Claude Puel, Youth Policy, Loan Signings and a Change in Strategy?

By Scott Bentley

At one point it was said that no matter where you were in Europe you were never more than 6ft away from someone “on loan from Chelsea.”

A comical exaggeration of course but a sign of the vast scale of Chelsea’s infrastructure which appeared to include them buying every young player in Europe to send them out on a series of never ending loans.  A bit like a kid collecting their toys in the pram so no one else could play with them… the ongoing conveyor belt seen them loan players out before an inevitable sale, sometimes before they ever made their debut for Chelsea.  As we know this system had its shortcomings and famous failures…. Kevin De Bruyne, RomeluLukaku and Mo Salah come to mind.

At City, we’ve always had our own strange relationship with loan signings…

On paper some have made sense for us and for the player. Matty James needed game time at Barnsley when coming back from an injury and with slim chances of game time at The King Power, we probably owed Leo Ulloa acrack at staying in the Premiership with Brighton.  A place he had spent time before arriving in the East Midlands. Much to the frustration of Iborra and Silva’s biggest fans our forgotten man Nampalys Mendy has returned to fight and cement a place in our squad after a loan at Nice last season, successful loan move so far.

Other loan moves however have seemed frustrating to watch as a fan.  Tom Lawrence lit up The Championship during his loan move at Ipswich and scored some truly amazing goals.  This was on the back of 3 previous loan moves where he had consistently played games and at a time where he seemedto have secured a permanent place in the Wales set up.  It seemed toeveryone that Tom would return to City and finally get a chance in the first team. Instead this wasn’t to be and a multi million pound move to Derby Countyended his Leicester tenure.  I’m not for one minute saying Lawrence wasthe answer to any attacking need we had but it’s annoying to think he was never really given a chance and there will always be the wonder of what might have been….

Under Claude Puel, regardless of his critics everyone can see he is devoted to the development of youth.  He arrived at the club with along history of nurturing young players like Thierry Henry, David Trezeguet,Eden Hazard and Alexandre Lacazette and it seems achieving similar success withus is one of his goals.  

Alongside plans for a state of the art training facility, it seems the club are happy to invest in Puel’s ambition and new young signings tied with new deals for players like Ben Chilwell are testament to that.

Since coming through the academy system, Harvey Barnes has looked like a real talent.  Unfortunately it seems he’s just came through at a time when the club has been spoiled with fantastic talent in that department. In a previous regime it could be argued that Barnes would have been sent out on loan to mid table Championship teams before being sold for a decent fee. It seems this time though that a change in policy is good for both parties. If rumours are to be believed, City held off speaking to lots of clubs before agreeing a move to West Brom was a good opportunity for the players development.  The Hawthorne’s have just been relegated from the Premiership and they’re management team and squad shows that they are ready to bounce straight back up with an attractive brand of football. As I write thisin early November, Barnes has been an undeniable success so far with FourFour Two naming him as the best player in the league right now. This success has earned him an England Under 21 squad call up where he joinsthe likes of Demarai Gray, Ben Chilwell and James Maddison who are regulars atthat level.  Chat has been rife that Puel has considered bringing the player back early and while there is no indication that will happen, there isalso no smoke without fire and it’s refreshing to know that Barnes efforts aren’t solely being recognised as a way of putting his sale price up.  

Another player that’s really caught my eye is Croatian defender Filip Benkovic.  It feels like The Blue Army have been calling out for anew centre back for years now and all of a sudden 3 new signings came at once.  In Jonny Evans we acquired a veteran with Premiership experience and Caglar Soyuncu has so far showed glimpses of a great player in themaking.  At a combined total of 35 million pounds outlay, our investment in the defence department looks like it’s part of a long term vision and Benkovic is definitely the one for the future.  Living in Glasgow I have as light advantage in that I can watch his performances for Celtic week in week out and so far he tops the list as a top performer in a side expected to cruise to another league title.  As a commanding centre half who seems comfortable with the ball at his feet, there must have been several suitors fora potential loan deal. The club’s decision to allow a move to Celtic however could turn out to be a master stroke.  Scottish football is not the highest level and he won’t be coming up against incredibly talented attackers in comparison to that of the English Premier League. What the young Croatian will have exposure to however is the invaluable demands of playing in a side expected to win every game they play in comfortably and all the pressure that brings.  Playing in front of home crowds of 60,000 regularly can only be a good thing for a player at the early stages of his career and combined with Europa League football, this is without doubt the best place to be. Brendan Rodgers like Puel has an eye for young talent and he may learn a lot working under one of the UK’s finest coaches. So far so good on the loan report card for the Croatian. He already has a winners medal in the Scottish League Cup and he has looked a class act in pretty much every game he has played. Despite hisage, he has looked confident playing in big European nights and Celtic’s progression through to the next stage of the Europa League is testament to his performance. He doesn’t seem fazed by the speculation and hype surrounding him so far and the tag line of “The next Virgin Van Dijk” as many Celtic fans have said comes with a lot of expectation.

Rome wasn’t built in a day and the disbandment of our old guard won’t be done overnight. 

It’s difficult to watch players like Wes Morgan and Danny Simpson struggle as they come towards the end of their careers bu football managers are paid the high wages they are to drop feelings of sentiment and make the decisions we as fans probably couldn’t.

Written by :

Scott Bentley

Instagram – @thescottblog

Facebook – The Scott Blog

thescottblogfootball@gmail.com

thescottblogfootball.wordpress.com