good article....this para seems to be what Poch wants to do but apparently some of our players (including Josh O) have been pushing for loans - tough situation:Here's a post from Chelseayouth that I liked
http://thechels.net/2018/12/how-does-a-hudson-odoi-become-an-mbappe/
Also touches on a major bugbear of mine, when people say, so and so hasn't done well here since they have left so were never good enough for us.
This argument also doesn't take into account, that players like Fletcher, Butt, O'Shea, Evans, Brown, Cleverly, Welbeck for United and even Mason and Townsend for us, all performed admirably and made large contributions to the club they come through in but once left only fell down the football ladder and other than Welbeck could not play at a club at anywhere near a similar level and never went to pull up trees. Player that have trained in a certain way when playing around top quality players, will play better and look better and may never become world class but will save money. I think that this is the biggest point missed when utilising the academy, and something that Fergie understood. Just because a player doesn't pull up trees elsewhere ti doesn't mean he was never good enough to play for the first team, and in fact that player may have excelled if given the chance. Adapting to another club and style of football can really affect performance.
"What lessons can the Blues learn to save themselves from dropping £70m on Christian Pulisic and turning Hudson-Odoi into that player? The biggest is surely that you ultimately have to develop these players yourself. The very best players in the world, in any given period, have developed outside of the loan system. Relying on someone else to do your work introduces numerous variables that all come with a fundamental loss of control. At their best they only work to a point that still leaves question marks about their (re)integration after returning from a loan, and at their worst they can leave the player questioning his future in the game, as several former members of the Loan Army have painfully testified."