Scolari To Give Youth a Chance?

One of the criticisms often levelled at Chelsea is that they don't give youth a chance to shine. Often I'm not too quick to criticise the club I love, but in this respect I make an exception.

John Terry is the only youth team product to have established himself with the first team within the last ten years, which is a pretty damming indictment on its own.

Under Claudio Ranieri, Mikael Forsell and Carlton Cole initially impressed (I remember some labelling Cole the new Peter Osgood, expectations were so high), but then faded. They eventually slipped out of the club under Mourinho and not many Chelsea fans were heartbroken by their departures.

Things weren't much different under Jose Mourinho. Initially he made a promise to look at youth, but when you examine his record with young players it doesn't hold up very well. Players such as Watt, Morais, Grant, Smith, Sinclair, Sahar, Woods and Hutchinson were given debuts under the Mourinho regime, but none of them were significantly integrated into the first team squad. Sinclair was given a squad number before the start of the 2007/2008 season, but his role was frankly minimal.

Mourinho didn’t take the lead of Ferguson and Wenger and use the Carling Cup as a testing ground for youngsters, something which I would have liked to have seen us do against opposition from the lower divisions. The only young players who were given a chance by Mourinho were Kalou, Mikel and Diarra, players who had been brought in and had not come through the club’s academy.

During his brief spell in charge, Avram Grant virtually ignored the youth set up alltogether. The dip in form suffered by Florent Malouda led to a large section of the Chelsea support calling for Scott Sinclair to be given a chance to shine. Instead, Grant stuck with Malouda and Sinclair was shipped off on loan to Crystal Palace.

It appears this could change under Luiz Felipe Scolari. In his first press conference yesterday, Scolari outlined his policy regarding academy players.

“Carlos Pracidelli, our goalkeeping coach, will go three days every week to look at the training in the academy because if he sees a player doing well, he will tell me and I’ll bring him into the senior set-up.” He said. “Ask Palmeiras from Brazil how many 17, 18 and 19-year-olds I put in the first team. They’re all in Europe now. We have some young players at Chelsea that, maybe, will play some important games for us this season.”

The noises certainly sound promising, but there is further cause for optimism amongst the Chelsea faithful when you examine the standard of our Academy players. The potential is definitely there; Chelsea Youth reached the final of the FA Youth Cup for the first time in over 40 years last season, eventually losing out to Man City.

There has been a heavy amount of investment in the club’s youth structure since Abramovich took over and it appears that such investment is starting to bear fruit.

I watched the first leg of the FA Youth Cup Final at Stamford Bridge (a 1-1 draw), and what struck me was the pace the players played at. Defensively we looked shaky, but going forward we played with pace and movement; every time we went forward we looked like scoring. A number of players stood out, and given the right coaching, could turn out to be future first team stars. Below I examine a few of our youngsters for you to watch out for.

Gael Kakuta: A French U-17 International winger who has bags of pace and loves to take players on. He scored 12 goals in 24 appearances for the youth team last season and has also scored for the Reserves.

Miroslav Stoch: A similar player to Kakuta, and the two combined gave opposition defenders nightmares last season. He was our youth team top scorer in the 06/07 season and his haul of 10 last season was second to Kakuta’s tally. He is a Slovakia U-19 international and made his debut for the U-21s last season.

Franco Di Santo: A 19 year old Argentine striker who likens himself to Hernan Crespo. He arrived at the club in January and immediately impressed. He finished the season as the Reserve team's top scorer with an impressive record of 7 goals in 8 games, including a hat trick against Arsenal. In the last few days he has been training with the first team and this might suggest he, more than any other young player, will be given a chance to shine by Scolari.

Michael Mancienne: A 20 year old centre back and right back, Mancienne made his Reserve team debut while still a schoolboy. He has spent the last two seasons on loan at Championship side Queens Park Rangers, making over 50 appearances. He has also broken into the England U-21 side, winning five caps so far.

Such a problem is not just limited to Chelsea however. Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher are the only youth team products to have made a mark on the Liverpool team in the last decade. It's much the same at Man United, with John O'Shea and Darren Fletcher being the only academy products of note in the last five years.

The likes of Middlesborough and Aston Villa have lead the way with regards to giving youth a chance, but inside the 'Big Four' the pressure is greater and the stakes much higher. Arsene Wenger apart, managers of the 'Big Four' clubs aren’t often given the opportunity to nurture young talent at the expense of success.

It would be nice to win things with a largely home-grown team, but such idealistic dreams cant get in the way of success. Such are the ambitions of Chelsea, it is not hard to see young talent being sidelined in the pursuit of success. Mourinho made similar promises to Scolari when he became Chelsea manager but the demand for trophies stifled opportunities for young players under him. Scolari might be forced down the same path.