Solanke and the Talent Factory

This is the best time in history to be a young English footballer – isn’t it?

The England team has the youngest average age in the modern era. The Three Lions youth sides are winning tournaments. Talented teens and twenty-somethings are becoming superstars at an exponentially increasing rate. Sancho. Rashford. Foden. Loftus-Cheek… And so on.

Finally, England have designed a successful development programme – and at the same time as a substantial shift in managerial philosophy has brought our football, in terms of tactics, training and outlook, into the modern age. In principal, this should be the perfect era for a talented young tyro to blossom in the English game.

And yet…

Dominic Solanke’s transfer is the latest in a long line of moves which suggest that some of the biggest English clubs are developing a worrying approach to the growth of that talent. Gradually, club after club views their youth players not as investments but as commodities, their appreciation in value the primary priority.

Liverpool are probably guilty. Manchester City certainly are. Chelsea have essentially transformed their academy set-up into a factory line where turning a profit isn’t just the primary objective, but perhaps the only one.

Solanke should be one of the brightest stars in English football by now, and perhaps, had he grown up with a different team, he would be.  Instead a man who scored goals for fun at youth level and was one of the stars of England’s successful U20 World Cup campaign – earning a full cap as a result – has been afforded no opportunity to press on. Now he is on his way to Bournemouth.

It may do Solanke no harm. Obviously, he has talent. But in the last few years he has been allowed to benchwarm rather than play. In a crucial formative period, he has been restricted to an inconstant string of ten-minute cameos – hardly the best way to teach a player how to function as part of a group of top-quality players.

Injuries have played some part, but it became abundantly clear that Jürgen Klopp was unwilling to risk playing a youngster when anything of note was on the line. What if Solanke missed a chance that Roberto Firmino would put away? The value – both in terms of finance and prestige – of a place in the table, or an extra round in the Champions League, is apparently too high to justify blooding a talent when there is a proven performer to lean on.

It’s a recurring theme in the upper echelons of the Premier League. Chelsea supposedly value Callum Hudson-Odoi at anything up to £40m, but aren’t willing to play him. Manchester City preferred to sell Brahim Diaz and Jadon Sancho for a guaranteed profit rather than risk giving them minutes. Manchester United deserve credit for their continued willingness to bring through talent, but even they allowed Paul Pogba to drift away for want of playing time, at great financial cost to themselves.

Chelsea churn out youngsters at a ludicrous rate, but almost none ever wear a first-team jersey. They aren’t really meant to. Chelsea’s academy is so over-subscribed that 40 players are currently out on loan (excluding Christian Pulisic), and the idea is simply to develop them to a point where they can be sold on at an operating profit. This method is a core part of Chelsea’s entire financial set-up.

“Clubs don’t seem to remember that young players aren’t simply a bundle of FIFA stats. They’re people.”

As a result of this outlook, selling Hudson-Odoi for any sizeable fee represents a success. By the same logic, Liverpool have turned a £16m profit on Solanke (minus wages and costs) and no doubt many in Anfield’s backrooms will feel this represents good business. On paper it’s hard to argue with the cold maths.

The figures behind these decisions bear up poorly, however, when you factor in the senior transfers these teams make. Chelsea may rake it in on Hudson-Odoi, but will have spent at least £20m more on Pulisic. They made a very solid profit on Kevin de Bruyne (around £14m less costs) but would have made about £30m had they developed him and sold him on to City at the same price they paid Wolfsburg. They lost at least a million on Salah, potential not enough to have earn him serious pitch-time.

Chelsea made £9m, give or take, on Romelu Lukaku but would have accrued a much larger profit if they’d waited and improved him in their first team – never mind the £70m they ended up spending on Alvaro Morata. They effectively made a £60m loss trading Lukaku for Morata – hardly good business on the face of it.

The Solanke and Diaz transfers could easily go the same way – as the Sancho transfer most certainly has. Which would have been better for City – giving Sancho playing time or spending £60m on Riyadh Mahrez? Granted that money is no object to them, but you don’t need experience as a Director of Football to see which would have been the better road to walk, even in the short term.

Part of the issue is simply that youth academies are both horribly unprofitable and a compulsory requirement of league membership. Some clubs have opted to strip their academies to the bare bones to reduce losses – as Huddersfield did in the summer of 2017.

Chelsea simply took the opposite road. Ultimately, it’s hard to justify the outlay on a strong youth set-up if you don’t cash in at every opportunity – but this view simply doesn’t factor in the vast costs of bringing in proven, first-team-ready players.

Nor is being risk-averse on the pitch a strong enough justification for refusing youngsters chances. Real Madrid will give Diaz minutes, as they already have with Vinicius Junior – a teenager who has arguably been Real’s best performer in an undistinguished season. Borussia Dortmund are surging towards the Bundesliga title on the back of the trust they have put in their young charges.

Barcelona have developed an entire philosophy – and their most successful teams – around La Masia. Youth can win, but in England we refuse to give it that opportunity at the very top level too often.

Consider, also, the effect that what often ends up as a string of transfers could have on a young person. Instead of being developed as a player – and an individual – among a constant group of friends and with their family (as happens at La Masia, where around 70 players live in the academy at any one time), they are shipped around, on loan, then on transfer, knowing that they will be lucky to break through. It cannot possibly have a positive psychological impact on many. It certainly wouldn’t have done on me.

Imagine the effect of switching schools time and time again in your late teens – never growing up alongside a constant friend group, never having a stable support system in place, family often several national borders away. Many people would be damaged by the process. Clubs don’t seem to remember that young players aren’t simply a bundle of FIFA stats or a walking, talking piggy bank. They’re people.

This is what Chelsea, City and Liverpool need to learn – young players aren’t just profit/loss calculations. They can play – and given plenty of time on the pitch, they’ll often develop into very good players indeed. This has been recognised in the national set-up, with performances down the age groups rewarded with opportunities further up the ladder.

Give the kids a chance and it will, surely, be better for the players, better for the teams, and, often, better for those precious bank balances.