Tony Cascarino
John Terry spoke this week about how hard it is for youth players to break into the first-team at the top clubs and he should know, because how many have managed it at Chelsea in the past decade apart from him?
The going rate now at the big Barclays Premier League sides is probably one or two youth products per decade who become long-term regulars. It’s a tiny amount considering the resources spent on academies. But plenty are given a substitute appearance here, a Carling Cup start there, before being sold or released and winding up at smaller top-flight sides or Coca-Cola Championship clubs.
There’s no hope, really, if you’re anything less than a superstar in the making. You’ve got to be a teenage prodigy, as Gael Kakuta appears to be, to have a chance of lasting. Opportunities are scarce, and players are impatient, so they’ll look elsewhere rather than hang around for years in the reserves. And if they do get a game or two, they have to hit the ground running.
You can’t afford to play badly, or even indifferently – the sport’s so pressurised that managers won’t risk their jobs by giving untested youngsters a sustained run. Kids must play well straight away, or they’ll be discarded. Managers in the Premier League have the pick of the world’s best players to sign, so why would they spend time developing a young player who may or may not turn out to be good enough?
It’s harsh – maybe a teenager’s been learning his trade at a club for five or six years, and after all that education and investment, his first-team audition may last only a few minutes.
I was a far better player in my mid-twenties than when I was a raw teenager, and that’s normal. But clubs would rather let go now and buy back later if necessary: a good example is Peter Crouch, who didn’t originally make the grade at Tottenham Hotspur.
It’s no wonder that few English players make it at the Chelseas, Liverpools and Manchester Uniteds when the odds are so stacked against them. It doesn’t mean that youth development is in crisis, just that the standards and resources of the best Premier League clubs are immense.
Daniel Sturridge, a very good prospect but let go by Manchester City who’s now on the fringes of the Chelsea side. He’s not going to break into that team any time soon given that Carlo Ancelotti can pick Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka. How many strikers in the world are better than those two?
Scott Sinclair did pretty well in most of his Chelsea appearances but he’s gone on loan to Wigan Athletic. Franco Di Santo’s gone to Blackburn Rovers on work experience. Frazier Campbell was deemed talented enough by Steve Bruce for Sunderland to spend up to six million pounds on him – yet he couldn’t break into the Manchester United team. At United, Jonny Evans is a very useful player, but not a certain starter. And who’s to say that if Nemanja Vidic is sold next summer, Sir Alex Ferguson won’t go out and buy a costly defender rather than make Evans a first choice?
It’s not enough to be good at Old Trafford – you have to be exceptional. Either that or, like Darren Fletcher and John O’Shea, you accept that you’re a squad player, a fill-in man who won’t be an automatic first choice.
The chief purpose of academies these days seems to be to churn out a production line of very good but not great prospects who can fill out the ranks then be sold to smaller clubs. Once in a blue moon, perhaps a genius will be uncovered. You’re better off being a kid at a club without money such as West Ham United, because then they’ll have to give you a go. West Ham’s youngsters such as Jack Collison and Mark Noble are regulars who wouldn’t be near the line-up if they’d begun their careers in West instead of East London.
Consider the scene for a young central midfield prospect at Chelsea a couple of years ago. He’d be thinking: Scott Parker (and later, Steve Sidwell) can’t get in the first-team. What chance do I have?
The only way things will change is if the league suffers a financial decline, so that clubs can’t afford to sign the cream of the crop – and I don’t see that happening. Or else, the authorities introduce rules forcing teams to field home-grown players. Imagine what that would do to the quality of the Chelsea line-up.
The present situation isn’t good news for up-and-coming players, but I don’t see it as unhealthy overall – we want England to have the best players and the best teams, don’t we? That it’s so difficult to break into line-ups is a sign of the Premier League’s success. And when the big four sell on their good-but-not-great kids, other clubs benefit lower down the food chain.
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