Among the celebrated loanees at Sheffield United in recent years, Chelsea’s Ethan Ampadu isn’t one of the names that immediately springs to mind.
With the success stories of the likes of Dean Henderson, Morgan Gibbs-White, and more recently Tommy Doyle and James McAtee, United’s record in the loan market is pretty good.
However, when it came to Ampadu, it’s safe to say we can’t look back and say the same.
And after disappointing at United when he was part of the team relegated from the Premier League, Ampadu’s time in first-team football hasn’t improved at all.
Ethan Ampadu suffers third successive relegation
Unfortunately for Ampadu, relegations seem to be a theme of his young career so far. And that theme continued last night.
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After going down with United and then with Venezia over in Italy, Ampadu signed for Spezia on loan from Chelsea at the start of last season.
And yet again, Ampadu’s season has ended in disappointment as Spezia dropped out of Serie A. The Italian minnows lost 3-1 to Verona in the relegation playoff game last night.
Coincidentally, Ampadu actually got himself on the scoresheet. But it proved to be in vain, as Verona scored twice more before half-time to take the game away from Spezia.
Sheff U News View: Another fresh start needed
Well, what a start to a young career this is. Obviously, it’s not all Ampadu’s fault and there are other circumstances at play.
However, it can’t sit well with him at all. Three moves from Chelsea and three relegations is hardly the biggest thing to boast about on your CV is it.
Ultimately, it looks like he needs yet another fresh start. Chelsea really need to try and find him a team who are not battling at the wrong end of proceedings. From there, we might see a different version of Ethan Ampadu.
But at 22, he does need to get going and banish these relegation demons.
