Antonio Conte turning Victor Moses into a valuable first-team player at Chelsea was a key part of his debut title-winning campaign. It isn’t a miracle or random luck, for Moses had previously shown the quality needed to play for the Blues when he scored 10 goals for the club in 2012-13. Average loan moves at Liverpool, Stoke City and West Ham dampened his reputation around the league, but Conte has managed to restore it in just one season. Some fans will point to Moses success as valid reasoning for Chelsea’s loan policy and they couldn’t be more wrong.
The club negotiated over 40 loan deals in the summer and January transfer windows, and the majority of those players are nowhere near the quality of the Premier League champions. Only Loic Remy, Baba Rahman and Bertrand Traore have had more than cameos for Chelsea in their career and their Blues careers are still effectively over. Traore has the ability to play for Chelsea, but the 21-year old is expected to leave permanently for Lyon this summer.
There are 12 senior internationals who are part of the loan farm and five of them have zero Chelsea appearances. Four others have four or less total appearances. None of those players are capable of at least supplementing the team? The loan system was designed to benefit young player development and help lower clubs. The greatest benefactor of Chelsea’s loan system has been feeder club Vitesse Arnhem.
The loan system hasn’t benefitted many Chelsea youth players as the club continues to purchase big-name foreign players to fill holes in their team that youngsters possibly could. More and more youngsters are going to leave Chelsea like Dominic Solanke did this summer unless there are significant changes made to how the club handles youth development. As a young player looking to make a career in Europe, Chelsea shouldn’t be at the top of your list. Unless you like to travel the world, that is the only certainty Chelsea’s youth development can provide unless Antonio Conte makes changes to how the youngsters are used in the coming season.
