Chelsea chief Ron Gourlay has explained their reasons behind the club's controversial loan policy. The Blues have 26 players out on-loan this season.
Gourlay told the London Evening Standard: "What people don't see is that it's a massive development piece.
"We did that in this way because we like to invest earlier in younger players. These are players we believe in. I'll give you two examples: [Kevin] De Bruyne and Lukaku. They were both bought as strong potential future players. We knew they had enough pedigree. Both players were very much in our plans. It didn't work out and the opportunity arose to sell them. Best for the club and best for the players.
"But both wanted to play for us every week. There's no guarantees for anybody and they wanted to continue their development [elsewhere] as international players. I would take criticism if we hadn't been successful in these three years. But we have been very successful on the field.
"The loan system is not just a matter of saying, 'Okay, we'll see you in 12 months.' We've only loaned players out to teams that allow day-to-day communication by our management team. Within 30 minutes of a game finishing, every player reports into someone at the club. They're our assets. That means we even have a whole medical team in place around these guys: keeping in touch if they get a knock and deciding whether we bring them back.
"That's the reason that these players develop. But the players on loan can't all come back and play in the first team in one go. So, if you have five or six coming back, three may go in the team and three may be transferred."
