Richard Nartey: 'You Learn How Fortunate You Are Growing up at Chelsea'

 Burton’s Richard Nartey challenges Jonson Clarke-Harris of Bristol Rovers on his debut for Albion. Photograph: Robbie Stephenson/JMP/Shutterstock
Burton’s Richard Nartey challenges Jonson Clarke-Harris of Bristol Rovers on his debut for Albion. Photograph: Robbie Stephenson/JMP/Shutterstock
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Richard Nartey: 'You Learn How Fortunate You Are Growing up at Chelsea'

 Burton’s Richard Nartey challenges Jonson Clarke-Harris of Bristol Rovers on his debut for Albion. Photograph: Robbie Stephenson/JMP/Shutterstock
Burton’s Richard Nartey challenges Jonson Clarke-Harris of Bristol Rovers on his debut for Albion. Photograph: Robbie Stephenson/JMP/Shutterstock

“The first thing that happened was a ball got kicked in the air at me and I got an elbow in the face,” Richard Nartey says as he recalls his gritty introduction to League One after going on loan to Burton Albion. The centre-back, who has been at Chelsea since he was nine, knew it was time to sink or swim. He was making his professional debut after coming off the bench against Bristol Rovers in August and it was a rude awakening.

“I was a bit dazed,” Nartey says. “It was my wake-up call. I was telling myself: ‘You’ve got to give it back. You can’t act like this young person from Chelsea, otherwise people will pick on you.’ I had to show I could do all the physical stuff and let my technical side show as well.”

He knuckled down, helping Burton to a 2-0 victory. He enjoyed his time at the Pirelli Stadium and is disappointed that the League One season is over prematurely. He has been back at his family home in Wimbledon during lockdown and, with Chelsea deciding not to renew his contract when it expires on 30 June, he is focusing on finding a new club.

The 21-year-old is used to being challenged. Nartey placed a high value on his education, even though it slowed his development at Chelsea. He attended St Paul’s, a private school in south-west London, until he finished his GCSEs when he was 16. “I stayed longer than most at Chelsea before going on loan because I started full-time a couple of years later,” he says. “Usually you do day release at 13. You still go to school and take a day off to train. At 14, 15, 16 you do full-time football. I didn’t train for two and a bit years full-time.

“Even if you were good enough you can never tell what’s going to happen at that age. With my parents giving me all the help I needed I thought it better to do my GCSEs. Once you go full-time it switches to being more focused on football. It ended up with me going to school for the five days and then I’d have to just turn up on the day of the game. Then I’d go back to school while everyone else went back to training for the week.”

There was more to come for Nartey, who spent three years studying for maths and French A-levels after joining Chelsea full-time at 16. He is grateful to the club for paying for his lessons and finding him quiet spaces to work, but he also had to catch up on his teammates. Nartey had fallen behind at an academy that produced Tammy Abraham, Mason Mount, Fikayo Tomori, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Reece James.

“The goalkeeper Nathan Baxter did a similar thing to me,” he says. “But you do feel on your own. I didn’t know many in my situation. I was surrounded by players who were not only the best but had been doing it for two years, every day. I came in as a skinny schoolkid.

“That was my first ever pre-season. I’d never trained every day before. The first time I tried it I cramped up within 40 minutes. I took that session as a break and trained every other day. I told myself I had to be patient. I did two training sessions in a row for the first time and in my mind that was a great achievement. Everyone else was celebrating in a jokey way. But it was big for me.”

Nartey is not surprised that Abraham, Mount, Tomori, Hudson-Odoi and James have broken into the first team. The academy coaches improved their technique but also instilled a strong work ethic. Nartey had a solid grounding thanks to Joe Edwards, who joined the first-team coaching staff at the start of the season, and Jody Morris, Frank Lampard’s No 2.

“Joe has been there since I was very young,” Nartey says. “He’s been extremely helpful, especially as you’re getting into the 23s. He was crucial in reminding us you’re going to lose games when you go out, you’re going to find yourself not playing sometimes.

“Jody was my youth-team coach. His success speaks for itself. He would join in the training session sometimes and would usually be the best player technically. You would see what the top level looks like, even though he had retired.”

Nartey had more to learn. He had featured against lower-league sides when Chelsea reached the semi-finals of the Checkatrade Trophy in 2018, but he needed a tougher environment than academy football. Burton beckoned. “You learn how fortunate you are growing up at Chelsea,” he says. “You go on loan and see there are bonuses for winning games and how much that means to someone.”

Nigel Clough, who quit as Burton’s manager to help the club cope with the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic, gave Nartey 28 appearances. Jake Buxton, the experienced centre-back who has stepped in as player-manager, has been another big influence.

Tore André Flo, who looks after Chelsea’s loan players, has also helped mentor him. “He’s been extremely helpful,” Nartey says. “I’d play a game and the first message I’d have when I’d get back was: ‘I saw you played the whole game, how did you find it?’ He’s come up to Burton a few times.

“He played up front and he was saying what he didn’t like. Strikers like time on the ball and he said the toughest ones were when people got tight and didn’t give you the chance to turn.”

The next step is approaching. “I always wanted to be involved in financial things,” Nartey says. “My dad works at Barclays so I’ve been getting advice from him. I’ve started a financial trading course during lockdown. Hopefully it stays as a back-up plan, but even when I retire I’ll need to do something. It will never hurt to have the two A-levels.”

The Guardian Sport



With Mbappe Gone, Misfiring PSG are Under Pressure in Champions League

Luis Enrique's Paris Saint-Germain are struggling for goals in this season's Champions League following the departure of Kylian Mbappe. Christophe SIMON / AFP/File
Luis Enrique's Paris Saint-Germain are struggling for goals in this season's Champions League following the departure of Kylian Mbappe. Christophe SIMON / AFP/File
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With Mbappe Gone, Misfiring PSG are Under Pressure in Champions League

Luis Enrique's Paris Saint-Germain are struggling for goals in this season's Champions League following the departure of Kylian Mbappe. Christophe SIMON / AFP/File
Luis Enrique's Paris Saint-Germain are struggling for goals in this season's Champions League following the departure of Kylian Mbappe. Christophe SIMON / AFP/File

Kylian Mbappe was always going to leave an enormous void when he left Paris Saint-Germain, and the French side are struggling in this season's Champions League without the goals of their former star.
While Mbappe is now at Real Madrid after scoring a club-record 256 goals in seven seasons in Paris, his old club entertain Atletico Madrid on Wednesday in a crucial game in their European campaign, AFP said.
PSG are misfiring in this new-look Champions League, with just four points from three games, despite starting with kind home fixtures against Girona and PSV Eindhoven either side of a trip to Arsenal.
Luis Enrique's team beat Girona 1-0 only thanks to a late own-goal, despite 26 attempts during that game.
That was followed by a 2-0 defeat at Arsenal in a performance which suggested a rejuvenated Paris side are now a long way from being contenders to win European club football's greatest prize.
Then came a 1-1 draw against PSV, another game in which they managed 26 attempts and in which they paid a price for poor finishing.
PSG need only finish in the top 24 places in this 36-team league in order to reach the play-off round, and it seems reasonable to suggest that two wins from their remaining five fixtures may be enough to ensure that.
However, failure to beat Atletico would leave the Ligue 1 champions in an uncomfortable position with their next game away to Bayern Munich.
"It is the worst group," Luis Enrique said after the game against PSV in reference to his team's fixtures, with Red Bull Salzburg, Manchester City and VfB Stuttgart also still to come.
"We need to be prepared to improve what we can and keep going. But yes, it is difficult and of course I am worried."
The Qatar-owned club are coping just fine without Mbappe in Ligue 1, as they sit six points clear at the top of the table having scored 29 goals in 10 matches.
Mbappe netted 44 times in 48 appearances last season, even if he often struggled to produce his best form.
Nevertheless, PSG's difficulties in front of goal in the Champions League date back to last season's semi-finals when Mbappe was still there.
They were favorites to beat Borussia Dortmund, but lost 2-0 on aggregate. PSG had a grand total of 45 attempts on goal across the two legs and failed to score.
Kolo Muani flops
This season they have two goals from 62 attempts in Europe, and will have to be more clinical against Diego Simeone's Atletico, the best defense in Spain.
Bradley Barcola, the 22-year-old France international left-winger, is now PSG's main attacking threat with eight goals this season, while Ousmane Dembele has contributed five from the right.
"We must not have one player on whom all the pressure lies," Luis Enrique said of Barcola last week, although the biggest issue is the lack of a reliable center-forward.
Goncalo Ramos was in line to be the first choice in that position, but he picked up an ankle injury minutes into the campaign and is yet to return.
Randal Kolo Muani was signed from Eintracht Frankfurt for 90 million euros ($97m) at the start of last season but has never settled at PSG, despite producing good form for France.
Things have become so bad for Kolo Muani that he has been an unused substitute in the last two games, and a departure in January looks increasingly likely.
"I count on all my players," insisted Luis Enrique, who has more often deployed either Marco Asensio or Lee Kang-in as a false nine.
In any case, the former Barcelona coach has played down concerns about his team.
"We are scoring more goals, picking up more points, I don't see any problems. There has maybe been one match in the Champions League in which we were not up to standard but we were much better than our opponents in the other two games."
Despite that, the coach and his team will ultimately be judged above all on their results in the Champions League, and the pressure is growing.