How Did Chelsea Lose Kevin De Bruyne And Lukaku?
Chelsea signed Kevin De Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku for modest sums and sold them on for a profit. The pair have gone on to take their games to the next level with De Bruyne being regarded as one of the top talents in English football while the Blues tried to resign Lukaku in the summer.
Mourinho moved on numerous high profile players including likes of Juan Mata, Petr Cech, Andre Schurrle and Thorgan Hazard during his time. He also established the innovative and controversial loan policy at the club who like to stockpile talent and send out upwards of 35 players on temporary moves in every season.
This policy of stockpiling young talent while investing heavily in scouting and youth training leaves Chelsea with an embarrassment of riches at the youth levels of football, but then they often struggle to make the transition into a first team regular.
De Bruyne and Lukaku's signings for Chelsea were the result of good scouting and business for the club as they made a profit on each, but they ultimately decided that the loan wilderness wasn't for them and took another path for their development.
Their willingness to sell on their young talent so early was to allow them to fund spending for the likes of Diego Costa, Willian and Cesc Fabregas - as the club tried to look for innovative ways to match the spending competitors like Manchester United - who benefit from UEFA's Financial Fair Play rules while the likes of Chelsea and Manchester City struggle.
Chelsea bought De Bruyne under Andre Villas-Boas's leadership in January 2012 for around £7 million from Genk, and he has since grown into a key player at Manchester City, who paid £54.5m to bring him to Eastlands in 2015.
Mourinho decided that he could afford to profit from De Bruyne as he struggled to give him minutes in the first team and sold him to Wolfsburg for £18.7m, the club then got a further £10 million thanks to a clause they added into the deal when they sold them to the German club.
De Bruyne would undoubtedly be a key player if he was in Chelsea's squad now though and is arguably better than the two players, Eden Hazard and Oscar, who kept him out during his time at Stamford Bridge.
Mourinho and De Bruyne had a frosty relationship when they were at Chelsea with the Portuguese manager saying he was "crying every day he wants to leave" and was not motivated in training.
Chelsea's scout Piet De VIsser added that opinion was divided at Chelsea in his interview with HLN Sport: "I was angry with Mourinho when De Bruyne left Chelsea."
"We had some discussions. Then he would say: "Piet, I find it a shame too, but the boy wants to leave. He doesn't want to train under me anymore. I told him: "Yes, the boy wants to play. He's ready for it." I have tried to convince him of Kevin's qualities. But then Mourinho repeated: "Piet, he doesn't want to train."
De Bruyne, himself, simply wanted first team football and couldn't bear to be on the fringes of what Chelsea tried to achieve. He went to Wolfsburg and was ultimately vindicated in his decision to force a move, but some may find Mourinho's decision questionable as Oscar to this day struggles for the consistency of his Premier League rival.
In April 2016, while at Manchester City, De Bruyne revealed his conversations around his departure from west London and responded to Mourinho's claims that he didn't try hard enough.
"After his press conference in Bucharest I even started training harder," De Bruyne told the Daily Telegraph. "Even on my days off. But my situation never changed. That's why I asked him in a friendly way: ‘Please let me go.’ Chelsea wanted to loan me out, even wanted me to stay, but I had enough of it. I wanted to leave.”
De Bruyne has gone on to make a mockery of Mourinho's claims that he doesn't train hard enough while Pep Guardiola famously described him as second only to Messi after City's 4-0 win over Bournemouth.
"When we talk about Messi, maybe he can sit alone in the table, with no-one else allowed. But in the table beside, Kevin can sit there.
There are both huge similarities and differences between the circumstances of Lukaku's departure to De Bruyne's exit from Stamford Bridge. Lukaku has left Chelsea with the door open and actually pushed for a move back to his old club in the summer.
Lukaku left Stamford Bridge for Everton's club record transfer fee of £28 million, but his value has rocketed and there was talk that Chelsea were willing to pay over £50m for his services over the summer. Chelsea may have made a huge profit after they signed him for £10m from Anderlecht in 2011, but his re-signing would completely nullify any gains they made and was met with some criticism from their fanbase.
Unlike De Bruyne, Lukaku left Chelsea with a positive view of Mourinho and said that he would like to play for him in the future. It has yet to be seen whether Manchester United would look to sign him, but they did a lot of business with his agent Mino Raiola over the summer.
In fact, they signed three of his players, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, all of which involved huge sums of money.
In fact, they signed three of his players, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, all of which involved huge sums of money.
There is disappointment over the transfer policy over the sale of Lukaku who went on loan to both West Brom and Everton during his time with Chelsea, while they looked to older players like Didier Drogba and Samuel Eto'o for short-term success.
There are signs that Chelsea are ready to give more game time to younger players since Mourinho left. Guus Hiddink started the process last season after Mourinho was sacked, bringing Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Bertrand Traore and Kenedy into his match day squads on a regular basis.
This has continued under Conte who has given more of the young, English academy products a chance with Ola Aina and Nathaniel Chalobah featuring on several occasions this season.
Chelsea's plans to expand their stadium will give them more room to manoeuvre, with UEFA's FFP rules in mind, in the transfer market which may allow them to be more resistant to bids for their younger players.
Breaking into the first team will remain difficult for Chelsea's youth players despite Roman Abramovich ending the days of his aggressive transfer policies as the record breaking Premier League television deal will ensure the Blues remain on the top table of football finance.
Overall, it appears that Chelsea have a plan and have invested wisely in a world renowned academy system which are signs that they have a fantastic structure in place. Chelsea have every possible protection in place to ensure they don't lose another De Bruyne, but a weakness in a manager's judgement in a player can never be truly resolved.
No comments: