Michael Mancienne shows why youngsters should leave Premier League 'false paradises' in a bid to make the grade, insists Nottingham Forest boss Mark Warburton

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Mark Warburton has warned young players not to find comfort in ‘false paradises’ of elite Premier League clubs and challenged them to seek first-team football elsewhere.

The Nottingham Forest manager takes his team to Chelsea in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night and is poised to pick Michael Mancienne, who is returning to his former club for the first time.

Mancienne left Chelsea aged 23 after making only four Premier League appearances and Warburton has encouraged others at big clubs with little senior football to do the same.

Michael Mancienne is set to play for Nottingham Forest at Chelsea on Wednesday night

Forest boss Mark Warburton believes Mancienne is an example to follow for young players

‘I have worked with Chelsea before in the NextGen Series, I know a lot of the boys down there at Cobham very well,’ said Warburton. 

‘But if they are not getting the pitch time they need, these young players have to go and continue their education. If you stand still you go backwards. You have to be brave in your decision-making.

‘Sometimes you drive into somewhere like Cobham, or Spurs’ training ground, or London Colney at Arsenal, or the Etihad. Those complexes are paradises. But if you are not playing football, it is a false paradise.’ 

Mancienne is a former Chelsea player but left the club with opportunities limited

After loan spells at QPR and Wolves he made the move to Germany to play for Hamburg

Warburton added: ‘It is so difficult to break through because of the quality the big Premier League clubs can go and buy. You have got to be an outstanding individual and sometimes you have to go away to come back. You have fantastic pedigree but that ceiling is there. If they can’t break through that ceiling they have to go away, learn the game as high as possible.’ 

Mancienne, now 29, took a pay cut to stay with Forest when signing a new contract this summer. ‘He will be in the squad,’ said Warburton. ‘He came through the ranks as a Chelsea academy boy and went on from there to Hamburg. It will be great for him to go back, I know a lot of people who still work at the academy remember Michael.

‘All credit to him, you can sit there and take the cash and see what comes up at the end of the contract. But in Michael’s case he wanted to play, and that’s how you learn.’

Mancienne, pictured in 2008 during an England training session in Berlin with John Terry