Originally Posted by RichmondBlue:
“I'm not against giving young players a shot, I've always believed in the old saying that if they're good enough, they're old enough. But I also think a young player has got to be a bit special to break through for a team like Chelsea..
The problem with playing RLC as a starter for me is that in the few appearances he's made so far he hasn't looked like that special sort of player. Another problem is that he plays in a very exposed position, there's no room for errors. Kurt Zouma took his chance so it can be done. Maybe RLC will come on in a game where we are coasting and suddenly set the place on fire, who knows ?
Its a carch 22 situation with young players really, play them and they come off and the managers a genius. Play them and they prove a liability and everyone's calling the manager an idiot. Looking back at Kevin de Bruyne, everyone will say we were crazy to let him go. But at the time I agreed with Mourinho, he just wasn't playing at a level to justify a first team place.
I think Pedro will be an excellent signing. A top quality player at a sensible price. I'm not too bothered about us getting Stones in this window to be honest. He's overpriced for a player that may not improve our current team significantly. Probably a great prospect for the future, but nothing's certain in football. Anyway, I can't see how our back four can go from the most solid in the PL to being in need of a complete overhaul in a matter of a few months ?”
I agree that so far RLC's performances have been quite safe, but it's far too early to write him off. Predicting a player's future potential is one of the hardest things to do in football - how many of us believed Matic was ever going to be good for us before we sold him to Benfica? Of course there will always be those types of talents who carry a lot of hype around them at a young age (Hazard and Neymar etc.) but hype does not always translate to top talents.
CM is definitely a demanding position; it's imperative that any CM playing for us should have good technique (I really can't stress this enough), good positional awareness and mobility. It sucks when a young player makes a mistake, but it's not like our established players have never made a mistake which resulted in a goal. So as long as our youth players learn from it and don't let it affect their confidence, that's the most important part.
I'm really happy with the way Zouma is coming along and if RLC can get the same amount of minutes as Zouma did last season, I'll be pretty content. Cahill's poor form led to Zouma starting more games at the start of the new year and he didn't disappoint. IMO he was unfairly dropped against our PSG home game, but I guess Mourinho wanted to go with experience and all that jazz. I really hope RLC will take his chances when they are given to him. He's already been warned by Mourinho from our post season tour about his nonchalant attitude and once Mou identifies there's an attitude problem there really is no going back in most cases (De Bruyne being the most recent example).
It is a bit of a catch 22 problem but it's not like we expect Mourinho to play all our youth players at once. Playing 1 or 2 youth players surrounded by experienced, international players shouldn't really hinder the quality of our game. Kalas didn't look out of place when he played at Anfield and Ake looked comfortable in midfield when we were playing in the EL. We could talk all day about the possibilities of what
could happen if we play our youth but the only way we will
know is if we play them!