Player farming

Don Pacifico

Our youth recruitment doesn't seem to be as strong as it has been previously (at least not from overseas). I wonder if that's a combo of (a) reducing our scouting network (presumably StatDNA won't have much Intel on players with no professional appearances (etc.) and (b) Mertesacker's emphasis on nurturing players as people (player farming would seem at odds with that philosophy).

Not sure where I stand to be honest - you can't ignore the number of talents coming out of Chelsea these days but there are also certain ethical questions to be overcome with that model.

Pepe LeFrits

To be sure as a model it is further rigging the game in favour of the bigger clubs, but if we're the only one not doing it, it won't end well for us.

Don Pacifico

Pepe LeFrits I'm not even talking about it in terms of competition ethics but more in terms of human ethics. If Chelsea are seeing these players as assets rather than people, it's debatable whether they have their best interests at heart. Per's philosophy as academy manager is very much more about holistic development, which is where I think there would be a conflict with player farming.

RowJimmy

I think a rule against this would be an important step toward a more competitive league - a limit of 27 (say) senior players on contract including loans. Would need to count players with buy-back clauses and players sold to teams with shared ownership structure as well.

Burnwinter

I've been cautiously in favour of this since years ago when Chelsea had a whole posse of players such as the young Matic out on loan. Back then it was partly because we kept being told Arsenal had no money, but it was frustrating the club also seemed to purposely avoid money-spinning strategies.

However, I suspect it's not possible for Arsenal to adopt the "Brighton model" as it's described above by Mackenzie.

As title challengers, we don't operate as a selling club. If we were Brighton we'd be minted. We'd have recently transferred Saka, Martinelli and Saliba and we'd have Nelson, Smith Rowe and Kiwior on the pitch getting polished up in the shop window. We'd have one of those bar charts with a lot of £5m next to £100m and look like geniuses, and Arteta definitely wouldn't be our manager because he would've had an aneurysm.

Anyway we now know that Chelsea's cosy dozens of loans to Vitesse (including Matic) were enabled by Abramovich secretly bankrolling the other club, so in that era their method was more corrupt than it was canny business.

And we also know Arsenal purposely avoided "too much success" from 2007-2018 while the KSE takeover was creeping forward.

Since other clubs now heavily target signings around 19-21 years old, any talent Arsenal wasn't clearly showing love would be tapped up and become unsettled. The more everything went to plan and our first team squad remained very strong, the more cases we'd see of a pissed off Saliba or Balogun. Likewise if you keep selling top talent, guys like Trossard who want to win something start to hate life.

Pepe LeFrits

Burnwinter I don't think selling players on is part of the strategy, that's just an unavoidable part of life at a club their size. Signing lots of players for small fees and loaning them out does not require that we sell our best players. If some of the prospects come good we integrate them into the team at a fraction of the cost of signing them ready-made, if not, we sell them on, sometimes at a decent profit.

banduan

Burnwinter Anyway we now know that Chelsea's cosy dozens of loans to Vitesse (including Matic) were enabled by Abramovich secretly bankrolling the other club, so in that era their method was more corrupt than it was canny business.

exactly this. Was just loads of dodgy shite.

Coombs

Pepe LeFrits how would they retain value without playing? Selling on their best players is absolutely part of Brighton's strategy.

Burnwinter

Coombs Pepe LeFrits Concrete thinking about whether we could do incrementally better on this front …

Saliba's loan to Marseille would be the norm and regarded as the ideal model.

Every player who wasn't at least a rotated first choice, and wasn't gaining value would be on the market: Elneny and Holding, but also probably Nketiah and Tomiyasu.

Smith Rowe and Balogun would be starters facing the prospect of being sold in January or next summer, and Havertz would not have been signed.

Lokonga (currently a Brighton target to replace Caicedo) would either have a good loan sorted for this season, or be in the rotation, or have been sold, and would probably not have been signed.

Timber would not have been signed and we'd have a recalled loanee. We'd be signing up cheap (< £3m say) first XI prospects aged around 18-19, some of whom would remain on loan at their clubs of origin. That might be viewed unfavourably by Hale End chances like Patino, Norton-Cuffy, Nwaneri, Cozier-Duberry and so on.

I can see us doing a few things better now the squad rebuild is complete. We're only really talking about at most three or four positions in the squad without it starting to impact our performances.

Detaching Arteta from the recruitment process during this season, while his stature and influence at the club are peaking, might be the biggest mitigation of risk.

Pepe LeFrits

Coombs how would they retain value without playing? Selling on their best players is absolutely part of Brighton's strategy.

They'd be playing for other clubs. Colwill never kicked a ball for Chelsea before this season but if they'd sold him this summer they would have fetched a substantial fee for him. Ampadu played the vast majority of his football out on loan and they got £9m for him this summer. Tomori similar, played him on loan a lot, tried him on the periphery of the first team for one season, then sold him for £31m. Guehi never played for them, £18m. Palasic, £12m. and so on.

Clrnc

Pepe LeFrits Actually that's how City and Chelsea made their expensive incoming sustainable. Constantly racking good sales to lower net spend while we look like crap.

Liverpool also but to a lesser extent

Burnwinter

Clrnc Actually that's how City and Chelsea made their expensive incoming sustainable.

Well done amigo, you've gotta do a pretty extended *cough* to fast talk your way through "and fictitious sponsorship arrangements, and co-ownership by the same Saudi state sports investment fund that owns Newcastle and half of the Saudi Pro League".

QuincyAbeyie

Was Vitesse such a big part of Chelsea's model? Honest question, since it's been successful long before Saudi got involved.

Burnwinter

QuincyAbeyie Yeah, Vitesse loaned 29 players contracted to Chelsea. And Abramowich was paying them to do it via front companies and so on. Not sure how many of them went on to success or to be sold for large fees, but a few did.