Pearce Warns Players Off Chelsea

Well, well, someone clearly stole Stuart Pearce’s sweets and judging by the rant he’s just had to the press, that someone must’ve been wearing a Chelsea shirt.

According to the England Under-21 manager (who by the way has plenty of young Chelsea players in his squad), emerging players should avoid us like the plague. He suggests “If a lad rang me and said ‘I’m 16, playing at Crewe and Chelsea have come in for me, what do you think I should do?’ I would reply, ‘Stay where you are and play some football with the club you are at.”

You see, Pearce reckons Chelsea simply buy top players for the sole purpose of having a decent reserve team. He says “I watched Chelsea train last year. I saw Steve Sidwell, Reading’s best player from the previous season, and Tal Ben Haim, Bolton’s best player from the year before. But neither was in the first team. So Chelsea have cherry-picked the best players from elsewhere and stockpiled them. That is not right. I’ve seen too may players move club, then suddenly their careers seem to grind to a halt.”

Not that these players we brought in just didn’t make the step up Chelsea had expected them to of course? Who was that sitting on the bench for Man City against Wigan by the way Mr Pearce – because it surely couldn’t have been a certain Israeli defender Chelsea stockpiled for an entire season would it? Of course not, because then that would mean Chelsea weren’t the only club to bring in a player and sit him on a bench wouldn’t it?

And these players whose careers we halt, they must be devastated right? What was that Sidwell said again after he too had been ‘stockpiled’ for a whole season? Well, I must’ve misunderstood him because I could’ve sworn he said he had no regrets. And Shaun Wright-Phillips, what were his parting words again, after we’d finally decided twisting his arm up his back to stay was no longer fun? Something along the lines of “don’t make me go” I believe!