Youth Team Face Forest Tonight In FA Youth Cup
Tonight Chelsea’s youth team travel to Nottingham to play Nottingham Forest in the FA Youth Cup.
CFC_Kris will be there tonight casting his eye over our brightest youth talents some of whom such as Lucas Piazon, Jamal Blackman and Nathaniel Chalobah have warmed the bench at the senior level.
Although a victory will not allow us to forget the poor fortunes of the senior team, it would come as a welcome positive note in what feel like dark times.
One player that will not be playing tonight is Patrick Bamford who has scored 11 times in four games in this competition so far this season but is cup-tied having made a deadline day move to Stamford Bridge last month.
So far this season the youth team have had some bruising encounters in the cup, overcoming Norwich and West Ham after penalty shoot outs, something that the first team could definitely learn from.
Youth Cup History
We have some pedigree in this competition, having won it in 2010 with players such as Jeffrey Bruma, Josh McEachran and Milan Lalkovic starring.
I am hoping that this year history will repeat itself and the omens are good,when we won two years ago we overcame Nottingham Forest on the same ground on the way to the final.
The stand out moment of that tie was a Conor Clifford wonder goal that I was lucky enough to capture on video from the stand.
Categories: CFC Videos, Youth Team Tags: conor clifford, fa youth cup, youth team
Chelsea Youth Team Win Another Penalty Shoot Out
One of the advantages of having so many world class players is that our youth team can learn from them. However when it comes to penalty shoot outs it seems that the senior team should be watching the youth team.
So far this season the youth team have won two penalty shootouts in the competition to progress to a sixth round tie versus Nottingham Forest, which I am delighted to say CFC_Kris will be attending.
The latest shoot out was against West Ham where the following players converted penalties in a 5-4 penalty victory.
Nathaniel Chalobah
Lucas Piazon
Amin Affane
Lewis Baker
Todd Kane
There is not footage of this shootout available yet but here are the penalties from the Norwich game to show the confidence our youth team have from 12 yards.
Categories: Youth Team Tags:
Time to Play Ryan Bertrand
Ashley Cole is a fantastic player and rightly our first choice left back, however I think the pressure of playing every single game and the rigours that involves have finally started to affect his consistency.
Therefore I think it is time for academy player Ryan Bertrand a few Premier League starts in his place to rest Cole and develop his long term replacement.
With Ashley Cole injured I really hope that he will start against Birmingham in the FA Cup despite the pressure on AVB.
Bertrand may not have made many appearances in the Chelsea first team, however he is not inexperienced having made nearly 146 appearances in the English League system particularly at the Championship level.
He was particularly popular at Norwich where he quickly won over the fans, with some solid performance.
He has made a few appearances for our first team and always looked impressive and with the departure of Yuri Zhirkov and loan of Patrick Van Aanholt he is the established understudy for Ashley Cole.
Therefore it is time to give him a few real opportunities to prove himself against team that lack much of an attacking threat.
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Categories: Youth Team Tags: Chelsea youth, Ryan Bertrand
What Next For Ryan Bertrand at Chelsea?
Despite the positive performance of Jose Boswinga at left backI was devastated that Ryan Bertrand did not play against Manchester United.
In my opinion the left back is ready to play and his omission really begs the question of what the future for Ryan Bertrand will hold given yet another example of an under pressure manager refusing to give a youth product a chance in the first team.
This was a massive smack in the face for our youth team, if you were a young player why would you sign for the Chelsea academy if there is little realistic chance that even if you perform that you will be given a game?
Surely it would be more cost effective at this point to just knock the academy on its head and pay millions of pounds over the market value for the players we want, after all that is all we seem to do anyway.
Even if we do then end up playing them out of position denying a specialist youth player a shot in that position.
I will finally put it another way Chamberlain for Arsenal had a great game for the Gunners against Blackburn after signing last year, do you think he would have even played a single game for Chelsea this season despite our issues?
I highly doubt it as well, AVB it is time you anted up and started giving talented younger players a chance.
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Categories: Youth Team Tags: AVB, Bertrand, Youth Policy
Josh McEachran Loan Could Be Key To Success!
It looks like Josh McEachran is set to go on loan to Swansea on Monday according to his twitter.
From a fan perspective this is disappointing as we want to see him in a Chelsea shirt but we have to accept that at the moment a handful of fleeting substitute performances will not develop him as a footballer.
Therefore a successful loan could be the key to him realising his potential and force himself into the thoughts of AVB next season.
The shining is example at Chelsea is Daniel Sturridge who used his 6 month spell at Bolton to show his goal scoring prowess and prove he can score regularly in the Premier League.
In order for his loan to be a success it must fit the following criteria
- He must play in the Premier League (check)
- He must start regularly (lets hope so)
- The team he goes to must play passing football (check)
With Swansea a destination then he will go to a Premier League side that play attractive football so the only question is will former CFC coach Brendan Rodgers give him enough starts.
Given his talent I would expect that starts should not be a problem.
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