By Boluwatife Ezekiel Olaleye
Former England manager Sam Allardyce believes Chelsea’s habit of loaning out youngsters could force them to quit football
Chelsea currently have 34 players farmed out on loan deals away from the west London club.
The Blues have often been criticised for spending big money on signings rather than helping their own academy graduates progress to the first XI.
Allardyce says their tactics are “dangerous” and will cause players to quit the game once their contracts expire.
“You haven’t seen a player break into the Chelsea side from the academy for I don’t know how many years,” he said on Sky Sports.
“These players will finally finish their five and six-year contracts and move out of football rather than stay in it.”
“I think it’s (Ruben) Loftus-Cheek who is at Crystal Palace now who was deemed to be one of the future stars but because of a lack of first-team football (he’s gone out on loan).
“Maybe he should have gone out on-loan quicker.
“I think Manchester City are in the same position now, where they’re buying up a lot of youngsters and have about 20-30 players out on-loan as well.
“It’s blocking up a system here that’s very, very dangerous for me.
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“These players will finally finish their five and six-year contracts and move out of football rather than stay in it.
“They’ve gone through the process and never broke into that team.
“Probably, yes (they will be wealthy), but they won’t be wealthy enough to live the rest of their lives.
“They won’t realise that at that age though, because you need to earn an awful lot of money by the time you’re 21, 22 to carry on living on that.”