FanPost

Our lack of homegrown talent

I'll tell you a little bit about myself before I begin my rant. I'm 15 and live in Melbourne, Australia. I've supported Chelsea basically my whole life (since 2001) and I've been watching our matches for the last 3 seasons. Ive only started watches matches recently because I have and stay up till 1 am, or get up at 4:45 before school to watch our games which my parents wouldn't let me do till a couple of years ago. So to sum it up I love our club and nothing will stop me from supporting them..... However

I am very, very disappointed at the lack of English talent getting a chance in our first team. In our current squad we only have John Terry and Ryan Bertrand who have graduated from our academy, and after those two we have Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard and Gary Cahill as the only players that qualify as "English" and not necessarily homegrown. I was doing some research recently with the mind set that aside from Barcelona all the other top European clubs had an influx of foreign talent with 4 or 5 native players. After looking at the squads of the other teams this is what I found....

Chelsea - Terry, Cahill, Lampard, Bertrand, Cole

Man city - Hart, Lescott, Milner, Barry, Rodwell

Man united - Ferdinand, Carrick, Rooney, Welbeck, Cleverly, Jones, Smalling, Young, Zaha

Bayern Munich - Neuer, Cotento, Boateng, Lahm, Schweinsteiger, Kroos, Muller, Gotze, Kirchhoff, Starke

Real Madrid - Isco, Ramos, Arbeloa, Alonso, Lopez, Carvajal, Casillas, Morata, Jese,

Nacho

Barcelona - Fabregas, Piqué, Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, Pedro, Alba, Valdez, Roberto, Tello, Pinto, Bartra

Juventus - Pirlo, Chiellini, Barzagli, Bonucci, Buffon, Giovinco, Ogbonna, Matri, Quagliarella, Peluso, Marrone, Storari, De Ceglie, Padoin

PSG - Matuidi, Jallet, Rabiot, Ingenda, Digne, Sakho, Douchez

Now I do realise some of these players aren't first team regulars for their respective clubs, and many of them haven't come through their current clubs academy, however just look at the size of these lists, only man city are comparable to us and it makes me feel somewhat disgusted. I am embarrassed at the amount of foreign players we have purchased over the past few years especially when our Brittish talents such as Mceachran have been neglected, and at this point in time I can't see a way into our first team for some of our brilliant youngsters such as Chalobah, Loftus-Cheek, Baker, Brown if we continue in this purchasing pattern. Year after year we buy foreign talents and each year this pushes back the development and opportunities for our youngsters. What is the point in investing millions to make our academy one of the best in the world when we just go buy players from elsewhere anyway.

I'm not even from England and I believe the demise of the national team and homegrown talent is sad and embarrassing. I would even be happier if chelsea were to buy more english players and not necessarily develop them from the academy. We have to remember this is English football, and it should be made up of primarily or at least a higher percentage of British players than it currently is. We have so many talents in our academy and it looks like they might all go to waste.

Rant over.

P.s please don't knock me too much I'm only 15 and this is my first post, but fel free to express your opinions in the comments



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