As a kind of follow on from the last thing I wrote, I want to focus in on two of those 5 players I talked about wanting to see break into the first team - Levi Colwill and Armando Broja, because there's been talk of unhappiness and moves away for both, and it would come off so horribly if we lost both players, for several reasons.
Starting with Broja, as I woke up to the news yesterday that he'd left the camp in the USA to travel back to London. A precaution, maybe, as he picked up a knock in training and missed out on our first friendly, until it circulated that West Ham were pushing for him and are close to a permanent deal.
I'd say Broja is our main 'number 9 striker' at the club. Havertz plays in that rough position, but he's a lot more versatile; can play either wing or at CAM if needs be. Werner is also open to versatility and was often played on either wing, supporting Havertz down the middle. Michy is of course back from loan, but I would hope his days at the club are numbered as he hasn't had a regular feature in the team for years.
Broja arrived in the US essentially in Sterling's shadow, just in the background of cameras and fans all excited to see the new signing, which might have affected things. He's been unlucky not to get more out of this pre-season tour, but I did notice him having some good chats with Sterling before he travelled back home, which is good to see. I think he still loves the club and the surroundings, but game time is of course a very important thing, especially for Broja who no doubt feels he can keep on improving and better his record last season. He thrives in a ST position and at the moment he's one of the most promising and exciting attackers we have on our books. Signing the new long term deal at the club gave us the idea he saw his future at the club, and supposedly he would look to have a role within the team sooner rather than later, and a move would fulfill those wishes.
Though, if the deal does go through (West Ham seems the most likely destination), I'd wish him well, and hope we include a buy-back clause just in case. It would leave us as we were last year, making do with Havertz/Werner to fill that role, unless Michy fields an unlikely comeback or we end up signing a replacement in time.
Could it be down to Tuchel, though? Of course, he's mentioned that he wants Broja to stay at the club, but then again, our signing of Lukaku as an out and out ST last year went horribly wrong, and Abraham wasn't rated highly enough when Tuchel first came to the club, letting him seal a move away to Roma, where he's now thriving. The idea of Sterling playing down the middle has been thrown around, perhaps hinting that Tuchel wants to shy away from the target man striker approach. Though, Broja is still young and has played under a mix of different strategies at both Vitesse and Southampton. He seems enthusiatic and I'm sure he would adapt well and listen to whatever Tuchel wants to get out of him in that striker spot.
The gap is most certainly there for Broja to slot into our attack, but again. I won't be surprised if he does end up leaving for good.
As for Levi Colwill, the idea seems to be that if another CB is brought in then the defender may look for a way out. We've already sorted the signing of Koulibaly from Napoli (very excited about seeing him in action) and are working on both Kounde and Kimpembe.
If Azpilicueta's move to Barca move through and we sign, say, Kounde but not Kimpembe, our back 3 depth would look something like
LCB: Koulibaly / Colwill
CCB: Silva / Ampadu
RCB: Kounde / Chalobah
That would be a solid list for the season ahead, and it would fill in the gaps left by the departures of Rudiger and Christensen. Throw in a backup for Reece James and we're set.
If we end up getting both CB transfer targets Colwill will fall essentially to the very bottom of the pecking order, which is something he won't want. He'll want reassurance on his future at Chelsea, being told just how many games he'll be a part of for the upcoming season.
Colwill is almost our last chance for a while to promote promising talent in defence, and out of the whole group it would hurt the most to see him leave.
It should also be noted that since moving away, players like Guehi and Tomori have both earned England call-ups, and Colwill will no doubt want to follow in their footsteps. Staying at Chelsea and trying to fight for a starting spot amongst three (potentially four) standout CBs will be tough.
I hope for the future we're more trusting in our academy, as at the moment it looks like only Gallagher and potentially Ethan Ampadu are nailed on to feature regularly for the team after some strong performances and attitude in preseason.
Other players like Vale and Gilmour were somewhat isolated from game time; Gallagher has moved down to the U23 squad just so he can play a match(!). Pre-season is an oppurtunity for us to give our promising youngsters a run-out, and not just field players who are likely to be out the door sooner rather than later (Batshuayi, Kenedy, Barkley?). Tuchel even said that he did regret not featuring those players as they trained well, so hopefully they can still feature by the end of the month.
I suppose in the end, some youth development is better than no youth development at all. This upcoming season we'll have regular features for several youth products, with Gallagher and Ampadu joining the likes of Mount, James, CHO. And absolutely, not every player is guaranteed a spot, but it would hurt less to give said players some game time before making a decision, rather than just ignoring them. I don't like it when we opt for signing expensive options to fill positional gaps, when there are youth talents waiting in the wings that can just as sufficiently fill the gaps.
We'll see what happens with the remaining two games to play in the USA, and fingers crossed, two more wins.