemed to signal these two were on a direct road to the first team.

The next season landed Brown at a particularly dismal Rotherham side, from which he was recalled in January. He finished the season at Huddersfield, helping their promotion to the Premier League, and then had loans at Brighton and Leeds. Injuries cut into his progress at Brighton, and then completely derailed his 2018/19 at Leeds. Based on those interruptions, Chelsea may be willing to give him another look on loan before deciding what to do with him ahead of what will be his final season.

Baker has not been able to recapture the performance levels and potential he had at Vitesse in 2015/16. He has since been through Middlesbrough, Leeds and Reading (and before Vitesse he was at Sheffield Wednesday and MK Dons). At 24, he is in the realm of the club likely thinking that if it was going to happen, it would have happened by now.

And Lucas Piazon? Oh, poor Lucas Piazon. We’ve spent so much digital ink on him, always hoping, always wondering, always believing that he might make it and then simply hoping, wondering, believing that Chelsea might finally sell him and let him be on his way. With this upcoming season the last on his contract, he is the most likely to be sold.

However, if a worthwhile offer comes in for any of these three, Chelsea will give it serious consideration.

Fans and advocates of Chelsea’s youth would have liked to see some of the very green Blues have a few more run-outs this preseason along with the experience of travelling and training with the team. However, the sooner they can join up with a loan club, the more likely they will be able to start the season with the squad, and not have to fight their way into an established lineup in late August or September.

Hopefully Chelsea will see more of Conor Gallagher, Marc Guehi, Ike Ugbo and the rest in years to come. Sadly, the other players who joined them on the trip back to London are a reminder of the other, perhaps more likely, possibility.