Trevoh Chalobah: A Clearlake Mistake
There’s not one thing better as a football fan than seeing an academy boy break through after years at the club and shine in the first team. It hits differently, and it feels more real and close to home than any other signing the club can make. Academy players are to be cherished. They are the true people within the organisation, along with the staff that keep it running day to day, that truly understand the make-up and DNA of what the place is about.
Chelsea, as of late, seem to have lost all care for the academy players they’re producing. Cobham, once the hub of some of the best young talents in Europe, is now seemingly being tossed aside. Instead, the club is hellbent on signing an array of talents from abroad, some with no true gateway into the first team, instead of trusting what they already have close to home. The loss of Rio Ngumoha to Liverpool is the most recent example of that, and unfortunately for the true fans of Chelsea, he’s unlikely to be the last.
Chalobah Forced Out Of Chelsea:
The Trevoh Chalobah situation might just be the last straw when it comes to Chelsea fans and their patience with Clearlake Capital. The 25-year-old defender was left out of Enzo Maresca’s squad for their upcoming tour of the US for pre-season, in a decision that reportedly had nothing to do with the new Italian manager.
Chalobah, who has been at the club since he was 8 years old, was told he would not be travelling to the US with his teammates as Chelsea look to push out the defender and force him to join another club. It’s yet another example of Clearlake and their lack of appreciation for what they have right next to them, in a situation that will leave a bad taste in the mouths of those who have watched Chalobah flourish during his time pushing through the ranks.
The club reportedly feels they have enough options in the central defensive position, but even if that were the case, the right call is never to push an academy graduate out of the club. Mason Mount’s departure last season was met with mixed opinions from Chelsea fans when it happened, but a year later, it perhaps makes a lot more sense than it did back then. Conor Gallagher looks to be another player desperate to play for the badge, but the ones in charge of that badge don’t seem to be desperate to keep these talented academy players at the club.
The decision was absolutely not Trevoh Chalobah’s. The defender, who has made 80 appearances since his debut for the club in the 2021 Super Cup final against Villarreal, feels hard done by after the decision and will not rush to accept an offer from a club just because Chelsea have decided they no longer wish to have him as a player. The 25-year-old has a contract at the club which runs until June 2028, with the option of extending for a further year. This new contract was signed in November 2022, six months after Clearlake completed a takeover at the club. Two years later, they’ve decided to push the exact same player out. That doesn’t exactly scream an ownership in complete control of what they’re doing.
PSR Has To Change:
The club have forced themself into this corner. The owners have spent outside of their means, and unfortunately now they are paying the price by pushing the last things that hold the current mess at Chelsea to the strong foundations of the Chelsea of old. Chalobah is being forced to leave the club purely to satisfy the FFP and PSR misdemeanors of an ownership that threw millions of pounds at a wall, hoping it would stick, and is now trying to keep that same wall from crumbling down around them.
The player is disappointed. Chelsea academy players have liked posts on Instagram agreeing with accounts suggesting that the decision to push him out of the club is the wrong one, and the statistics in the latter part of the season would agree with their sentiments. Once returning from injury, within the final 13 games of the season, Chalobah started in ten of them. Within those ten games, Chelsea won seven and drew three, effectively solidifying a spot in Europe after an abysmal start to the season and finishing in as strong a manner as they possibly could.
The home grown selling policy in the Premier League is in need of a serious revamp. As mentioned previously, academy players are the heartbeat of a football club. As a Manchester United fan, academy players are the reason my club is as famous as it is today. The fact that the current rules and regulations within the Premier League reward you for getting rid of your own within their own rulebook is simply a regulation that needs to change.
Chalobah unfortunately, won’t be the last victim of the PSR plague. Elliot Anderson was sold by his boyhood club Newcastle United recently in the window to help them abide by the guidelines. Everton’s Lewis Dobbin to Aston Villa was another example of a player having to leave the club they grew up dreaming of playing just because their sale gives their club pure profit. Is that all these academy players are to the football world? Profit?
Man United & Bayern:
One thing is for sure: Trevoh Chalobah will not be short of offers from clubs within the Premier League. Manchester United are a club with a long-standing interest in the player, and as they look to strengthen their defensive options after the signing of Leny Yoro, it would not be a surprise to see the Reds land a deal for the defender.
Elsewhere, Bayern Munich also admire the player, with Vincent Kompany having a fair knowledge of his talents from his time in England with Burnley. There have been no offers as of yet, however, as the English defender is providing himself with adequate time to choose the most attractive option for the next phase of his career.
Something tells me time is going to be kind to Trevoh Chalobah.
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