Journalist Fabrizio Romano has revealed that Mauricio Pochettino has already told Chelsea they must loan young talent out instead of keeping them around next season if they aren’t going to play.
What’s the latest on Chelsea and Mauricio Pochettino?
The latest understanding in the media is that the Argentine will indeed be in charge at Stamford Bridge next term.
Indeed, in a Tweet from this weekend, Romano revealed that Pochettino will sign a contract in the next few days before officially taking over from Frank Lampard in June.
However, while speaking about the 51-year-old in greater detail on his YouTube channel, the journalist outlined what sort of transfer plan was going to be put in place for the Premier League side.
One thing that looks to be an immediate demand of Pochettino is that the Blues are better when using the loan market for their youngsters.
Romano explained (09:34): “Then there are some players to send on loan because Mauricio Pochettino always says that for young talents – and this is something that he already told the club in his conversations – young talents have to play football, they can’t just stay on the bench.
“So for example, what happened to Carney [Chukwuemeka] this season or many other players this can’t happen again.
“So get ready for some loan deals at Chelsea for many of the talents they’re signing, because they’re signing incredible talents for the present and future but especially for the present it is important to send them on loan.”
What Chelsea players could go on loan next season?
It’s interesting that Romano specifically alludes to Chukwuemeka and he is certainly a good example of a youngster who has potentially wasted a season at Stamford Bridge when he could have been developing on loan.
Last summer, he arrived from Aston Villa for a fee in the region of £20m. In his debut season with Chelsea, however, the 19-year-old has seen just 224 minutes of action in the league and hasn’t been in the squad for the last seven games.
Omari Hutchinson is another teenager at the club who has hardly featured at the senior level and so it hasn’t been a great campaign for their development.
With that being the case, it certainly sounds like a good strategy from Pochettino to ship any youngsters out on loan immediately if they aren’t going to be in his first-team plans.
However, he is a manager who has a reputation of integrating a club’s young prospects into his plans which will surely give those Chelsea youngsters some hope for the future.
