Chelsea Tudor Mendel-Idowu could leave the club this summer with his contract expiring and no sign of an extension being agreed.
It’s easy to throw names around the academy and say this player will be good and this player won’t. But trust me when I say the excitement of what Tudor has done at Chelsea so far in the academy, especially this season, should make you realize that this guy is going to be special.
I’ve been watching him a lot lately and he’s really great. What I see from his talent is that he has an x-factor, can make something happen out of nothing and dribble past players for fun. He has amazing skills for his age and has the confidence to use them.
The 18-year-old winger can play all attacking midfield positions and he really has it. But his contract ends this summer and it looks like he has decided to leave because he doesn’t see a development plan or a path for him at Chelsea because he wants to move to a club that has a plan for him and who can blame him after this season?
He probably sees Chelsea grabbing all the top talents of a similar age and wonders why they don’t show faith and faith in him and others instead. He saw what happened to Carney Chukwuemeka and David Datro Fofana this season and wondered what the clear plan and vision for this club was.
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Of course it’s wise for our club to take in young talent but they have to differentiate between talented young players and players who clearly have the potential to become world hitters and Tudor is one of them – I don’t even need to be a scout to tell you that, my eyes are telling me this when i look at him.
It annoys me about things like this. At that point, we had nothing to lose or play for, so you could give him time to play. You could put him on the bench in the first team while his contract is up and you’re trying to get him to extend his contract.
So why not make sure he gets included in the squad and even give him his debut? Then you show him how much he is valued by doing this. If we don’t show them clear paths, we will lose them. And this is one player whose loss we will regret to the point that it could be another situation for Kevin De Bruyne, Mohamed Salah and even Jamal Musial in terms of grief – really maybe with Tudor.
It’s not like any of our strikers or wingers have played well this season, right? So why not show faith in a very talented young player instead? I know a lot of that also rests with the managers but the club has to do its best to ensure opportunities for these types of players, they all have to create a collective balance and I believe we can see more of this with Mauricio Pochettino at the wheel – which gives me a bit more hope for the future.
Of course, these contractual situations are never simple and it will never be just one thing. But we have to honestly ask ourselves if we could have done more to keep him at the club and if the answer is no then we have behaved very stupidly here.
