He should have done, yes. Why tie yourself to a club like that? Anybody could have seen this coming, because it happens to absolutely every player who comes from their academy. Some might get to briefly flirt with first team football, like McEachran did for a short while, and Loftus-Cheek recently, but is anyone actually expecting these players to play regularly and develop like they should be at that age? Of course not. They're just keeping up appearances and pretending they have a shred of interest in their youth products, but it's enough to give a little false hope to young players like Chalobah. Just to illustrate: Chalobah, James Ward-Prowse and Nabil Bentaleb were all born within a month of each other. By my reckoning they're all young players of comparable ability. The latter two have almost 100 Premier League appearances between them. Chalobah has four. For Burnley. On loan. So no, I wouldn't have signed a five year deal with a club where I'm highly unlikely to play in those five years. But that's just me, I'm sure Chalobah is terribly excited for when he finally breaks through at Stamford Bridge.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Many people both in the media and on here, myself included, were touting him as a future star for both Chelsea and England when he was on loan with us. I'm sure Chelsea were filling his head with the same sort of dreams when they were desperate to tie him down to a contract and gave him all sorts of assurances. As a talented youngster he has got to have the confidence to back himself, show some ambition and prove himself to be the exception to the rule. It's massively unfair and irrational to blame him because Chelsea never gave him the chance to do so.
Its pretty disgusting that in his first year he has already earned more than most people will earn in a lifetimes wage packets. And that s for not even playing, what a footballer is supposed to do to receive his pay check.
I once took a job at a rubbish company, that I knew was a rubbish company, because the MD kept ringing me and offering more and more money and after 3 months I thought 5od it. So I went there on a salary 3 times my previous one, and the job was as 5hit and as rubbish as I knew it would be. And I left about 12 months later. And it was all my own fault. No one made Chalobah stay at Chelsea and sign a contract.
Perhaps all he wants to be is what he is. Bit part Chelsea player on big money likely to leave sooner rather than later with a healthy bank balance from just the early stages of his career. I don't blame him. Footballers aren't robots. They have (and I think it's possible that people forget) a life away from football. Their job actually takes up less of their lives than your general Joe Bloggs working. He has a very comfortable life not doing that much at all. I wouldn't rock that boat.
As you say everybody is different and have varied needs/ambitions. By signing his 5 year contract Chalobah has guaranteed himself almost £10m and providing he invests it properly will be set up financially for life and be able to do what ever he wants by the time he is in his very early 20s. How many of us would realistically turn down that opportunity. Chalobah may not be totally in love with football and as you say may have other more important interests. In his next match he may have a serious injury that finishes his career, but he now has the security of his contract to fall back on. The fact that he isn't getting game time at Chelsea may have something to do with the fact that he hasn't exactly excelled during his last three loans, two of which have been in the Championshi! In my view Chalobah should count himself extremely lucky to have this sort of financial security at such a young age.
Repeatedly going on loan each year isn't likely to help that, especially to teams "oop norf" where he's likely to be a bit unsettled. Going on loan to a different team is likely to hinder his development in the long term, Reading will be his 5th team in 27 months, or a club every 5 and a half months. There's no consistency in absolutely anything here, coaches will want him to learn and play a different role in each team, but he plays such a small part during the games that he never has much time to master the role or sitting on the bench for most of the season even getting to practice it in a highly competitive environment, especially with the off the pitches difficulties of becoming part of an already established team and having to settle in a new area. If you have a look at the brightest young talents within the England setup at the moment: Barkley, Stones, Sterling, Ward-Prowse, Oxlade-Chamberlin, Chambers and Berahino. Only Berahino and Barkley have been on loan. Berahino went on loan to 3 different clubs in the same season, however WBA played it wisely, they sent him on loan to League 2, he excelled so half-way through the season loaned him to 2 League 1 teams for the rest of the season. Over the course of the season he played 32 games and scored 12 goals. Barkley was a bit different but despite being a year exactly older than Chalobah, has only ever played for 2 clubs on loan. On a Watford note, what the Pozzos do can only help this, players will be closely monitored in everything they do (training, game-time) so everything is sort of "in-house" still. Maybe i've just given myself an idea for a new article with this rant!
And on the flip side, Harry Kane was a bit **** for Lesta whenever I saw him, now he's the next big thing. Loans are pretty meaningless in determining who's going to be a great and who isn't.
He's still dross now. Shows how average you have to be to play for England. If he played for one of the lower Premier league sides, he'd be nowhere near the England team.
That's one pass in 90 minutes, if he'd stayed with us, he could have developed into a much better player by this stage of his career instead of being whored out all over the place by Chelsea.
Gone to Napoli and this is the quote from the Head Coach Napoli coach Maurizio Sarri said on Monday: "I don't know anything about the player. If the club picked him then he must have some quality. I train whoever the club puts at my disposal."
I'm still amazed that people don't realise how little power many coaches have over player recruitment on the continent. Sarri's comments weren't disrespectful, they're a reflection of how things work abroad. In a large number of clubs the head coach isn't that involved in recruitment at all.
Completely agree about the coach & recruitment thing , it's the fact that he came out & said it that's perhaps surprising. Keeping players happy & motivated is part of the job. I'm just not sure that the head coach effectively telling a young player "I've never even heard you, mate" on the first day was advisable, even if it's true.
Might be exactly what he needs. Too many young players think they've made it before they really have. A reality check never hurts.
