Chelsea defend loan policy

Chelsea F.C. technical director Michael Emenalo has defended the club’s loan policy after recent criticism from Professional Footballers’ Association chief Gordon Taylor.

The reigning English Premier League champions currently have 33 players out on loan, including Colombia international Juan Cuadrado and Egypt international Mohamed Salah.

Earlier this month, PFA chief Gordon Taylor told The Mirror: “It’s a bit of a worry with so many Chelsea players out on loan. It’s almost a warehousing of players. You wonder whether it brings into question the integrity of the various competitions.

“From a player’s point of view, you can see they would want to go out on loan if there is not a first-team place available.

“But Chelsea have an academy so you have to wonder how it is they have such a phenomenal number of players out there.”

In response, Emenalo has said that the fact that Chelsea are a big club makes it ever-so difficult to juggle a large, talented squad. And he may have a point.

“We have the difficult job – one we happily accept because we are a big club – of trying to balance being successful with making sure we have the right players at the right time,” Emenalo told Chelsea TV. 

“Sometimes we know there are players whose development is not finished, just like Victor (Moses), who we want to keep with our squad but who maybe needs to play more football to get to the level we think he can get to, because he is very, very talented.

“Sometimes the timing is not right for them.

“For example, we got (Juan) Cuadrado straight after a very difficult game at Spurs and we had to change our strategy for the rest of the season. That didn’t suit the reason for which we had already gone to get him.

“So we felt it would be better for him to go and rediscover his confidence and he hasn’t just gone to any other team… he’s gone to Juventus.

“These players go to top clubs and when they get there, they prove we don’t recruit bad players, just like Salah did last season.”

Minus the £50 spent on Fernando Torres, and perhaps the £22.3 million spent to bring in Cuadrado in January, the West Londoners have done wonderful business in the transfer market in recent years.

The sale of David Luiz to Paris Saint-Germain, for a whopping £50 million (a world-record fee for a defender), certainly comes to mind as one of the best transfer deals in recent memory.

Blues fans, have no fear. Everything is all right at Stamford Bridge.