A French 12 Year Old - And Chelsea Beat Wenger To Him!
As if to rub salt into Stuart Pearce’s apparently gaping wounds, Chelsea have gone out and signed themselves a 12 year old from ASPTT Marseille.
Chelsea’s French scout Guy Hillion confirmed yesterday that even in the wake of Pearce warning youngsters against the hazardous ‘stockpiling’ that goes on at Stamford Bridge, the club have appeared an attractive enough proposition to see them win the race for Jeremy Boga against clubs like Lyon, Monaco, Marseille and Bordeaux. Obviously it helps that his dad has been living in London for the past couple of years for professional reasons, although the lad himself will be staying in France until he’s 16 to continue his education.
Hillion, who clearly saw enough talent from the youngster to give him the opportunity at a Premier League club, says “We couldn’t have signed Jeremy if Mr Boga hadn’t been in London. Chelsea took him because he has the talent to play at the highest level. He’s an excellent number 10.”
Hillion has made the situation clear in the press, stating “This is not a transfer, as the rules forbid it”, however, ASPTT Marseille feel it’s far from above board, suggesting “We have had no news from the Boga family neither from Chelsea, this happened behind our back.”
So, it appears we have ourselves a 12 year old French lad – Wenger must be livid.
Filed under: Rants
Probably did’nt want him.
Wenger would be livid, if he thought he was good enough, but he clearly didnt. i just feel sorry for the lad , not a chance of first team football ever at chel$ki. And he has to deal with Ray Wilkins, i would top myself.
well that’s going to end up being one of the worst decisions he’s ever made.I did’nt realise chelsea were auditioning for their next generation bench warmers.Even thou i have nothing against big phil,he seems destined to end up another victim of the stamford bridge scrap- heap.How many more promising talented players are you going to destroy,in your pursiut of a little history.Your not even the best team in london,and train in surrey!
wenger would never sign a French 10 year old because its morally corrupt - but that sort of thing never bothers the Chavs.
Probrobly a Robino type who is attracted to a lot of cash.
Or maybe Wenger knew about him and said ‘non’? I honestly don’t see why Chelsea fans get excited about their youth development - I really don’t want to be confrontational but you never play them, even in the Carling Cup. I have Chelsea mates who bang on about the amount of young talent Chelsea have…where is it? We showed last Tuesday that our youngsters are magnificant. A day later, a near full strength Chelsea blew away Pompey. Also, why not give a younger player a chance rather than signing Minerio? Also, it begs the question, why did you pay Spurs 10m to take Arnesen who quite obviously doesn’t know what he is doing?
You are lucky because you have an owner willing to bankroll first team player purchases but please don’t try and gloat about youth development because you will just get laughed at even more
Now it’s good to be signing 12 year old boys from other countries is it?
Because they might make the grade one day?
But really however good they are there will always be a better established international who can be bought -
So how will they get game time?
On loan with Charlton? Who will then buy them for £2-4m because they aren’t prepared to wait for the first team if they think they’ve even got a chance?
Even at Arsenal that’s always going to happen to the vast majority of kids wherever they’re from, although youngsters have a better shot, the numbers still don’t add up (for every Jack Wilshire there’s 2 Aaron Ramsays, 3 Eduardos, 4 Fabrice Muambas and 10 boys you’ve never heard of on the scrapheap). I suppose there might be more people trying to make sure if they’re good enough they’ll end up with a good (football) education and some chance of a career of some sort.
The onres that don’t make it are still on the tip wherever they go -
And that’s where this boy is MOST LIKELY to be statistically, I would guess (depends how you dio the figures and how good you think he is now).
So is that a good reason to leave your country at 12?