Ethan Ampadu
The paucity of football available during the international break often results in attempts to find a fix in odd places. I tuned in to Wales vs Ireland on Wednesday night fully expecting to be bored to tears and to turn it off after 10 mins — it was a game involving a Martin O’Neill side, after all.
Instead, I found myself enthralled. There was a lot to admire about the way Wales played in their first competitive fixture under Ryan Giggs, but despite the fluidity of their front four, the intricacy of their passing, and their tenacity in winning the ball back, one thing in particular was arresting: Ethan Ampadu.
Ampadu was someone who I was familiar with as a name, but not as a player. I knew he’d come through the academy at Exeter (almost a guarantee of pedigree at this point) and made his professional debut as a 15-year old. I knew he’d been signed by Chelsea the following summer and that he’d received a call-up to the senior Wales squad shortly after that. I’d even seen Ampadu play a few times in the middle of a back 3 for Chelsea on the odd occasion that their cup games had been televised, but I wasn’t sure exactly how good he was.
Turns out he’s extremely good:
It’s impossible to be too effusive about how well Ampadu played in his first competitive start for his country. He was composed with the ball, comfortable breaking the lines using both feet, and constantly opened his body up to get his team playing forward. The weight of his passes was almost flawless and he regularly switched the play with driven cross-field balls that forced Ireland to quickly readjust their shape — so much more taxing for a defence to deal with than pointless, floaty, lofted cross-field passes.
What was most striking, though, was his work out of possession. Ampadu read the game smartly, both recognising danger and snuffing it out, as well as spotting opportunities to create a turnover, as seen in the build-up to Aaron Ramsey’s goal:
His movement off the ball to make himself available for a pass was particularly impressive and highlighted what an intelligent player he is already. Although he was ostensibly playing as part of a double pivot with Joe Allen, Ampadu frequently floated out to left-back and right-back in order to fill the void left when Davies/Roberts pushed forward to offer width higher up the pitch, to the point where Ampadu was often functioning as a wide centre-back in a loose back 3 shape. The consensus seems be that his future lies at CB and while I can understand that, his positional sense and appreciation of space is so good that I’d want to have him playing this deep-lying midfield role so he has the freedom to pop up anywhere across the defensive third in order to get involved in his team’s build-up play wherever he could.
Ampadu evidently has a strong grasp of what’s required of him as a 6 and clearly wasn’t overawed by the occasion — there were large portions of the first half especially where he was sat in midfield dragging senior players around, indicating where they should run and pointing where the ball should be played in order to create space around him. Describing it as a “mature” display would be doing him a disservice; there are plenty of senior pros who aren’t capable of putting in a performance of that level and there are plenty who show less understanding of the role than Ampadu did here.
What was also clear was that Ampadu isn’t an elite athlete. At least, not yet. Cyrus Christie surged past him and handily beat him for pace, while he struggled in air occasionally — although he did compensate for that a few times by cleverly using his body to prevent his opponent from getting a clear jump at the ball, most notably at one point inside his own 18-yard box. That’s fine as he’s still growing and there’s plenty of time for him to develop his physique as time goes on.
There will inevitably be calls for him to be playing regularly and plenty of people lamenting that he’s at Chelsea and not even out on loan somewhere this season. That’s an understandable position to take — he’s clearly ready and capable of playing first team football at a high standard — but I’m not sure it’s that essential at this juncture.
It’s something I think about when I see people clamouring for Phil Foden to go out on loan if he’s not playing every week for City. Both Ampadu and Foden are 17 and are fortunate enough to be at clubs who are currently employing head coaches who have distinct, attractive, complex styles of play and have a proven record of improving individual players. At this stage in their development, I’d argue that it’s more beneficial for them to spend another year learning the game and developing their fundamentals on the training pitch under Guardiola/Sarri than it would be for them to go out and play 25+ games for Vitesse or Girona or Aston Villa like Tammy Abraham will this season. There’s no way that you can convince me that playing for Steve Bruce for 6 months will make you a better player than being coached by Sarri will.
There are few clubs who play a similar style of football to either City or Chelsea so it’s extremely difficult to find the sort of environment that would replicate those demands, thus calling into question the value of any loan move. Surely it’ll serve Ampadu and Foden better to become acclimatised to Guardiola and Sarri’s style of play by regularly training with the first team if they want to play for their parent club in the future.
Player development isn’t linear and only those on the inside of clubs are privy to how far along in the process an individual is, but I’d be inclined to give Ampadu and Foden another season of working under two of the best coaches in world football over thrusting them into men’s football just for the sake of it. This time next year, when they’re both 18, re-evaluate the situation and decide whether it’s the right time for them to go and apply their tools on a weekly basis if they’re not going to be part of the first team rotation. Until them let them train with and be coached by the best in the business.
There’s always a sense of urgency and lack of patience surrounding talented young British players — they have to playing now and if they’re not in the team every week they’ll be rotting away, stagnating. While there is perhaps a kernel of truth in that, it’s not something to be fretting over with players who are 17. For the player’s sake, sometimes it’s best for everyone to show some restraint and give them the time and space to flourish.
In the case of Ampadu, Chelsea have a comparatively easy Europe League group, so if he plays in all of those games, in addition to a handful of League and FA Cup ties, he’s potentially looking at 10 starts this season. That’s absolutely fine for someone his age and would be an indication that he’s already miles ahead of the curve.
His time at Chelsea will surely come. In the shorter term, it would be a travesty if Giggs doesn’t pick Ampadu and give him an opportunity to show that he’s capable of replicating his performance against Denmark tomorrow.
I’m looking forward to watching him again. He’s going to be a superstar.
