Chelsea's New-Found Youth Development Is Win-Win for the Club

Chelsea have a pretty poor record at bringing young talent through from the club’s academy when compared with their rivals. John Terry is the only established member of the senior squad to have come through the ranks, and the fact that he is alone in having spent his whole career at the club speaks volumes.

Roman Abramovich was quick to identify the dire training facilities as an issue that needed to be remedied when he first took control of the club in 2003.

The development of the Cobham training complex was not just for the benefit of the senior players. In 2008, three years after the first team began using the facilities there, the state-of-the-art youth development centre was unveiled. Keeping all of the squads together in one complex was a key part of the plans for Cobham, and they have since added an on-site school to the academy pavilion.

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Chelsea are the reigning champions of the Under-21 Premier League and the FA Youth Cup, having wrapped up the latter trophy for the third time in five years last season. They also won international tournaments at both under-16 and under-13 levels, highlighting the consistency in the quality of the club’s scouting and development team.

While this success at youth level is a huge leap in the right direction for the club, there are questions over what the future holds for these kids once they are too old for the academy.

Players such as Nathan Ake, Andreas Christensen and Lewis Baker have been included in the senior squad having spent several years in the reserve and youth teams. However, each has several players who are far ahead of them in the rotation for their position, and their chances will likely be limited to appearances in the early rounds of the domestic cups.

When you factor in the full squad of youngsters that are currently out on loan, it is hard to see where these talented footballers will fit in to the Chelsea first team.

Jose Mourinho has a reputation for spending big and neglecting youth, but this excellent piece from In Bed With Maradona on his time at Inter goes some way to dispelling this myth. Continuing on from his good work in Milan, the Special One has committed to youth development for his second spell at Stamford Bridge, telling Dave Kidd at The Mirror:

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Bringing a player through from the academy to the first team is very important. It’s something I really want to happen. We are working in the academy with the kids, but the transitional period from youth ­football to the first team is the most difficult one in the game.

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That last point is the most pertinent when deciding what the future holds for Chelsea’s crop of youth talent. They may be able to hold their own among their age group, and even against players two or three years older than them, but the gulf between the competition in the under-21 league and the Champions League, for example, can often seem unbridgeable.

Although Mourinho has said that he expects Isaiah Brown, Dominic Solanke and Baker to be regulars for England in the next few years, he has not said that they will certainly remain at Chelsea, as reported by Oliver Todd in the Daily Mail.

Chief executive Ron Gourlay’s statement on the future of the academy hints at how some of the investment of the last decade could be recouped as he told the Evening Standard:

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To keep Chelsea among the elite we have always known we must produce our own world-class talent. We are beginning to see the benefits of our academy. Our aim is to continue creating sustainable and enduring success on and off the pitch through this dedicated academy programme, while striking a balance with continued investment in world class players and personnel. This, in turn, will also help us meet our long-term objectives for Financial Fair Play.

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While the ideal would be for the club's youth players to emulate the longevity and success that Terry has enjoyed, the reality of modern football dictates that that may not be the case. Instead, Chelsea supporters are likely to see one or two players establish themselves at the club, while the rest are sold to raise funds for signings of the same calibre as Cesc Fabregas and Diego Costa.

Whether the Blues manage to bring through their own “class of ‘92” or they sustain their revenue stream through the sale of club-developed players, investing in the academy was Abramovich’s best move to date.

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