Chelsea vs Manchester City: City kids given chance to learn valuable lessons

Chelsea paraded the FA Youth Cup at half-time in this match, a competition they have come to dominate like no other club since the Busby Babes 60 years ago. This, though, was the wrong afternoon to boast of their investment in youth. Shiny as the silverware was, it lacked the lustre of Manchester City’s flesh-and-blood demonstration. Chelsea hold the cup by dint of a 5-2 aggregate victory over City last April. Six of the players involved in that final featured in this game, all were wearing the lime green of City’s away kit.

Chelsea have reached the last four FA Youth Cup finals, winning three. Yet, as any development coach knows, the aim is to produce first-team players, not win cups, and on that score Chelsea are yet to deliver. They have fielded 25 players this season and not one of them is a teenager. Their youngest starting player yesterday was Baba Rahman, 21 and hardly a novice, having cost £18m. The only youth product in the squad (35-year-old John Terry excepted) is Ruben Loftus-Cheek, who spent another frustrating 90 minutes bench-warming, not even being given a run when the game was long won.

Chelsea’s Youth Cup winners included such vaunted tyros as Isaiah Brown, Dominic Solanke and Charly Musonda, but none of this trio – nor any of their team-mates – has played a minute for Chelsea this season. Nor are they likely to, despite manager Guus Hiddink’s claim he will field the youngsters in the league. Those three cannot be given playing time in blue – Solanke and Brown are at Vitesse Arnhem to the end of the season and Musonda at Real Betis.

There they are playing matches, though by no means every week, and may return to Chelsea more mature players as a result. But, with the exception of Thibaut Courtois, Chelsea’s practice of loaning players out has struggled to realise their potential.

City’s manager, Manuel Pellegrini, by contrast, declined to buy a new striker in the summer because he believed in Kelechi Iheanacho. Having justified that decision, the Nigerian teenager was yesterday joined by five colleagues from the FA Youth Cup runners-up team, plus two other teenagers. Of this octet, six started the match, three making their debuts.

It was an eye-catching statement and some context is required. Hiddink has identified this competition as Chelsea’s best chance of silverware this season, and of maintaining a place in Europe. He picked his best available side, one that would have expected to match a full-strength City. Pellegrini all but admitted beforehand that, faced with a midweek Champions League trip to Kiev, and a Capital One Cup final next Sunday, he had written off the world’s oldest competition.

The result reflected that sacrifice, but for much of this match the kids did not look out of place. Indeed, City’s worst performer was the veteran Martin Demichelis while two other experienced players, Willy Caballero and Aleksandar Kolarov, rarely provided the leadership their callow team-mates required.

Though well beaten by the end, City’s kids were not overawed and, indeed, nearly took an audacious second-minute lead. The Garcias, Manu and Aleix, played the ball neatly out of midfield to release David Faupala, who turned Gary Cahill inside out before fizzing in a low shot that brought a smart save from Courtois.

As the names may suggest, these are not native players. City are working hard to bring through local boys but the current teenage wave reflects a policy (also practised by Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool and others) of buying in the best ready-made talent from overseas.

Nigerian Iheanacho joined the club at 17, Spaniard Aleix Garcia came from Villarreal at 18 last summer, compatriot Manu Garcia from Sporting Gijon at 16, France’s Faupala from Lens at 18 in July. The most embedded in sky-blue tradition is Kosovo-born, Norwegian-bred Bersant Celina, signed from Stromsgodset at 15.

However, at centre-back yesterday was Mancunian Tosin Adarabioyo, who has been at City since primary school, while substitutes Brandon Barker and Cameron Humphreys are also home-grown. If City can turn two of these into first-team regulars they will be doing better than most clubs.

Even with a preponderance of teenagers in the XI, there was some method to Pellegrini’s gamble. As Hiddink noted, City’s back five was experienced, with Adarabioyo the only youngster. Though Chelsea found it easy to get players between the lines, the back four were well-drilled enough to catch them offside regularly. Nevertheless, with Cesc Fabregas allowed too much time on the ball, chances were bound to be created. But it was Kolarov and Demichelis most at fault, not Adarabioyo, both when Pedro hit the post, then when an unmarked Diego Costa scored.

The quick feet and minds of Manu Garcia and Faupala then forced the equaliser, but after Demichelis allowed Willian to run off him to score, then Cahill punished Fernando’s poor control, the contest was over. “It is never good to lose 5-1 but there were a lot of positive things about the young players,” said Pellegrini, adding, pertinently, “It is important for young players to play.”