Youth and Pre-Season -Its About Performances Not Results

Nemanja Matic in action in the 3-1 defeat to Ajax

Yesterday a very young Chelsea side was beaten 3-1 by Ajax in a pre-season friendly, dominated by inexperienced youth players including  15 year old Nathaniel Chalobah, Chelsea were always likely to suffer against an experienced Ajax side.

Disapointingly there have been some people saying that today’s result shows that the younger players at Chelsea will not make the step up to the first team. However this is a premature conclusion and not a true reflection of how youth and pre-season works.

These two forms of football are similar that results are unimportant, pre-season games are about the development of fitness and sharpness, whereas youth football it is about individual performances and developing talent.

Obviously for some players the detractors will be right, not every young player on display will make it at the top of the game, and of those that do, they may not be ready for first team football. Games such as today are a key step in the development of our academy and the development of the players it nutures.

The experience of playing for the ‘first team’ and being in the limelight is vital experience that will help these players whatever happens throughout their career, so far Josh McEachran and others have shown touches of class and I hope that they will taken confidence in their elevated roles.

The main worry today however was the performance of Ross Turnbull who did little to suggest he is in a position to challenge Henrique Hilario as the number 2, to the injured Petr Cech.

Overall I would not read too much into this defeat, this is only the second game of pre-season and half the squad have not even returned following the World Cup. Chelsea have two more games to fine tune their performances before the Charity Shield and the start of the season.

Never fear, I am sure we will see the arrival of the first team cavalry as Chelsea venture onwards to Germany.