Chelsea’s loan army: From Angelo to Ziyech, a mid-season report
Sophia Edwards With 2023 almost at an end, this feels like an opportune moment to check in on the progress of the Chelsea players attempting to build — or, in some cases, rebuild — their careers elsewhere.
This year’s loan army is a patchwork of high-profile project signings, Cobham prospects and misfits no longer wanted at Stamford Bridge. Their fortunes having been farmed out to other clubs across Europe in the first half of 2023-24 serve as a reminder of the risks as well as the rewards of outsourcing player development.
Advertisement
Let’s take a closer look.
The project signings
More than £60million ($76m) was committed in transfer fees to bringing Andrey Santos, Cesare Casadei, Angelo Gabriel, David Datro Fofana and Gabriel Slonina to Chelsea over the first three windows of Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital’s ownership.
All of the above are viewed as long-term, relatively-low-cost bets on potentially elite talents who stand a good chance of being sold at a profit if they do not make the first-team grade at Stamford Bridge. That may well be true, but the first six months of sending them elsewhere for opportunities have yielded underwhelming returns.
First, the positives: Slonina has played every minute in Belgium’s Jupiler Pro League since joining KAS Eupen on August 10, gaining valuable experience in a competitive European league. The American teenager has been kept busy in what is shaping up to be a relegation battle, and had to wait until October 28 to register his first clean sheet. Unfortunately, the most memorable moment of his loan so far came when, earlier this month, he failed to stop an added-time headed equaliser from KV Kortrijk’s goalkeeper Tom Vandenberghe.
Slonina is, however, at least playing regularly, which is more than can be said for many of the other prized Boehly-Clearlake development projects.
Chelsea's project buys need more minutes
Player
| Loan club
| League apps
| % of league mins played
|
|---|---|---|---|
Gabriel Slonina | K.A.S. Eupen | 16 | 100 |
Omari Hutchinson | Ipswich Town | 20 | 38.1 |
Cesare Casadei | Leicester City | 17 | 34.7 |
David Datro Fofana | Union Berlin | 12 | 50.5 |
Angelo Gabriel | Strasbourg | 16 | 48.5 |
Diego Moreira | Lyon | 6 | 22.1 |
Andrey Santos | Nottingham Forest | 1 | 0.6 |
Angelo and Fofana have shown belated flashes of progress this week after enduring difficult starts to their respective loans at Chelsea’s BlueCo sister club Strasbourg in France and Germany’s Union Berlin respectively.
The Brazilian winger came off the bench to cut in from the right flank and slip an incisive pass through for Junior Mwanga to score the clinching goal in a 2-1 home win against Lille in Ligue 1, French football’s top division, on Wednesday. It was his third assist of the campaign and his second in December.
Advertisement
Adapting to a new team, league, country and culture all at once has been difficult for a player who turned 19 just this week, and Angelo has been neither productive nor consistent enough to merit regular starts. The language barrier has also been an issue, but Strasbourg’s recent hire of fitness coach Joao Francisco Almeida has helped; he is serving as the teenager’s interpreter.
Fofana also made an impact as a substitute this week, lashing in his first Bundesliga goal to secure Union’s second league win since August, against Cologne.
The loan move has been something of a rollercoaster for Fofana, who failed to score in his first 11 appearances across all competitions and was suspended by the club for two matches after he refused to shake the hand of since-sacked coach Urs Fischer when substituted in a 1-0 loss at home to Napoli in the Champions League on October 26.
At the time, Chelsea recalling Fofana in January seemed a formality, but he apologised for his public show of disrespect and focused on winning back trust. He was rewarded with a huge equaliser in the return fixture against Napoli on November 8, and appears to be trending in a positive direction.
Casadei and Omari Hutchinson are playing prominent roles off the bench for the top two teams in the Championship, though both will surely have been hoping to be key starters by now.
Leicester City seemed like an ideal fit for Casadei under the tutelage of fellow Italian Enzo Maresca, but his performances have not lived up to the hype since scoring the winning goal as a substitute against Cardiff City on his debut in August.
Maresca’s starting midfield trio of Wilfred Ndidi, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Harry Winks have been the engine of a steady march back towards the Premier League following last season’s relegation under previous management, with Dennis Praet also in the mix when he is fit. Chelsea will also be watching closely to see if Leicester try to bolster their midfield further in the looming winter transfer window.
Advertisement
Hutchinson ranks 12th in the Ipswich Town squad for league minutes this season, and has most often been called upon by manager Kieran McKenna to provide a burst of speed and trickery off the bench. With a team promoted from League One this summer startlingly sitting second in the Championship almost at the season’s halfway point, that situation is unlikely to change, barring injury.
GO DEEPER
Omari Hutchinson: 'The ultimate aim is the Champions League. I have a picture as my screensaver'
That said, Hutchinson has still been more involved than Diego Moreira, who has been unable to command regular minutes despite Lyon enduring a disastrous start to the season in Ligue 1; recent Chelsea target Rayan Cherki is the creator-in-chief at Groupama Stadium, while Ghanaian winger Ernest Nuamah has been the biggest beneficiary of Bradley Barcola’s summer move to Paris Saint-Germain.
And then there is Andrey Santos, who has endured six entirely wasted months at fellow Premier League side Nottingham Forest. Predictably buried below their summer signings Ibrahim Sangare and Nicolas Dominguez in the midfield pecking order, as well as established club stalwarts Orel Mangala and Ryan Yates and compatriot Danilo, he needs a change of scenery as soon as possible, despite Forest’s recent change of head coach.
The Cobham prospects
This is not shaping up to be a particularly distinguished class of academy-level loanees, even if external factors — injury, suspension, international call-ups and mid-season managerial changes, to name just a few — have hindered rather than helped their attempts to make a mark.
Most academy loanees have struggled
Player
| Loan club
| League apps
| % of league mins played
|
|---|---|---|---|
Bashir Humphreys | Swansea City | 14 | 72.9 |
Harvey Vale | Bristol Rovers | 17 | 70.4 |
Mason Burstow | Sunderland | 11 | 35.8 |
Dion Rankine | Exeter City | 10 | 39.2 |
Teddy Curd | Hashtag United | 7 | 53.8 |
Tino Anjorin | Portsmouth | 7 | 19 |
Charlie Webster | Heerenveen | 6 | 7.5 |
Zak Sturge | Peterborough | 8 | 10.3 |
Teddy Sharman-Lowe | Bromley | 1 | 4.2 |
Bashir Humphreys stands out as the brightest of the bunch. Prominent and promising during Chelsea’s pre-season tour of the United States, he is now established in the England Under-21 fold and was even drafted in to train with Gareth Southgate’s senior squad in September.
He has also been playing regularly and reasonably well in the Championship, albeit in a Swansea City team who are languishing in 18th and this month dismissed summer-appointment manager Michael Duff. It is likely that the next man in the dugout will continue to lean heavily on Humphreys’ mobility and passing range from centre-back.
Harvey Vale has already navigated a change of manager at Bristol Rovers in third-tier League One, and Chelsea’s academy player of the year for 2021-22 is now starting to gain regular opportunities in his favoured left-wing position under their current boss Matt Taylor. Vale was viewed as more of an attacking left-back by Taylor’s predecessor Joey Barton, who compared him to “a young Ashley Cole” in October.
Advertisement
It might take more than a new manager to revitalise Mason Burstow’s miserable stint at Sunderland, where Michael Beale has this week replaced Tony Mowbray. The striker has failed to score in 11 Championship appearances and, in truth, has rarely even threatened to do so. First-team minutes are becoming less frequent as a result, and a return to Cobham in January may be in the best interests of all parties.
Injury has once again derailed Tino Anjorin, who has not featured for Portsmouth, the current League One leaders, since injuring a hamstring on November 5. Dion Rankine has only just returned for Exeter City in the same division after missing almost three months with a hamstring problem of his own, and assisted his team’s equaliser against Stevenage last weekend.
Charlie Webster has encountered other obstacles in the Netherlands at Heerenveen. Marking his full Eredivisie debut with a goal and a straight red card for a bad tackle against Go Ahead Eagles on September 2, he has been unable to break back in since serving the resulting suspension. England Under-20s duty has not helped, though it also provided his most notable high: coming off the bench to score a stoppage-time winner in a 3-2 victory over Germany last month.
Another youngster on the fringes is Zak Sturge, who is yet to start a League One match for Peterborough United. Darren Ferguson’s preference for Harrison Burrows at left-back has meant Sturge has played more in the cups than in the league — primarily the EFL Trophy, though he came off the bench to help his team squeeze past Salford City of League Two on penalties in the FA Cup first round.
Teddy Curd has impressed in goal for Hashtag United in the eighth-tier Isthmian League, regaining the No 1 spot after spending a month representing England at the Under-17 World Cup in Indonesia. The same cannot be said for Teddy Sharman-Lowe, who has been consigned to a watching brief by fellow summer arrival Grant Smith at Bromley in the top division of the non-League game.
The (hopefully) departing
Now to the loan players clearly not in Chelsea’s plans.
Lewis Hall is an unusual presence in this bracket, but Newcastle’s obligation to buy the 19-year-old for an initial £28million next summer means his relative lack of opportunities in midfield or at left-back under Eddie Howe will not be cause for much concern for his former colleagues at Cobham.
Chelsea's outcasts have varied fortunes
Player
| Loan club
| League apps
| % of league mins played
|
|---|---|---|---|
Romelu Lukaku | Roma | 13 | 86.3 |
Kepa Arrizabalaga | Real Madrid | 10 | 62.5 |
Hakim Ziyech | Galatasaray | 8 | 36.1 |
Lewis Hall | Newcastle | 4 | 5.9 |
Romelu Lukaku looks rejuvenated by the reunion with his former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho at Roma in Italy. Chelsea have no ability — or desire — to recall the 30-year-old Belgian in the coming window, even though he has scored 20 goals already this season for club and country, but his return to form and fitness will raise hopes of finding a buyer for him next summer. A lucrative move to the Saudi Pro League could re-emerge as an option then.
Advertisement
More problematic could be Kepa Arrizabalaga’s situation. The 29-year-old has not exactly boosted his value as Thibaut Courtois’ injury replacement back home in Spain with Real Madrid; questions were already being raised about his aerial ability before a groin injury last month, and coach Carlo Ancelotti has also preferred to play Ukraine international Andriy Lunin at times.
Hakim Ziyech arrived at Galatasaray less than fully fit after a summer spent in exile, and has also missed a month of the season with a foot injury. Two goals and an assist in a 3-3 draw with Manchester United in the Champions League underlined his enduring talent but, with the Turkish club obligated to buy him next summer, Chelsea will not be tracking his fortunes too closely.
(Top photos: Getty Images)
