Alas, poor Ian, we hardly knew ye. You were too inexperienced, too short, basically unprepared for the rigours and exacting standards of Chelsea Football Club (seventh in the Premier League). You should have taken the return that Burnley charitably offered last summer. Them’s the breaks.
As far as Chelsea were concerned when they turfed him out on loan to Borussia Dortmund in January, that was that for Ian Maatsen’s Stamford Bridge career. They made sure to include a £35m release clause in the two-year contract extension they simultaneously offered him. It seemed, at the time, to be a good price.
Yet it has since transpired Maatsen is experienced, tall and prepared enough to help unfancied Dortmund reach the Champions League final.
The Dutch international played every minute as Dortmund kept a clean sheet home and away in a crucial semi-final against Kylian Mbappe and Paris Saint-Germain. He scored in the 4-2 quarter-final win over Atletico Madrid. With Maatsen starting, a Dortmund side who struggled throughout the first half of the season have won 13 of their 20 games and lost just three. Mauricio Pochettino must be watching on perplexed.
The Argentine clearly believed Maatsen was not capable of playing left-back for Chelsea. Across a series of substitute appearances and early-round cup runouts, the 22-year-old played right wing, attacking midfield, left wing and left wing-back. He was used in his preferred left back for 29 minutes across three substitute outings.
“He is a player in our squad, a great kid, the quality to play in different positions,” Pochettino said of Maatsen in December. “It’s about to give time to him. He came from Burnley to play. To perform in Chelsea, with all respect, is not the same and the competition is different”.
There is an argument here that this has gone exactly as Chelsea hoped. They can seemingly guarantee £35m of so-called pure profit will be deposited into the club’s bank account over the summer. A player whose value could have depreciated this season has increased through a well-placed loan and shrewd contract renewal. This seems to be what the Todd Boehly and Clearlake regime plan to use the academy for.
From their perspective, they have made much-needed money from an asset which had little-to-no value to them on the pitch. Doing this is exactly what made Michael Edwards so revered at Liverpool. Mamadou Sakho (£26m). Rhian Brewster (£23.5m). Dominic Solanke (£19m). These are brilliant deals and Chelsea would be smart to follow that model of extracting maximum value from otherwise futile assets.
Yet Maatsen’s Dortmund success also exposes that Chelsea are going about their great rebuild the wrong way. They seem to be chasing perfection in every position rather than recognising the quality in what they already own. In fact, the successful formula they have currently stumbled upon can be viewed as the fortunate product of injury-enforced necessity rather than the genius workings of Pochettino and co.
Marc Cucurella, who has become the lynchpin of this current side inverting from left-back, is second choice in his position. Cole Palmer moving into the centre is only allowed through Enzo Fernandez’s absence, which has allowed Noni Madueke’s fine form out wide. Trevoh Chalobah’s sustained first-team run wouldn’t be possible if Reece James, Malo Gusto, Levi Colwill or Wesley Fofana were fit.
Discarding 5ft 6in Maatsen, who is a far more capable creative and attacking player, for 5ft 8in Cucurella, solely on the basis of height is an oversight. Yes, the Spaniard is better in the air and yes, he cost £60m, but Maatsen may well be better suited to the role Cucurella currently occupies.
Great managers make good players great. Pochettino’s reticence to give Maatsen the opportunities, or even work to compensate for his lack of height, is concerning. Anyone who watched him as an attacking midfielder in the Carabao Cup second round against Wimbledon will have seen a player constantly attempting to make something happen and prove himself in a Chelsea shirt.
Maatsen has always maintained he wants to make a career at Stamford Bridge, to lift the Champions League in a Chelsea shirt as he watched his age-group teammates Billy Gilmour and Tino Anjorin do in 2020-21. Losing someone with both Maatsen’s talent and his passion to succeed for Chelsea feels short-sighted both on the pitch and off it.
Both Dortmund and Maatsen’s father have confirmed that they are working to seal a summer deal for a permanent switch to the Rhineland. Bayern Munich and Manchester City have also been linked with an offer to match the £35m release clause, which now appears a stark undervaluation for a potential Champions League winner.
Armando Broja’s disastrous Fulham loan spell has also demonstrated how wrong moves like Maatsen’s can go, in Chelsea’s defence. The Albanian international has played just 58 minutes across seven substitute appearances in an injury-stricken spell and his value, quoted in January at £50m, may well now be closer to £15m.
But Maatsen’s success, both this season and beyond, provides a constant reminder of the dangers of both hoarding young talent and not giving it ample space to develop. It also brings into question Pochettino’s suitability for developing some of these youngsters. Chelsea are still linked with buying a new left-back in the summer when they are set to sell one of the most exciting players in the position.
This is both the brilliance and the stupidity of Chelsea’s system – they can create some of the finest talent in football but are then signing players to start over them, forcing them out for profit and sustainability regulations (PSR) purposes. Maatsen isn’t the first to go and he won’t be the last, but he may end up hurting Chelsea a lot more than most.
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