Does anyone remember Gael Kakuta?

He should go alongside his countryman malouda in the summer

Maybe you're just not as good as you think you are Gael, ever thought of that, eh?! Oscar is a couple of months younger than Gael and he gets more than 10 mins a month but then he has shown himself to be capable when given the opportunity.

Oscar has been playing more regularly than Kakuta before we bought him SPANISH don't forget Kakuta's been with us since he was 16 (or something like that). I'm not entirely justifying, just a little bit ;)

Fair point @Mq and I also agree that finally our Academy products might start getting their chance in the next few seasons, depending on the incoming Manager, whoever he may be. Still don't think Kakuta is as good as he thinks he is and if he is, then he hasn't had the right mental attitude to go and prove it whilst on loan. Sturridge's attitude was his downfall but even he did that at Bolton and forced the Manager's hand into giving him games at Chelsea. Of course that didn't work out either but the point still stands that Kakuta hasn't done enough! Even in the few chances he got in our first team, he looked like a little boy lost, a fish out of water. You have to take those chances, however fleeting, you just don't know if/when the next one will come along.

Take a look at his performance in preseason,he was pathetic and look very much disinterested,its better we cash in on him now and just cut him loose from this misery

kakuta could have been in this squad instead of marin and moses. they have not dug up any trees so far this season! neither of them have been amazing! im pretty sure kakuta and piazon could have both done the same if not better than moses and marin this season. same goes with lukaku and KDB. we waste money while wasting talented youth players. i feel sorry for josh,lukaku and chalobah as i guess they will all never make it at this poorly run football club.

He had the "talent" in his teens that a Manager of SAF or Wenger-mould would've nurtured him properly. I agree he didn't do enough when he was given the chances, but if we had managed him properly at his "prime" (as a teen) I'm sure he'd be far better than the player he is now.

Ken4CFC, Completely ludicrous to even mention Kakuta & Malouda in the same breath. Kakuta has done nothing for Chelsea. Malouda has around 50 goals & 50 assists and was Chelsea best player - according to the players - in their Double winning season. He also scored in 3 FA Cup semi-finals at Wembley and in fact "scored" in the 2009 FA Cup Final but the referee said the ball didn't cross the line, when tv replays showed it did. 1 Premier League title, 3 FA Cups & 1 Champions League. Malouda has contributed a lot to Chelsea and the way he is being treated now is a disgrace and should give other players food for thought.

After all the fuss that had been made about his talent, it must be hard for him to accept that he isn't that good after all.

@ Don capon! That's not true,kakuta would neva had been like nasri or hazard,he wasn't just a top quality,look at piazon,he was bought 17 and was sent out on loan and is getting game time and starting some games,tell me in which of the team that kakuta went to that he made a real statement that he was a world class talent?the best loan spell he had was at dijon,a player that couldn't perform for fulham you expect him to get minutes at chelsea?you must be joking.....tell me how many talents push up into making it to the senior team in a big club except barcelona?those that make it from the academy are world class talents....madrid's academy is far better than ours and yet its only morata that has made a real statement even when they have a competitive league game for their castilla unlike us,look at united,just cleverly and wellbeck has made it through,where is bebe or macheda?pogba had to leave to continue his progress,let's talk about arsenal,they buy players at age 19 - 21 and develop them into good players what of the ones that arsenal bought for their academy?just wilshere is making wave and maybe ramsey,where is lansbury and frimpong?? Even ince had to leave liverpool to continue his development,we are a big club,you shouldn't expect us to field academy players in our first team just because you want the glory of producing young talents like barca...pedro broke in at age 22 even cleverly became a united regular at 22,cuenca has been sent out on loan,only mid table teams or bottom table teams have enough time to produce youngsters because they aint chasing any title,looka at aston villa that are fielding youngsters,we trashed them 8 - 0 and you all were happy here,just put yourselves in the shoes of the villa's faithful on that day....kakuta was good at age 16,that doesn't mean he would go on to be world class,I can say that the likes of chalobah and piazon will make it to the senior team because these are exceptional talents......the truth is Kakuta couldn't make it because he wasn't good enough!!!I hate the fact that you call chelsea academy a graveyard of youngsters....its offensive,the ones destined to be great will definitely come through the youth ranks!

jayb, you are no more able to say that Oscar wouldn't have developed had he joined Chelsea at 16 than we can say that Kakuta would be a star if he had developed somewhere else. I think @Mq is right again (!) in that Kakuta probably would be a better player under different management but we will never know if he would actually have been good enough. All we can do is judge him on what he have seen and even if it's not fair to judge him on short cameos for Chelsea (though others, like Josh have impressed in those cameos whilst Gael hasn't), it is reasonable to judge him on his loan spells at Clubs where he could have pushed on but hasn't. So please don't call people ignorant because they have opinions different to your own, especially when you make sweeping statements about us "destroying" Kakuta which are totally unsubstantiated and utterly impossible to prove! By your method, how many years should we have given Kakuta in our fist team before deciding that maybe he really isn't good enough? 1? 2? Should we have written him off at 19 after 2 years in the first team where he'd been a passenger or carry on playing him with those better players around him to improve him for maybe 5 seasons until finally deciding at age 22 that he's just not going to make it? Seems like a dangerous strategy to me.

2 of the 3 amigos constantly harp on about the importance of 'competing' and winning something every year, which is great for our excitement and necessary for the health of the club financially speaking, but the pressure cooker environment does not allow the regular playing time for the up and comings. Just look at Bertrand, sporadic to say the least. Kind of undermines the whole ethos of the academy, yet we have some of the best youngsters in Europe currently working through the system.

Whats all this crap about him havin a talent that wenger or SAF could have nutured into a worldclass player??are u guys sayin wenger and SAF have nutured every single talent at their disposal??thats a big lie,so many have left and only a very few are stil there and might end up stil not playin for arsenal or united

Let the poor guy go, IMO he has played eneough U21/Reserve footy for us.

Young players should join Chelsea for the money, training facilities and exposure. But they should have a plan for a way out just in time before their careers are ruined. Sturridge did the right thing leaving.

I understand Gaels bitterness and in my humble opinion it is justified. He may never have been a Messi in the making as some initially believed but the poor guy screwed up his career by coming to Chelsea full stop. I ask again, other than JT which single youth product of our academy has become anything of note? The closest is Ryan Bertrand and we are already looking for his replacement in Luke Shaw. The point is Chelsea is a club that is only conducive to ready made products..be they 25 or 17..if you are not the finished product better not show up here..KDB, Piazon, Lukaku, Josh, chalobah etc etc...i can bet my months pay if Wenger had these players at his dipsosal they would not be on loan somewhere they would be playing for the gunners right now and in 2-4 yrs he would have them at such a level that clubs like us would be seeking to pay double digit million dollar amounts to acquire them. As poor as some say Gael is (and i had been one of the first to say during his first few games during Carlos time that the boy needed to beef up on learning and mastering fundamentals rather than being fixated on tricks and flamboyance) i can guarantee you if he had been with Wenger or Moyes or such managers today he would be a much better player than he is. We (Chelsea) have a huge role in the mess of a player he is today. It is easy to say he didnt apply himself enough while on loan but there are few loan sites like Owen Coyles Bolton or Steve Clarkes West Brom..in most of these other places we send our players they are second class citizens there and their development is certainly not a priority for the respective club managers as Brandon Rodgers aptly showed with Josh at Swansea...There is no where to hide..Chelsea has to shoulder the lions share of the blame and until or unless we have some stability at the head manager position, a clear mandate from above to develop and grow our academy lads and a consistent adjustment in expectations and down grading of this lust for instant heady trophy success nothing is going to change in this regard.

Some folks in here have particularly echoed my tots in this matter...winning trophies doesnt go in tandem with developing youths,and Kakuta seem to me a product of poor scouting...so the entire union is bound to fail. If he had atleast kept the hopes of the fandom alive with impressive loan spells,it would have been a different story. But on a serious note,clubs,i mean top teams this days seldom promote youths from the academy. Even the academy products that find their ways into the first team at some points are mostly loan returnees or buy-backs that impressed. The much revered barca B side has not done much promoting in recent times when competitions are at its apogee. Pique,Fabregas,Alba..can be quoted as products of La masia,but they all grew up elsewhere. Now Cuenca and some other new youngsters have all been loaned out for future recalls. Barca often reject outright sales and it works for them...thats why i believe our board now finds it convenient to loan out players and speed up their developments....cos it is cheaper and even if they fail to cut it at the highest level,you sell them at a good price.

This is really sad tbh. Kakuta was poorly managed by Chelsea and that's a fact. I watched the lad in the U-19 Euro Championship. I was pretty sure we had a gem on our hands and if polished right could turn out to be a star,yes he was that good and was awarded the Golden Player award for his performances at the tournament. The same tournament that had players like Thiago Alcantra,Oriol Romeu,Munain,Borini,David Alaba, e.t.9 His demise started with his loan spells,he was loaned to the wrong clubs and Chelsea had a big hand in that. He was played out of position at both Bolton and Fulham,hardly got game time,and apparently his development stalled. As far as I'm concerned his cries are justified,we managed his development poorly.

How many of you have watched Vitesse games this season? I have watched at least 10 and I can say that Gael as improved his defending and he looks stronger. He usaully plays as LM/LW with PvA as LB and these two have very good understanding. I would take Kakuta over Marin, Benayoun, Moses with no regrets.

So many fans need to be ameliorated with the way they view things, if u watch this lad under carlo, alongside josh, u'll know that they are just a season away from being a starter, do u think kaka and pato whom carlo nursed became superstars through loan deals? No they are not, they were properly and patiently nutured and milan reaped the dividends. What we need is a manager who knows what he is doing and truth be told, if the whorl ridden FA agree to AVB's proposal of B sides in the championship, we won't be buying as much as we are now, I can still remember miroslav stoch too and fabio borini.. Wonderful talents, but Ill nutured

We could offer Kakuta plus cash for Jovetic/Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang/Benat,... Very sad how erverything turned out to be, but the fact is curently Oscar, de Bruyne, Piazon, T. Hazard and Boga are all better than him. Never the less, wish you plenty of good luck, when ever you my be.

@jayb,what exactly did kakuta do??which match can u categorically state that he was impressive??atleast josh made impressions in games against newcastle,marseille(h & a) e.t.c,can u say same about kakuta??instead he got us into trouble with fifa(or is uefa?)..u believe the hype and read papers about kakuta's time in france thereby formin your opinion that he is already a worldbeater when he did absolutely nothing for us and loans spells at fulham and bolton..my friend,kakuta is talented yes,but he has exhibited nothing except useless stepovers..he can be a great player elsewhere but definitely not here ...

I would no way call us the graveyard for young talent, what we have to remember is the circumstances that have previously surrounded the youngsters, don't forget these players like PVA, Kakuta, Stoch, Bruma etc were coming through and needed opportunities at a time when we had, Cole, Drogs, Anelka, Malouda, Lamps, Terry etc all in their golden years.. Would you leave out Cole for PVA to give him game time or Malouda for Kakuta, Lamps for Josh... No way... I'm sorry but it's not going to happen, I think the club have so far got it right, we have not had an exceptional talent come through that can justify such a claim to regular first team football, however saying that I believe we are now in a position to give some of the youngsters a chance and we will start to see more being integrated into the first team. The club have worked hard to ensure the future of Chelsea will be bright and I believe the production line is about to be switched on come the end of season.

Many of would love to see ake,nath,josh,piazon e.t.c play in our 1st team but at what cost??a manager whose job solely depends on result would care less about youth development and simply opt for the 'tried and tested',therefore selectin the experience pros for the safety of his job.

I remember fans cried out for Josh to be loaned out, and now we've ruined his development? He can't get a place in a championship XI, imo that's pathetic. Players need to prove themselves. Chelsea play too many games a season and I remember AvB said he'd give youngsters a run in the League Cup. He did, they lost. Let's not blame anyone for Gael's misfortune, he just wasn't good enough. Respect is earned.

Oh feel free to switch Hazard and Kakutas places. If Kakuta was left alone at Lens to develope under trusting hands we would have bought him for mmmm 28mill...

sorry guys *think of* in the first post.

traykidd,yea had he stayed back at lens we could have bought him for 40 or even 50mil in today's market but unfortunately he came to chelsea then and stopped working hard,believin his hype and thinkin everything would set out for him on a platter of gold,is it our fault he isnt spoonfed??..

Terrific footballer with great skill but was never played on the left wing,which is his best position.Carlo seemed to play him behind the striker and he got crowded out.Some of the things he did at youth level and for France were amazing.He could still turn out to be something really special.

I disagree that Chelsea completely ruined him. I reiterate that only a few players from the youth system make it at the top. Even at Arsenal where they play youngsters, only a small fraction of them make it. You say he was loaned to the wrong places. Wasn't Wilshere loaned to Bolton? See how that turned out. He probably isn't as good at the top level as we would like. It is easy to point the finger of blame at someone else (Chelsea in this case) and not take responsibility

Those people who are saying Kakuta did nothing with his loan spells at Fulham, He barely got a start. For Dixon he player well and scored quite regularly. For Vitesse, he is playing well and is showing signs of improvement in his overall game. The kind of talent he still has, you won't find many with it even in this current squad. As a person who's been watching Vitesse games, I will say that there are moments if absolute class technical ability. Another think noone has mentioned is that he had a serious injury which set him back. With the ball at his feet he can be a magician still. Everytime the ball comes to him you expect quality. The good thing is, he's playing more sensibly, keeping the ball under pressure, taking on players but also giving it to team mates. Yes, the final ball is often missing but that will get better. If a price of useless junk like Benayoun can get gametime for Chelsea, Kakuta certainly should.

Kakuta is very skillful. Infact more skillful than most of our starters. All the young lad need is a coach who can show him confidence. I dont think Moses, Marin, Benayoun are better than Kakuta. The problem at Chelsea for youngstars like Kakuta has purely been lack of managerial stability. It would be impossible for a coach to develop Kakuta to become a star player in 3 years time knowing that he wont be a Chelsea coach then. Kakuta, Josh, PVA and others should not be allowed to leave. Lets develop them.

You need to combine hardwork to your potentials or talents to make it to the very top in all works of life not only football.

@Traykidd Kakuta was never going to be as good as Hazard cos he is not the hardworking type. He looks to me like the lazy type. KDB is tearing Germany apart atm, Chalobah is developing into a Yaya Toure type of player, I watched him recently and I couldn't believe what I was seeing & he is only 18. Kalas, Omerou & T Hazard are all doing very well on loan, they are adding hardwork to their talents. Kakuta was crap @Fulham & Bolton, a peroid he was supposed to sharpen his skills. He is better now but not upto the level we all thought he would reach. He reminds me of Robinho, plenty of potentials but not ready to work hard.

Kalas is bein played out of position at vitesse,same as omeruo at den haag,kdb has impressed in multiple positions a bremen,thorgan has also played multiple position for zulte waregem and excelled,piazon is playin out of position in malaga and stil makin an impact..bein played out of position is not a credible excuse for kakuta's laziness..like i said before,everything he has done for chelsea is at the youth level,he has been like a fish out of the pond since stepin up the ladder.

I admire Ake, Kalas, Chalobah, Omerou & Feruz. Would be nice to see them in action during preseason.

Kakuta is not a natural Winger, far from that. He is a #10.

After the trouble we went through in acquirin him,one would expect him to put in that extra effort just to repay that faith we had in him and the trouble he cost us but instead he started readin newspapers(add ballack & anceloti's praises to that) and the hypes got to his head,makin him believe he is already there when he hasnt even started...

I think I'll agree with u guys to some extent on the hard work side of things, I don't think Kakuta has put in enough effort or should I say he's lost confidence to soon.... The hard work thing is also Josh's bane... Josh really need to be more hard working in midfield, if he can add hard work to his game, I think he would become a better player and get more game time...

Kakuta also played in AM for France in their 2010 U-19 Championship where he won the golden ball for the best player in the tournament and guided france to the trophy,so its not like he can't play in the midfield as well. Gael is getting minutes in several different roles for the Arnhem side, playing in a midfield role and on both wings. But Vitesse is a free passing side who move the ball extremely well and he fits right in into the squad,let's not forget the lad is still just 21...So he still has loads of time to catch up and improve.

@traykidd: Totally agree with your above post regarding Hazard. We shall all see when we produce a world class player from our youth academy, maybe never?, Piazon has one in life time chance to show what he has got (he is basically running around like a headless chicken and is trying to impress the coach with his off the ball defensive skills) so that Malaga might offer us 2m for him. If he stays at the academy like others he will be become Josh V.2 or Kakuta V.2, we will call him lazy aswell. Bruma doesn't want to come back, Lukaku said once but his agent advised him to say something nice about Chelsea, they all don't want to come back, we can see a pattern here, they all know they have a better chance of developing into something special elsewhere, I will be shocked if we signed Shaw, he will sign only if we put a CLAUSE about number of first team minutes we will give him in EPL.

Our Brazilian "family" is a huge advantage for Piazon. He'll come through, trust me. He loves the club, and the fans love him.. The odds are stacked in his favor

B2K420, The players that don't want to come back know they won't get a game because they are not good enough. If they were good enough to play regularly they'd definitely want to come back. How exactly are Chelsea at fault for the lack of progress of Josh & Kakuta? Chelsea sent them out on loan to 3 different Premier League clubs between them and they couldn't produce the goods. If you are not good enough for Swansea, Bolton or Fulham how can you seriously expect to play regularly for Chelsea. If Lukaku comes back and plays well and scores goals he will get plenty of chances to show what he can do. He's still a teenager, he can't expect to play 50 games a season. If he gets 10-15 starts and 15 sub appearances next season that would be pretty good for a 19/20 year old.