Football news - Ruben Loftus-Cheek a warning to Mason Mount in Chelsea's development paradox
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Updated 31/10/2018 at 21:14 GMT
Mason Mount and Ruben Loftus-Cheek will take centre stage at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday evening, and for the younger of the pair, there is much to learn, according to Pete Sharland.
Mason Mount and Ruben Loftus-Cheek
Image credit: Eurosport
Frank Lampard will go down in history as Chelsea’s greatest ever midfielder. He was at the heart of the Roman Abramovich revolution at Stamford Bridge, and his exploits during his time in blue are legendary.
Lampard left Chelsea in 2014 as their top scorer with 211 goals - that’s right, Chelsea’s greatest ever goal-scorer is a midfielder. For five seasons in a row between 2005/06 and 2009/10, Lampard scored 20 or more goals each and every season. The final campaign in that run saw him score 22 in the Premier League alone.
To expect Lampard’s shoes to ever be filled at Chelsea is naïve, and no-one would demand that of the countless young players currently on the books of the west London club.
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Frank Lampard, FC Chelsea, 2013
Image credit: Getty Images
Yet that desire to see an heir emerge, particularly from the club’s academy, has seen some incredible expectations placed on some very young shoulders.
Two of Chelsea’s great young hopes will go head-to-head on Wednesday evening as Lampard’s Derby County side travel to their manager's former stomping ground in the fourth round of the Carabao Cup.
19-year-old Mason Mount will play at Stamford Bridge for the first time after his parent club granted special dispensation for both he and team-mate Fikayo Tomori to play for the Rams.
Likely to be lining up opposite him in the Chelsea midfield will be Ruben Loftus-Cheek, three years Mount’s senior.
Loftus-Cheek is certainly flavour of the fortnight after a hat-trick against BATE Borisov and a goal in Sunday’s drubbing of Burnley.
Already talk has turned to whether or not this can be the shot in the arm that Loftus-Cheek’s career needs after so long spent stagnating on the Stamford Bridge sidelines, one excellent loan at Crystal Palace aside.
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Europa League - Group Stage - Group L - Chelsea v BATE Borisov - Stamford Bridge, London, Britain - October 25, 2018 Chelsea's Ruben Loftus-Cheek celebrates scoring their first goal
Image credit: Reuters
Yet this season Mount already has five goals to his name, he is a regular first-team player, albeit in the Championship, and he was in Gareth Southgate’s most recent England squad, not Loftus-Cheek.
Of course, the reality is that with more playing time, and one less injury, Loftus-Cheek may well have more goals and he would have certainly been in the England squad but this is the crux of the issue; he does not have as much time as Mount to play with.
Loftus-Cheek is entering the Witching Hour of football player development. At the end of the season he will be 23, by which age most players have really started to hit their stride.
He will have to make a decision on his future, although of course it may well be taken out of his hands, and it may be that he moves on for the sake of his career.
Should that be the case it will be a real shame. Loftus-Cheek is evidently a player of supreme talent, yet he has been let down by the environment in which he has developed.
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Ruben Loftus-Cheek of Chelsea celebrates after scoring his sides first goal during the UEFA Europa League Group L match between Chelsea and FC BATE Borisov at Stamford Bridge on October 25, 2018 in London, United Kingdom.
Image credit: Getty Images
So often encouraged and talked up by his managers, yet never given an extended run in the first team, even after shining across London at Selhurst Park.
And when he returns to Chelsea in the summer Mount has to be careful, he cannot afford to waste a season or two rotting on the bench or in the reserves in the same vein as Loftus-Cheek. He needs to be a key part of Maurizio Sarri’s squad moving forward, otherwise he may as well cut his losses and move on too.
There’s some parallel universe out there where this game could see an all-English midfield of Loftus-Cheek, Mount and Ross Barkley playing together, or perhaps in a dream universe one or two of that trio are being rested with Sunday’s match against Palace in mind.
But they’re not, it is only Barkley who has a shot of starting against Loftus-Cheek’s former club, whilst Mount will turn his attention to Birmingham City.
Mount cannot afford to come back to Chelsea and just slot straight into Loftus-Cheek’s role. That promising young player who can’t get a sniff behind more established, and expensive players.
Mount is supposed to be different, he’s supposed to be the one from the academy that breaks into the first-team and gives the fan that what they want most dearly.
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Mason Mount of Derby County takes on Andrew Hughes and Ben Pearson of Preston North End during the Sky Bet Championship match between Derby County and Preston North End at Pride Park Stadium on August 25, 2018 in Derby, England.
Image credit: Getty Images
Yet the same was said about Loftus-Cheek before him, and Dominic Solanke before him, and Nathaniel Chalobah before him, and all the way back to Josh McEachran. Remember him?
There are always excuses, be it injuries or a stagnation in development, but it is an absolute disgrace that an academy as successful as Chelsea’s hasn’t produced a player who serves the first-team squad.
Chelsea have won the last five FA Youth Cups in a row, they’ve won seven out of the last nine, and none of those players have made the step-up.
There is something fundamentally and systemically wrong at Chelsea. The club has developed this weird sense of stability where the manager is never constant, even the players aren’t, yet somehow the titles keep coming, so all is well.
Sure there have been bumps in the road, see the recent seasons after Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte had won the league, but the trophy haul is remarkable.
Over the course of the last 10 seasons, Chelsea have had three seasons where they went trophy-less. To put that into content over the same period of time of the current big six only Manchester United (two) had fewer seasons, and they're still carried by the end of the Sir Alex Ferguson dynasty in this particular data set. Manchester City (four), Arsenal (five), Liverpool (nine) and Tottenham Hotspur (ten) all had more.
During that period, Chelsea went through eight different managers which does not include Sarri, none of the other sides have had more than five.
How on earth can young players be expected to impress a manager when that manager could be out the door in a few months and as a consequence of that is focusing on winning now, not building for the future by giving these players opportunities.
Until something changes at Chelsea, be that with Sarri or somebody else, then Mount is more likely to follow the trajectory Loftus-Cheek than someone like Dele Alli at Spurs.
Winning regularly and developing youth products is a tricky thing to do, it’s one of the many reasons Sir Alex Ferguson was a historical outlier, but Chelsea have to balance it better than they are at the moment.
Mount may well be the figurehead of that revolution, or he will follow those who have come before him, left to make a name for themselves away from SW6…
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