Conte: Show Me a Young Player Who Deserves To Play And I Will Play Him

Chelsea manager Antonio Conte has reiterated his desire to play young players who are ready to play. Chelsea have been heavily criticized for not promoting and playing young players despite having arguably the best football academy in England. This season Chelsea have allowed few promising English youngsters to leave permanently prompting another avalanche of debate about Chelsea's willingness to play players from their academy but Chelsea's coach Antonio Conte insists that he is ready to play youngsters who can show him they are ready to play for Chelsea.

“To have a core of English players is important,” said Conte. “It’s something I value but, above all, to have a core of good English players. Not only English players.” “Last season, Chalobah played some games, Loftus-Cheek played some games, Ake played the semi-final of the FA Cup, Aina in the League Cup and Kenedy, too. The question is this: Manchester City and other clubs, are their players from the academy playing regularly? I don’t know. But if there are young players who deserve to play regularly and give me a good feeling, then why not?
“I put Paul Pogba at 18 into the Juventus team, for Claudio Marchisio. But you must have players who are ready to play regularly with Chelsea, a great team. Otherwise, it’s very difficult to make this decision. You must decide if you want to fight for the title or develop your young players. Two different ways.
“Show me young players who deserve to play regularly for Chelsea and I’m ready to pick them. Don’t forget my first game in Serie A, I was only 16. I’m the first person open to do this because another coach did this with me. But, I repeat, you must have the possibilities to do this. Not to invent them.”
“Rooney showed his potential when he was 17 and not only did he keep his level, but he improved it,” said Conte. “We’re talking about an icon of football in general. But it’s not easy to have many Rooneys. It’s rare.

“It’s very difficult to find. Now, Marcus Rashford. That’s one player who has shown he is strong physically, fast technically, and a really good player. But it’s not easy. Now Andreas Christensen after two seasons on loan to develop himself in Germany stays with us. But he has to fight with David Luiz, Gary Cahill, [Cesar] Azpilicueta, Antonio Rudiger to play.

“If there is the possibility to play, I’ll put him in. But it’s very important the young players are ready to play. Otherwise, you provoke damage to the players. Also to the club and the team.”
“Young players must be ready, must be good to play with a great team, to play regularly,” said Conte. “Usually in this type of football, there is a path for the young players. It’s very difficult to see players when they are 16, 17, 18 years old playing regularly. And they have to develop and then come back to play regularly with a great team. This is the right way.

“I repeat, I like to work with young players. Last season, if you saw our squad, we had eight players from the academy and we won the League with eight players from the academy, and 14 or 15 senior players.”