Sam Wallace: Spoilt-for-choice young players risk losing experience money can't buy

Talking Football: Once upon a time a player stayed for a decent length of time at his first club

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The new young must-have English footballer is Jack Rodwell at Everton. He is 18, an England Under-21 midfielder for whom Chelsea have offered £14m already. But don't worry: Manchester United and Manchester City are making their own discreet enquiries and before long the price and the add-ons and the wages will rise.

So, will it be a big house in Surrey or a big house in Cheshire? Will it be nights out with Lampsy and JT or nights out with Wazza and Rio? Here's a radical suggestion for young Master Rodwell: stay at Everton.

Whatever is on offer at the three richest clubs in England – and the money they pay could set up a savvy 18-year-old for life – there is one thing that Chelsea, United and City cannot offer right now. That is first-team football. On Saturday, Rodwell, who has started 17 games already this season in David Moyes' midfield, should start for Everton against United at Old Trafford. How many 18-year-olds can say that?

Rodwell could look at this the other way round. If he was a Chelsea or a City player and his club were playing United at Old Trafford on Saturday would he be starting the game? The answer is he would not have a prayer. Whatever his talents there would be at least half a dozen international central midfielders in both sides who would stake a claim to a place ahead of him for a match that big.

Rodwell already has the most precious thing that a young footballer can have, and that is not three sets of diamond earrings and a Bentley with his girlfriend's name embossed on the seats. Rather he has the faith of a manager in Moyes who rates him highly and has resisted the temptation to bring in a more experienced player ahead of him. However much the likes of Chelsea and United rate Rodwell, they cannot promise him first-team football right now.

By all accounts Rodwell is a bright young man who has expressed no desire to move immediately. He was spotted by the scout Martin Waldron and was brought through under Ray Hall, the Everton academy director who oversaw Wayne Rooney's development. He signed a new five-year deal in February and Everton do not want to sell. Everything looks settled but then mad things can happen when the transfer window opens.

Rooney is the player whose departure still haunts Goodison but his situation was very different to Rodwell. Quite apart from the breakdown of his relationship with Moyes, Rooney had proved himself, aged 18, to be an astonishing footballer at the European Championship in the summer of 2004. However much it might pain Everton, Rooney was not joining United to play in the reserves; he went straight into the first team.

Talented though Rodwell is, he is nowhere near the level of an 18-year-old Rooney or, for that matter, an 18-year-old Steven Gerrard. He has all the attributes to be a fine footballer but at the moment his passing is a little sideways and backwards as is natural for one of such tender years. He might be a United or Chelsea player one day but what Rodwell really needs now is first-team experience.

Arsène Wenger, who has brought on a few youngsters in his time, made the point recently that the reputations of young players grow too quickly – way beyond their actual achievements. "When I was playing a guy had to play well for five years at an average club and then eventually someone would say, 'He's not a bad player'." Wenger said. "At 26 or 27, he went to a big club. Now, one big game at 18, you do something special and..."

The irony is that Wenger would like to sign Rodwell himself, although Wenger, more than any other big four club manager, can claim to have given young players their chance. But the basic point holds true: once upon a time a player stayed for a decent length of time at his first club; he played games and gained experience before making the step up.

Bryan Robson spent six years in the first team at West Bromwich Albion before he joined United. Paul Ince played at West Ham for three years; Roy Keane was in Nottingham Forest's first team for three years. Michael Carrick played in the Championship with West Ham despite having made his England debut by then. Joe Cole gave West Ham's first team six years.

Now the trend is to sign teenage players from the academies or first teams of smaller clubs. The most obvious example is Glen Johnson, who played only 15 senior games for West Ham when Chelsea bought him in 2003. His career moved so quickly that, having failed to make an impression at Chelsea he had to virtually start again at Portsmouth and has since proved himself the footballer everyone thought he would become.

Rodwell is already at Everton. He has time and he does not need his career to be shaped by the psychotic impulse in clubs such as Chelsea to harvest the best young players and stockpile them on the off chance that they might turn into superstars. If his career continues on its present trajectory he has to trust that the financial rewards will come.

As Wenger famously said to Nicolas Anelka before he left Arsenal in 1999, for all the riches available to young footballers they can only sleep in one bed at a time and drive one car at a time. In a sport awash with money for the talented few, the really important thing is knowing what is truly valuable. Rodwell should be playing at Old Trafford on Saturday. No price can be put on that.

Winning the World Cup can come at too high a price

It should not matter whether the Fifa executive committee dislikes Lord Triesman personally. Or whether it gets to meet David Beckham. Or whether England do or do not have this mythical "figurehead", like Franz Beckenbauer or Michel Platini. It should not matter that other World Cup bids have sponsored goody bags or erected big adverts by motorways.

What should decide whether England host the 2018 World Cup finals is whether they have the stadiums, the infrastructure and the football heritage. But people keep telling me that is not enough so again I pose the question: why bother if those are the rules? Who wants to grovel to Fifa? Let someone else do it.

Cudicini suffers painful clarification of safety clause

As a man who has just had surgery on a broken wrist and pelvis after a road accident, Carlo Cudicini deserves our sympathy. Next question: what the hell was he doing going to training on a motorbike?

Cudicini lives in South Kensington, Spurs' training ground is in Chigwell and, with Harry Redknapp away on holiday last week, he probably thought he could get away with it. It was an irresponsible act. Footballers are paid well to look after themselves, which is why their contracts say no motorbikes, skiing or snowboarding. They do so, as Cudicini now knows, for a reason.

Fans require brain training

On the District Line after the Chelsea v United game last Sunday, I listened as a bunch of home supporters sang an appalling song about Jermain Defoe's late half-brother. Every now and again you get those nasty little reminders that there are still some English football fans whose brains don't work.