“This is what they do though, happily splash millions and let quality youth move on because they feel the need to spend to be competitive or stop a rival buying. They do it in the youth and first team and sometimes you have got to ask why? That’s why future top players move so they feel the love and get the push elsewhere. It’s absolute madness.”
These are the words of someone in an academy player’s camp when speaking to myself not too long ago.
Pathway is such a big word for anyone who’s interested in the academy – it doesn’t take too long to find over 50 results when you search for the word in my Twitter history. It’s a concept describing the freedom of movement from the academy to the Chelsea first team. Except, around Cobham, it becomes a reality when the pathway is turned into a road – the one every Chelsea academy player dreams of crossing.
Those around Cobham will know exactly what I mean when talking about that road. The likes of Harvey Vale and Charlie Webster have mentioned the value of crossing that road in recent interviews:
Harvey Vale: “It’s always talked about a lot here at Chelsea. Crossing the road and going over to the first team. It’s something every kid at Chelsea dreams of doing. It’s a massive thing and the first time doing it, obviously I was nervous, but I was really proud for myself.”
Charlie Webster: “This is the road that kind of connects the two [the academy and first team buildings]. We kind of talk about when you’re going over there, you’re going over the road.”
The Pathway under the Old Ownership
Under the old ownership, if we’re being totally honest, the pathway was an utter mess. We saw the likes of Tino Livramento and Marc Guehi not even get a single chance at the club, despite impressing hugely in the PL2 and on loan respectively.
With Tino, Chelsea were looking at a RB/RWB to complement Reece James, and instead of looking inwards at one of the most rated U21 footballers in the country, they seemed much more interested in spending £70m on Achraf Hakimi. Since then, the Englishman has gone on to show he was more than capable starting in the Premier League at just the age of 19, and has just moved to Champions League club Newcastle United. With Marc, he impressed in our academy, then had an exceptional 18 months in the Championship with Swansea City on loan, and while Andreas Christensen and Antonio Rudiger both had one year left on their deal, the club and Thomas Tuchel seemed much more interested in signing 3 new defenders instead of using Guehi. He has since gone on to become an England international and be Crystal Palace’s best player over the last 24 months as well as captaining the London side.
I’m not just making things up for the sake of my argument, either. Do any of you remember that game against Morecambe City, in the FA Cup? This was a League 2 side, we were under Frank Lampard, and a lot of youth players had been called up to first team training that week. Come to the actual matchday squad, not a single academy player had been involved apart from Tino Anjorin who got 20 minutes off the bench out of position when 4-0 up.
I wrote an article about it at the time, and it was filled with anger. In fact, we at The Chelsea Spot spoke to someone in the camp of a player who could have been involved, and here’s what they had to say at that time:
“These things will force out of the club the good youth players as they will see no pathway. I thought it had changed, but it seems to be reversing back to the old but without a successful trophy hunting, which fans could accept when the medals were rolling in. There isn’t at present a clear message from the management on what they are trying to do or achieve. It seems a bit cloudy at the moment with the mixed messages. Our youth players are looking at other clubs at home and abroad and must be thinking about getting minutes and the pathway available at that club.”
It was that Summer, where I realised this current article would have to be written at some point. I got so many nonsensical arguments, and I can’t even put into words how backwards thinking some of them were. Things were made up about these players just for the sake of it, and I guess this piece you’re reading now is a chance to debunk some of those myths, but more importantly to discuss how the situation is under the new ownership.
As I said before, the likes of Tino Livramento and Lewis Bate had just had outstanding seasons in the PL2 and were very much looking forward to taking part in Thomas Tuchel’s pre-season.
Nope. What was most likely a decision from the club rather than management, these two players alongside Myles Peart-Harris were forced to train with the U16s due to not signing the contracts they were offered.
I’d just like you to stop and think about how ridiculous that is. I have it on fact that all three players were offered a 4-year contract with “good financials”, but the reason they didn’t sign was due to the pathway. So, instead of the club trying to involve them with the first team and giving them a chance to impress, they threw their toys out of the pram and sent them downwards. Something I can’t confirm but have had hinted to me, is that similar stories even happen now in younger age groups. To me it just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.
“Which other big club has more than 5 academy products in their squad?”
Something I get all the time in my mentions is “How many academy players do you want there to be in the squad? Which other clubs have more than 5-6 academy products?”. My first response to that is – who said there had to be a limit? Maybe other clubs are also doing it wrong, or maybe people need to realise we have one of the best academies in the world. You just have to look at the list of players Cobham has produced to see that there is something special about the Surrey base.
But, since we’re here, let’s have a look at the academy products who could be in our squad in September. Trevoh Chalobah, Reece James, Levi Colwill, Conor Gallagher and Armando Broja. A lot of fans often refer to these names as ‘examples’ of players who should stay and ‘fight for their position’, as ‘the truly elite will always make it’. Let’s have a closer look at how some of these ‘elite’ players got here in the first place.
Trevoh Chalobah: He had three impressive loans including one in Ligue 1, and yet still no one really talked about him. He had such a good pre-season that Thomas Tuchel started him in the Super Cup Final, where he was exceptional. And yet, there was still talk of him leaving on loan after that game, and it was the debut against Crystal Palace with that goal which only cemented his place in the squad. Two years later, he’s shown he is the perfect squad player after putting in incredible shifts at CB and RB, and he can easily play in midfield too. And still, the club seem more interested in signing players like Disasi for a big fee, who I don’t think is any better than Trevoh, and we know the club are looking to sell the English defender. If you don’t believe those reports, then, you should, because they’re true.
Reece James: He had an exceptional loan at Wigan, where he was one of the best players in the Championship at 18. And yet, as revealed by Nigel James recently, they felt leaving for Crystal Palace would have been best for his career. They were worried about his pathway into the first team, and it was only the appointment of Frank Lampard which changed their minds. Frank was ready to give them a fair chance. That’s what any academy player wants. He’s now the captain of the club, and that’s an achievement which we can’t look past. A kid the club found at 6 and developed over the next 12 years is one of the best players in the world. That’s just remarkable.
Levi Colwill: Another one who had an exceptional loan in the Championship, this time with Huddersfield Town. Chelsea bought Koulibaly. Chelsea wanted Gvardiol. He was hours away from being sold, until a very late change from Todd Boehly and the ownership. He just wanted to play. He goes on loan, shows what he’s about with Brighton in the Premier League, and thankfully signed a big extension at the club after making it very clear that all he wanted to do, was play.
Conor Gallagher: Conor had 4 very good loans where he stood out in each one, and yet every single window there seems to be talk about his future. The club have pretty much told him he should leave the club, and have made that even clearer with about 6 midfield signings this Summer. He seems to be happy to fight for his case here, and Pochettino is a big fan of the player, but I wonder what happens with him…
Armando Broja: Two good loans, with one being in the Premier League. He signs a big extension, yet misses most of his first season and the beginning of this season due to a nasty injury. Chelsea sign Jackson (by the way, I’m a huge huge fan of his) who’s of similar age and profile to Armando, and he’s subject to heavy interest from Italy. Another situation to keep an eye on…
I can already tell what some people are going to say next: “The two guaranteed starters in that list are the ones who are most likely to stay (Reece and Levi) so what’s the problem? What’s the point in keeping the others around?” And that brings me very nicely onto my next point. The importance of having academy produced squad players.
The importance of Academy produced Squad Players
They’re free. They literally cost little to no money to have around, and they’re full of quality. Financially, it makes no sense to spend on players when you have similar level, if not better, in-house. That’s just a fact. And the other important factor, which not a lot of people realise, is that most of the academy lads are ‘happy’ to be squad players and are willing to fight for their spot. I put ‘happy’ in quotation marks because everyone wants to play, but I can assure you now that you’re not going to see public complaints from a Cobham player when they’re not starting every game. Just compare that to some of the nonsense we’ve seen from agents and parents in the last few years from certain players.
This is why turning Cobham into an FFP machine (for the so-called squad players) is illogical, unsustainable, and stupid. It makes zero sense. Let’s look at the Chalobah and Disasi situation, for example, and let’s assume they’re the same ability for the sake of the argument and to focus on the financial side. There’s a bit of basic Maths here.
You sign Disasi for £40m on a six-year contract. That’s roughly £6.5m per year on the books. Signing Disasi means that the club want to sell Chalobah, and they get around £30m after making it incredibly clear that he’s up for sale (and hence decreasing his value). Ignoring any other factor (although very important), that’s a financial success as they make a £23.5m profit on this year’s books. But, the problem is, that success is only going to very temporary.
Let’s go to next Summer. Thiago Silva leaves the club. Suddenly you need a Centre-Half, and so you go looking in the market. You buy someone, like Disasi, and make a small profit on next year’s books after selling Bashir Humphreys. The Summer after that one, Disasi realises he wants to make the France national team and isn’t getting in ahead of Levi Colwill and Benoit Badiashile, and so wants to leave. You don’t make profit on Disasi and all of a sudden the initial transfer makes no sense when you could have just used Chalobah the whole time, who has signed a long contract and is content with being that third choice defender. And if he isn’t, then tough luck, because the power is in the club’s hands after they did the “hard work” of convincing him to sign the deal in the first place.
Obviously, that whole thing is a bit hypothetical, but to be honest, I actually think the reality will be a lot worse than what I made out. And that’s just the financial aspect of it, let alone the other factors that include Chalobah being the same level if not better than Disasi, him already being in the first team for a couple years and understanding the club, as well as providing an example to the academy players in younger age groups.
The next thing I’ll get is: “Why can’t we just keep on selling the academy players on a profit each year?” I think @chelseayouth sums it up really well in this incredible thread. Not only is it extremely obnoxious and arrogant to assume that the academy will be able to produce a player of such quality with the profile needed each year, but these sales are going to have an impact on the future generations coming through. To what extent that is, I don’t know and that’s something we’re going to find out in 5-10 years’ time, but I wouldn’t be surprised if your ‘filler players’ start moving to other clubs earlier on and then you’re losing out both financially and on the pitch. Something to keep an eye on, and I’ll discuss a bit more on this later.
I think what’s most disappointing about this whole thing is that Todd Boehly’s quotes were initially so positive about the academy. As I said at the time, talking the talk does not = walking the walk, but the words and signs were enough to get any academy fan excited.
A year later, and it just feels like everything has been forgotten. Every single word has been chucked out the window. And this links very nicely to a big part of this article. They’re being treated as academy products, but a bit too literally. Products to sell on. Products to be treated differently to signings, and that’s the big one I’m going to talk about.
‘The Push’
“How about push the good boys you have, value them, and push what you have rather than buy a player purely because your main rival wants them.”
Here’s another quote, this time from someone who has previously worked at the club. It links back to the very first words of this piece. At pretty much every club, and I don’t know why, signings get the push. This has happened at Chelsea for decades, and it’s been even clearer these last few years. That’s both in the first team and younger academy age groups by the way, but I’m going to concentrate on the former because the latter gets a bit too complicated.
I use this example a lot because I think it gets my point across really well. Harvey Vale versus Omari Hutchinson. Two insanely talented players who will no doubt go onto big things later in their careers. Last season, both players spent their time in the 21s from January onwards, and both impressed. They were both impacting games and showing they were too good for the level. And yet, it was Omari (signed from Arsenal) you were seeing in first team training when they needed a player. It was Omari who trained with Pochettino at Cobham in the early stages of pre-season. Not Harvey. And, I’d like to make it clear – I was really happy to see Omari there and it was thoroughly deserved, but Vale should’ve been there too.
There are countless similar examples which tell me that it wasn’t a coincidence either. I mean, let’s look at Pochettino’s pre-season and it becomes even clearer.
I will mention the situation regarding Lewis Hall later, but it’s worth mentioning a part of it here. I very much predicted it in a podcast I did in June, but Lewis’ departure has been coming for a while. Lewis Hall was exceptional last season in Chelsea’s first team and was one of the positives in a very dire season, and this was all while playing out of position at left-back. We all know he wants to play in midfield and wants opportunities there, and so pre-season was just going to be the nail in the coffin. Look at the minutes Cesare Casadei and Andrey Santos got in midfield compared to Lewis. Did Lewis even get a minute in midfield? I want to say he didn’t and I definitely remember seeing the two other players start games. Do you think that’s fair on Hall?
It’s a good time to speak about Ian Maatsen too! Maatsen has been incredible in his loans, with him making the Championship Team of the Season in his latest stint at Burnley. He got a deserved callup to the US tour, played a lot of minutes out of position on the wing, and was by far one of the best players to feature. So far in the first two Premier League games, he’s got about 5 minutes of game time. This was expected though – he was NEVER going to play ahead of Noni Madueke or Raheem Sterling. The club have shown by Lewis Hall’s sale that they aren’t willing to take the hit on Cucurella and are much happier in selling the better player for ‘pure profit’, and so I expect the exact same to happen with Ian in the next few weeks. He’s the perfect back-up left-back, and he’s the perfect squad player. He’s currently third choice Left-Back and about 8th choice winger, so let’s see how these contract negotiations go…
And it also gets crazier! Diego Moreira and Dujuan Richards. Sure, the club must have high hopes on both players, but they arrived at the club, trained with the first team straight away, and travelled out to the US with the first team. Moreira finds himself with the 21s currently and is likely to stay with them at least until January. So far, he’s looked good, and the raw talent is very obvious to see, but in no way shape or form does he look a level above some of the other players involved in the academy games. Dujuan is quite literally a 17-year-old who no one has watched before – I didn’t see any highly rated 17-year-old from the academy travel to the US? Once again, I’m very happy for Dujuan and it’s great to see younger players get big opportunities, but you need to start awarding those for your homegrown too.
There’s also an interesting point to be made on the multi-club model. I was told on a Twitter Space a few months ago that the multi-club model would be a very positive thing for the academy, as the best players would get the opportunity to play elsewhere and get guaranteed men’s football. Assuming new Brazilian signing Washington joins Angelo on loan at Strasbourg, that leaves only one spot for a player to temporarily depart the club, and we’re already seeing links between Lesley Ugochukwu and the French side. For what it’s worth, I spoke to an academy player who I personally think could excel in a Ligue 1 loan about potentially moving to Strasbourg, and I got a response of “not a chance that’ll happen”. Make your mind up on what you want to take from that.
The Development of Academy Players
It’s one thing pushing signings and not your own, but it’s another thing using your own to advantage and hindering their development as a result. A great example of this is the use of Christian Pulisic and Callum Hudson-Odoi over the last few years.
I think it’s fair to say that both players were seen as being at similar stages of development in their careers by Thomas Tuchel. Only one of them could start on the wing, and as soon as Reece James got injured, it became incredibly obvious which player was going to be prioritised. Callum’s skillset got used to his advantage and it genuinely hindered his development. Because Hudson-Odoi is a technically better footballer than Pulisic, and because the Cobham coaching has a huge focus on players being able to provide a shift anywhere on the pitch, he was seen as a better suit for the Right Wing-Back role, and it was Pulisic who got minutes in his natural position. Not the other way around.
Another way academy players have seen their development hindered is by the club not having a plan coming into the new season. Ethan Ampadu has found himself at the end of this nonsense the last few years, and I worry this exact same thing is happening with Bashir Humphreys as we speak. Harry Hayden, a football agent with Chelsea clients, explained it perfectly in one of our best podcast episodes to date, so go and listen to that:
To sum it up though, having no plan can really screw over players. I remember the last two seasons there being literal talk on deadline day of whether we should be keeping Ethan Ampadu in the squad or not. How has this not been decided before the window even began? What happened to caring about player development? Two years ago, the club didn’t know if they wanted to bring in a midfielder…on the final day, they decide to bring in Saul on loan, meaning Ampadu had to rush out on loan somewhere to get gametime even though he had much better options just a few weeks beforehand.
I’ve been told on good authority that Bashir Humphreys’ loan move to Swansea collapsed as Chelsea wanted to see if he could be used as a ‘squad option’ for this season. Do the club not realise how stupid this is? Even if Chalobah does end up leaving, the club are left with Silva, Badiashile, Colwill and Disasi all as options which is more than enough (and even Fofana!). There is no need to keep Bashir around. All you’re doing is making him miss valuable training sessions with his new club, or you’re pissing his camp off enough that they want to leave the club permanently. Although, to be honest, I’m not sure the latter will be seen as too much of an issue to the club with the way they’ve been working. And yeah, if you were to ask me, I’d predict right now that Humphreys is getting sold in the next few weeks.
That also links nicely to the fact that the club should not be afraid to look at the academy during the season too. Let’s say the club want to keep Bashir in-case two freak injuries happen and all of a sudden he’s needed. Why not just send Bashir on loan, develop him further, and call-up one of Alfie Gilchrist, Zak Sturge or Ishe Samuels-Smith if this rare occurrence happens? 18 months ago, the Athletic reported that the club didn’t want to send Harvey Vale on loan to Huddersfield Town in January in case he was needed as a squad player. He went on to get practically no minutes with the first team. Why not just send Harvey on loan, develop him further, and call-up one of Dion Rankine or Joe Haigh if this rare occurrence happens?
I also recognise that it’s just not academy players getting shafted from the club’s lack of planning. Andrey Santos has just had a really good pre-season and impressed everyone. The club go and make three midfield signings, Andrey can’t find himself a spot on the bench and now people feel he needs to go out on loan to get minutes. Did the club not want to sign 3 midfielders beforehand? Did the club not plan on letting Santos know what the plan was, if they even had one? Who knows.
Mason Mount, Lewis Hall and the impact of these sales
We’ve talked a lot about incomings, but there’s also been some controversial outgoings. Two huge deals which has received a lot of talk are the sales of Mason Mount and Lewis Hall. I’m not going to go into their situations too much, but more talk about the impact it may have on the academy. I guess the question to ask is will it even have any?
I think it’s hard to tell and they’re two separate cases in the first place. One thing I have to say is though – players, parents and agents are watching closely. Very very closely.
With Mason comes two sides of the story. An academy product became a fan favourite at the Bridge, was two-time Chelsea’s Player of the Year, provided the winning assist in the Champions League final and is an England international. For many years, he was seen as THAT guy at the club and was picked by every single manager. He was the perfect role model for any academy player, and once again like Reece James becoming captain, that’s huge credit to the club and academy. But, then there’s the nasty side. The new ownership come in and my opinion on the whole matter is that they just didn’t rate him as highly as others and saw the profit as a good opportunity. The future impact it may have on players? It’s an interesting one. I think if you’re rated by the club, and I’ve been told that they see James and Colwill as ‘untouchable’, they’re going to do everything they can to keep you and push you. If you’re not seen as that level, for whatever reason, you’re in a bit of trouble and may be used as profit whenever the club deem best. And if players start to feel they’re going to be used as just financial assets, maybe they’ll start leaving the club earlier than we think. Where it gets a bit intriguing is what the club have done with Hall, someone who they rated as highly as Colwill and James, and even got him to sign a big contract…
I said earlier I’d talk about Lewis later, but I kinda lied. Instead, I’ll link a thread I wrote a few days ago – have a read of it as I think I get my points across there. The sale simply makes no sense whatsoever. You made him sign the deal as all he wanted to do was go out on loan and get gametime. The pre-agreement with Crystal Palace was literally in place. What suddenly changed in the space of a week for the club to accept a £30m bid? On the pitch, it’s stupid because this is a player who has outperformed Cucurella by a fair distance, and I think it’s fair to say he’d have given a real challenge to Chilwell at fullback/wingback too. But okay, Pochettino didn’t really have him in his plans for now, so surely you just loan him and let him force his way back into the lineup next year, especially as you’ve done all the hard work of making him sign the big deal? And then financially, it’s arguably even more ridiculous. If for whatever reason you want to sell him due to some cheap profit, you’re going to be much better off taking the hit next season. We saw what happened with Levi Colwill. One loan at Brighton, where he started 13 Premier League games, tripled his value and the club briefed ‘he was not going anywhere’. Any serious bids would have had to have been above £100m. I don’t think it’s silly enough to say a very similar thing could happen with Lewis after one season with Newcastle.
The impact it’ll have? Again, we’re just going to have wait and see. Will Cobham continue to thrive and produce world-class players? Most likely. I don’t think that’s going to go anywhere as the facilities and coaching are some of the best in the country and there’s been some small talk of an upgrade coming soon too. Who knows, though. People will see that the club were much happier to take the profit instead of taking the hit financially (in the short-run) on worse players. I’ll still maintain that if you want to make it into football and you’re good enough, there’s not a better place to be. I mean, you just have to look at any EFL team and there’s a good chance at least one player has spent time in the Chelsea academy. If you want to make it at Chelsea only, maybe you’re in a bit of trouble if the things continue like they are. Maybe players will want to move on earlier and settle down elsewhere. Maybe they won’t. In the same way players move to us because they get that push, maybe we’ll see the best of our homegrown move to other clubs so they get that push themselves. It’s probably something we’ll never be able to quantify, but come back to me in 5-10 years’ time, and I think we’ll have a good idea of what impact these sales may have had.
But yeah, have a read of that thread. There’s one point I do want to bring up, which I have said quietly one or two times. I love Lewis, a lot. He was a top player in the academy. But, I think it’s important to note, that he wasn’t a standout player in his age groups. There were many other players who were playing as well as him. Obviously, different players transfer their skills differently to the men’s game and Hall’s physical attributes give him a very early advantage, but the point I want to make is that there are pretty much always players in-house who can have the impact Lewis did. He was given a few opportunities, he took them, and hasn’t looked back since. You can do that with the other boys when you need players. Trust your own. They’re literally right there, across the road.
So, I guess the question which many will ask is: “If you know so much, what do you recommend the club should do to improve it?” And the answer is, I don’t know so much, and I certainly don’t have any recommendations. I’m always open to listening to new perspectives and am learning about the game every day. I don’t work at the club and definitely aren’t a policymaker. I have no licenses in football and have never worked in the industry. “So why bother caring about the academy so much?” This article wasn’t directed at anyone who could come at me with such a question. If you don’t get it, you don’t get it and I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind on that. For me, there’s just nothing better than seeing someone get a good opportunity at the club they’ve been at since they were a little kid. If you don’t feel that way, that’s fine, but I know many others do. And all I can say, is that all of Chelsea’s success over the last 20 years and before, has involved the academy in more ways than you can imagine, and I hope it doesn’t stop.
Thank you all for reading this piece if you’ve reached this far. Some of the support we’ve received over the last few months has been incredible. I’ve started getting recognised at games a bit more, and whether that’s at Kingsmeadow or the Bridge, please do come and say hello. The Chelsea Spot has seen growth like we’ve never seen before, and we’re not going anywhere. I’m always happy to have a chat about anything, so give us a follow or drop me a DM on my personal account (or contact me in other ways). I’d love to get your thoughts on this piece and am always willing to listen to any feedback, so let me know what you think.
The Chelsea Spot 