Homegrown factor (at Arsenal) makes Cesc Fabregas more useful to Chelsea

It's not just incisive midfield play and experience on the big stage that make Cesc Fabregas attractive to Chelsea, who have today signed the former Arsenal captain from Barcelona for £30m on a five-year deal.

 

Fabregas’s value to the Blues has increased markedly since the club decided to part company with two of its long-serving stars in Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole.

 

Aside from being club legends, both Cole and Lampard had another crucial attribute in these days of quotas: they were designated homegrown players under Premier League and European Champions League rules.

 

Under those rules, clubs are limited to naming 17 non-home grown players aged over 21 in their squads. Crucially, because Fabregas was trained as a teenager in the Arsenal academy, he qualifies as a homegrown player, despite being a Spanish national.

 

This is surely another angle in Chelsea’s pursuit of the 27-year-old which adds to his attractiveness to the club, for whom defenders John Terry and Gary Cahill are the only homegrown players remaining guaranteed of a place in manager Jose Mourinho’s senior squad.

 

At the start of last season Chelsea’s Premier League squad included five homegrown players: Terry, Cahill, Lampard, Cole, and Ryan Bertrand, who later went on loan to Aston Villa mid-season.

 

It would not be surprising to see Chelsea looking to supplement their homegrown talent further over the summer to rebuild a new core of home grown players at the club, but in the long run the club may want to consider integrating more players from its much-praised but little called-upon youth academy, which showed its strength last season with Chelsea winning the under-21 Premier League title and the under-18 Youth Cup.

 

With an array of young talent including Lewis Baker, named as the club’s young player of the year, and Patrick Bamford, who has continued to develop with a successful loan spell at Derby at the end of last season, the club looks set to have a strong pool to draw from as it builds for the future.

 

The pre-season tour next month will be an opportunity for youngsters to prove their worth, though Mourinho has not been known for taking risks on youth.