Friday 6 January 2017 09:53, UK
There is a long tradition in English football of young players getting loan moves but the new wave of top Premier League managers prefer a different way, writes Adam Bate.
"When you look at the number of loans that happen here and there, the whole system has to be thought about again," argued Arsene Wenger last month. "It is one of the big problems in the modern game. The reflex is to stockpile the players. That's not right."
Wenger's verdict on the state of the loan system was interpreted as a not-so-veiled dig at rivals Chelsea given the number of players that the Blues have lent to other clubs in recent years. But it was also an attempt to address a wider problem in the game.
"The way a youth team is organised now is that all the best young players go to the richest clubs, which is where they have fewer chances to develop," added the Arsenal manager.
There is clearly a desire to tackle the issue. Some see B teams as the solution, although the reworked Checkatrade Trophy has not been well received. Others still regard loan moves as the best way to give young talent the first-team experience needed to aid their progress.
Ashley Cole and Jack Wilshere benefited from loans in their younger years under Wenger, and they are not alone. At the last World Cup, more than half of England's squad had spent time on loan from their parent club during their careers.
Almost all regard the experience as a positive one. Whether it's Frank Lampard's eyes being opened by rooming with a senior pro at Swansea or Adam Lallana having to grow up quickly with Bournemouth in League One, tales abound of stars being toughened up by a loan spell.
But while loans remain common-place, perhaps the attitude to them is changing. There are a growing number of top coaches who are reluctant to send their best young players away. The men now in charge of the Premier League's biggest clubs see things a little differently.
Wenger himself had a taste of what can go wrong with a loan deal when Serge Gnabry's five months at West Brom yielded only 12 minutes of Premier League action, offering no hint of the quality he would go on to show at Werder Bremen this season following his £5m sale.
Alex Pritchard's failure to earn a start during his own four-month stint at the Hawthorns on loan from Tottenham last term is likely to have crystallised Mauricio Pochettino's view that keeping young players close to home is actually the best way of harnessing their potential.
Neither Harry Winks nor Josh Onomah have been allowed to leave White Hart Lane on loan. Indeed, Winks was almost 21 years old when he started the first league game of his career. While it might not be ideal, Pochettino would appear to feel it's better than the alternative.
Winks has been training with the Tottenham first team for years, being exposed to high standards and Pochettino's trademark intensity on a daily basis. It's that work that can make for a seamless transition. Winks scored on that full debut against West Ham.
A move away could have denied the young Spurs man daily contact with quality. Among weaker players, there is the potential to pick up bad habits. Consider the fact that David Beckham was mocked by his team-mates at Preston for practising free-kicks after training.
Quality begets quality. As Wenger himself puts it: "It's difficult because the development of the players depends on the concentration of the good players. The more good players you have together, the more chance they have of becoming even better players."
For all the players who Chelsea loan out in every window, Antonio Conte preferred to keep both Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Nathaniel Chalobah at Stamford Bridge this season. Indeed, the Italian even blocked a move from Leicester for the latter in the summer.
Instead he prefers to work with them so they become indoctrinated in his way of playing. Speaking about the January transfer window, Conte said: "I prefer to buy players who are adapted to our system." The same principle surely applies to loaning out young prospects.
It's a similar story with Pep Guardiola. He recently sanctioned the loan exit of Pablo Maffeo but only after giving the young full-back a taste of the Manchester derby and the Champions League. Guardiola has involved academy players in training far more than his predecessors.
"They come back with a big smile on their face," elite development coach Simon Davies told the Manchester Evening News. "They are beaming because they have been around the players, of course, but because they have also had that one-to-one with the manager."
Jurgen Klopp, meanwhile, has admitted he was shocked to discover 17 players out on loan from Liverpool when he arrived last season. "The best players should be in the club so they can develop," he said a year ago. It seems to have worked for Ben Woodburn.
The young striker recently became Liverpool's youngest ever goalscorer and there is no suggestion of a move away from Anfield any time soon. "Sending players on loan too early makes no sense," said Klopp. Keeping Woodburn under wraps is the priority.
"If they are very young then clubs in the past have sent them on loan and I don't think it is the perfect situation," he told the Liverpool Echo recently. "It's much better that we can work with them together on football at the highest level."
Klopp acknowledges that the finances in England allow clubs to defer a decision on whether or not players are good enough in a way that's simply not possible in Germany. Chelsea's model even allows them to retain players with little prospect of a first-team future.
But for those who are earmarked for stardom, whether it's Klopp or Conte, Pochettino or Guardiola, there seems a growing desire to work with youngsters in the belief that time on the training ground learning their way is better than exposing them to the ideas of others.
