Clubs shouldn't blood young talents purely out of necessity

Chelsea's transformation from unspectacular Premier League team to firmly established top-four side and prolific trophy collectors could not be accurately described as heartwarming.

There has been little romance in how Roman Abramovich has bankrolled the Blues and, as a consequence, there is not vast love for the club outside Stamford Bridge.

However, it feels as though attitudes towards Chelsea are starting to thaw, thanks solely to the fact they are having to try to achieve success by means other than buying the best players in the world.

The two-window transfer ban means not only are they not allowed to shop at Harrods, they can’t even pop into Poundland. Instead they are having to make do with what they have got and, under Frank Lampard, they are giving it a good go.

There have been many scenes of celebration at the Bridge since Abramovich started splashing the cash 16 years ago but few have resonated with non-Chelsea supporters like the heartfelt applause that reverberated around the ground after Lampard’s team had lost 2-1 to Liverpool on Sunday.

Chelsea’s reputation is of a club that cannot tolerate failure in any form, but here were their fans showing their genuine appreciation for the players’ valiant efforts after a home defeat.

Many believe Stamford Bridge is these days full of wealthy people who count themselves as longstanding fans if they can remember all the way back to the days of Adrian Mutu and Celestine Babayaro, but that is largely a fallacy.

Yes, in the dearest sections of the ground there are some people who would have a job recognising Nigel Spackman, but generally Chelsea’s support is as deeply rooted as that of any club.

And those fans who can remember the darker days seem to be enjoying a return to the time when the reserve left-back cost less than £20 million, mostly because it means giving youth a chance.

One thing that unites all true football fans is the thrill of seeing a young gun getting his opportunity and showing he has the talent to become a top-quality player, and it is why Chelsea’s start to the season, from which they have earned the same number of points as Burnley, Sheffield United and Palace after six games, has not prompted boos and the sacking of the manager.

Tammy Abraham, Mason Mount and Fikayo Tomori have all been given a chance to shine and taken it with both hands, and it is not just Chelsea fans who have enjoyed seeing that happen.

Elsewhere in recent seasons we have seen similarly impressive breakthroughs by the likes of Marcus Rashford at Manchester United and Aaron Wan-Bissaka at Palace.

But, while it has been great to see them show they belong in the top echelon of the Premier League, what links them all is that they were blooded out of necessity rather than choice.

Rashford scored four goals in his first two United appearances and has since gone on to establish himself as their star forward, but he only made it on to the pitch in the first place because Louis van Gaal had no other options due to injury. Likewise Wan-Bissaka was Roy Hodgson’s only available right-back when Joel Ward was unfit 18 months ago.

As for the Chelsea trio, who knows how many would have featured if Chelsea were still able to import flashy names like Morata and Higuain?

It is a crying shame that so few young academy players get the chance to show what they can do for the first team these days, and one wonders how many others who have the ability to be international players are being held back because their managers lack the courage to take a chance on them.

There are, of course, plenty of young prospects who did not prove up to it when given an opportunity – think of Arsenal’s League Cup sides in the Wenger days. But if managers are afraid to take a risk because they fear a backlash from their chairman if it is not an instant success they should be aware that the vast majority of fans are extremely tolerant when it comes to blooding the kids.

And, as Sir Alex Ferguson showed a quarter of a century ago, it can actually bring enormous benefits if the kids are indeed all right.

Lampard, and even Abramovich, might just be starting to realise that very thing.

Saints fan's sin must be kept in perspective

There are certain aspects of modern football that are far less repulsive than most ‘proper’ supporters would have you believe.

Half-and-half scarves are, as this column has stated before, nothing like as appalling as they are portrayed and are simply harmless souvenirs, more often than not for children, rather than some bizarre manifestation of equal love for two rival teams.

And those clappers made from concertinaed paper get far more criticism than they warrant, especially as most carry pictures of players that young fans can collect should they so desire.

When it comes to fans filming games on their phones, however, I am mostly happy to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with my fellow traditional fans in denigrating this pointless act.

I say mostly because there has been the odd time when I have whipped out the phone and taken a quick snap but this has never happened when Palace have scored and never will.

Fair enough, if you are a football tourist and want to get a bit of footage to show the kids when you return home I suppose it is just about acceptable, but if you profess to genuinely love your team you should have better things to do when they score than start filming it.

One particular Southampton fan spent Wednesday in the Twitter dock for doing just that as the Saints scored one of the four goals they put past Portsmouth in Tuesday night’s derby clash.

The video does not show him in a particularly good light. While those around him are cavorting around as you would expect of supporters whose team have just scored against their bitterest rivals, he calmly fishes out his phone, turns it on to selfie mode and then starts pumping his fists and yelling in delight.

But he’s not doing anyone any harm and yet, in a perfect summary of how twisted social-media users can be, he has been getting significantly more grief than the perpetrator of a far more appalling act at the same fixture which was also caught on camera.

This video shows a man throwing a punch at a police horse outside the ground. The horse and its rider pursue the thug and he is met by a group of policemen who give him, shall we say, a less than warm welcome.

The horse seemed fine, which is the main thing, but it was a disgusting sight to see the beast come under attack. And it was hard to fathom why this video sparked less outrage than the one showing a supporter who was doing nothing worse than expressing choreographed elation.

Bizarre to pinpoint Pochettino as Spurs's problem

The ‘Wenger out’ brigade at Arsenal gave me many years of amusement, shouting their dissatisfaction as they did from plush seats in the wonderful Emirates Stadium while world-class players laboured to a top-four place and the odd cup-final appearance.

But even they have nothing on the ‘Pochettino out’ brigade who have sprung up from nowhere and stand as a monument to how woefully needy modern fans have become.

The Tottenham boss has been an amazing force for good in his five years in charge, establishing Spurs as a genuine top-four side and reaching the Champions League final just three months ago.

In that time the club have moved into a stadium so sumptuous it makes Arsenal’s gaff look slightly ramshackle and they boast a squad brimming with top-class talent.

But because this season has not started quite as well as had been hoped patience has suddenly run out as far as many fans are concerned. An astonishingly large number of them have decided that Pochettino is the problem and sacking him is the remedy.

This is one of the most bizarre ideas I can remember. The first thing that would happen if Daniel Levy was daft enough to bow to this demand would almost certainly be that Manchester United would gratefully install him as their manager and instantly become far stronger, possibly jeopardising Tottenham’s own hopes of a Champions League place.

Then there is a decent chance that Jose Mourinho, whose motivational powers have waned considerably, would replace him at the Lane, and then the fun would start.

The flamboyance expected by Spurs fans would disappear, results would be unlikely to improve, and the moaning would quickly resume with added venom.

Spurs have a truly world-class manager and those who have the patience of a small child should be thankful for all he has done for them, sit tight and await the probable return to the kind of performances they have been lucky enough to come to expect.

They should also realise how silly their cries for a new manager make them look in the eyes of those of us who support one of the 88 league teams who would love to enjoy the kind of success Tottenham have had under Pochettino.

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