Former Chelsea Technical Director Michael Emenalo believes that young players at Chelsea need to earn the chance to play in the first team. “Chelsea Football club first team is not a glorified Academy. It is set up to win trophies and compete so to play there you must show you are worth a starting place”. Emenalo was speaking on Talksport FM to Jim White.
“We send players off on loan and there we expected them to provide the coaches at Chelsea with a memory bank of strong performances. That way, when they return the Coach can look into that bank and be sure of trusting them with first team starts” The former Nigeria World Cup player said. “The likes of Andreas Christensen, Tammy Abraham and Ruben Loftus-Cheek have and are building the memory bank expected of them”
Emenalo only has great things to say of his time at Chelsea and does not expect his departure to affect the club negatively “It was a privilege working at the great club (Chelsea FC) for 10 years but I am certain that the club had put structures in place to make sure that not one person is indispensable there”.
All summer Chelsea were linked with Romelu Lukaku but in the end the Belgian went to Man United so was Manager Conte disappointed to miss out on his target?
“Yes he was probably disappointed in missing out on (Romelu) Lukaku but now he is extremely happy with Alvaro Morata and that is down to Conte’s work and the efforts of the striker himself. There are no ill feelings from that and I am certain he (Conte) has moved on”.
On his current role at Monaco
“At Monaco, my job is to find out what has worked in the past 4 years and then also to find what will improve us. I am a hard worker and will be able to bring the experience I gathered with Chelsea. I hope to understand the structure there much better and then see how we can handle the departures of the good players we have lost”.
My job includes making sure that if talent leaves we are able to get talent back in. It is not a concern if the likes of Lemar should leave in all honesty.
Any chance of Chelsea unearthing a successor to John Terry in Christensen?
“Andreas Christensen is a potential great. He is very intelligent, he loves Chelsea and showed he was determined to be successful at Chelsea so it is not a surprise that he has taken his chance now. He was very clued up on the project when we sent him on loan to Borussia Moechengladbach – he did not hang about in Cobham like others”.
