Lucas Piazon, who is currently on loan at Fulham from his parent club Chelsea, has admitted that he’s growing increasingly frustrated with being loan at by the West London side and that he is desperate to find a club that he can call his permanent home.
The Brazilian forward was considered to be one of the world’s hottest properties when Chelsea beat off competition from the likes of Juventus to secure his pre-contract signature back in 2011. He was only eligible to play for the senior team at Chelsea after he could gain a work visa in 2012, but he started playing for the reserves straight away after joining up with the club in the summer transfer window of 2011.
Despite appearing on the bench on a number of occasions and starting several League Cup matches, Piazon has only made one Premier League appearance for the Blues, which came back in 2012. Since then he has spent his Chelsea career on loan at Malaga, Vitesse Arnhem, Eintracht Frankfurt and Reading. In moving to Fulham on a loan until January he has joined an incredible 37 other players that Chelsea have sent out on loan.
The 22-year-old is not impressed by the way his parent club have been using him, however, believing that Chelsea need to re-assess their loan system. He said, “I’m tired of moving abroad. One, two, three loans, maybe that’s enough. It’s time for me to stay somewhere for more than one year. It makes no sense to go on loan all the time. It is not good for any player in my experience – or the experience of the other boys. I don’t see it as a positive thing any more. To be in a different place every year is not good for me at 22”.
The Brazilian revealed how life is hard for a loanee because it’s difficult to force your way into a squad that already knows each other. He said, “It’s difficult to get a place in the team. They have their own players. You do your best, try to get a place in the squad, minutes on the pitch, score and create goals. That’s all you can do”.
Perhaps most revealing of all was Piazon’s admission that he barely spoke to Antonio Conte before sent out on loan. The new Chelsea head coach arrived earlier in the summer having led the Italy national side to the European Championships in France, but Piazon felt he wasn’t given a fair chance to prove himself to the manager who seemed to be all about making the squad train harder.
The Brazilian youngster said, “We haven’t spoken much and we’ve said nothing about football. It’s difficult when there’s a big change. The Italian mentality is to train hard. They arrived and then went to Austria and then to the USA. The players have found the training tough but they’re enjoying it”.