It hasn’t been a bad few months for Cobham. Three of the starters in the Club World Cup final victory against PSG came through Chelsea’s academy. If you combined the ages of when those players began properly training with the club, the total would still be younger than two of the players themselves.
The two Cobham graduates on the bench were instrumental in our Conference League campaign and proud trophy lifters in Wroclaw – one of them even had a chant about him sung across Europe.
The 3rd slide has my favourite chant from last season – what a night that was!
Pre-season has gone swimmingly across all levels too. Despite Levi Colwill’s heartbreaking ACL injury, which will keep him out for almost the entire season, Reece James looks fitter than ever – we’ve even started seeing him overlap again. Trevoh Chalobah continues his fight to become a regular starter at the club, while Tyrique George & Josh Acheampong impressed in the two friendlies.
There was further involvement as well: Samuel Rak-Sakyi and Genesis Antwi shone in their 10-minute cameos, linking up beautifully for the second goal of the night, with the latter grabbing an assist. Reggie Walsh, the 16-year-old who made his full debut last season, also got some minutes and looked as comfortable as ever.
The U21s have won the majority of their games, including a very impressive 2-1 victory away at Preston North End with the Championship side starting 9 senior players. The U18s have spread out minutes amongst the squad with players proving to Hassan Sulaiman why they deserve to start in such a competitive, high-quality group.
Off the pitch, the club will be delighted too. After losing star talents Rio Ngumoha and Ryan McAidoo at the end of the 2023/24 season to rivals Liverpool and Manchester City, Joe Shields made an in-house promise – and practically a demand – that anything similar would never happen again.
He kept his word. Chelsea faced interest from multiple clubs for several players, particularly for Ryan Kavuma-McQueen, yet managed to convince all players offered a scholar and pro contract to commit their next few years to the blue side of London. In our first episode of The Chelsea Spot Podcast’s new show, Cobham Chronicles, we discussed each of the 16 scholars in depth, so give it a listen to that if you haven’t already.
As always with academy football, the highs come with lows, and the lows come with highs. Chelsea will be hoping those difficult moments in the last few years where we’ve just fallen short are now behind us, and that it’s setup these footballers to dominate domestically and internationally in the near future.
Changes have occurred internally, with staff moving around as part of the transition to a ‘new Cobham’ – most notably Filipe Coelho departing his role as the development squad Head Coach after just one season and being replaced by the highly rated Calum McFarlane, who was interviewed for the same position just a year earlier. Both the U21s and U18s are getting younger, while the club has entered more academy competitions, adding to an already packed schedule. And perhaps most importantly, after years of pushing and trying, Chelsea’s academy finally has an official Instagram account!
So much has happened, and yet here we are, ready for a new season once again. Ready to follow the boys up and down the country in the hope of seeing them lift silverware and get the whole world talking about Cobham again. Let’s get into what to expect.
Calum McFarlane was originally appointed as the U18s Assistant Coach before being promoted to the U21s Head Coach after Filipe Coelho’s departure.
Not that long ago, I published a big piece about ‘crossing that road’ from the academy to the first team, and the problems with that pathway. A common theme in the article was the idea of signings being prioritised over homegrown talent, right from the first team all the way down to lower age groups, which often pushes the homegrown players to look elsewhere for opportunities. Earlier I mentioned that Chelsea have done well to keep all their scholars and other talents – does that mean recruitment has slowed down?
Far from it. Even ignoring the unnecessary reporting on 14-year-olds moving clubs, something which has happened in silence for decades, moves at academy level seem to be increasing every year, whether for the good or bad. The aftermath of Brexit, Covid, new regulations, the breakdown of the City-Chelsea verbal agreement, and so much more have all combined to shake things up.
Chelsea have strengthened at both U21 & U18 level, adding a mix of exciting new talent and valuable squad depth. On top of the already-announced arrivals of Christopher Atherton and Mathis Eboue, scholars Riley Ebho and Jashayde Greenwood are in the middle of their 5-step-process required to join from West Ham and Wolves respectively. Both have represented England at the U16 level, alongside multiple Chelsea players: Ryan Kavuma-McQueen, Charlie Holland, Calvin Diakite, Mahdi Nicoll-Jazuli and more. Riley has been on the radar of top clubs for years and will push to break into a strong defence, while ‘Shaydey’ will provide much-needed depth in the striker role across both age groups.
That’s a massive change from the last year or two, isn’t it? At one point, Jayden Wareham, Mason Burstow, Ronnie Stutter, Jimmy-Jay Morgan, Donnell McNeilly and Shim Mheuka were all contracted to the club at the same time and it just felt like we had too many no.9s at the club. Fast-foward a couple seasons, and Shim will be the main forward for the U21s, with Chizzy Ezenwata filling in when required alongside Shaydey.
Chizzy Ezenwata has impressed in pre-season for both the U18s & U21s!
It’s a big season for Mheuka. It’s easy to forget that the kid is only 17, and that became even more obvious by how easy he found U18 games last season. In the PL2, life wasn’t as straightforward: he spent the majority of his minutes on the left-wing and struggled to make the same consistent impact. But, you’d be quite foolish to doubt his talent – this season is all about finetuning and combining those learning experiences from the last 12 months, including first team involvement, to become the forward we all know he can be.
As always with our academy, versatility is everywhere, so there are alternative options if required. Frankie Runham and Sol Gordon both featured up front at times last season, with Sol bagging a cooly taken 1v1 finish in a 45 minute striker cameo in pre-season just a few days ago. And, as we saw plenty last season, Chelsea won’t hesitate to look further down the age groups when needed – striker Andrew Pennie will be knocking on Hassan Sulaiman’s door for minutes.
Pennie won’t be the only one pushing up. Reggie Watson and Mahdi are expected to be involved on a full-time basis as schoolboys, with both midfielders featuring prominently in pre-season. With Reggie Walsh and Landon Emenalo set to join Calum McFarlane’s squad, they’ll be eager to take those available minutes alongside Charlie Holland and others, making a formidable midfield. Watson continues to wow with his dominance, and it not just due to his size, while Mahdi impresses every game with his intelligence and technical quality, and everyone will tell you there’s a lot more to come. He even had a training session with the first team under Maresca earlier on in the year.
Other U16s pushing for minutes involve Heze Grimwade and Isaac Badu, but unlike last season, the U18 squad is much larger, so ensuring everyone gets enough minutes on the pitch for their development will be key.
We’ll see what happens with the goalkeepers as there’s a bit of uncertainty. Max Merrick and Ted Curd both signed new contracts in the last few months with all parties intending for both to go on loan. They have received exciting opportunities to play elsewhere, but the club seem to want at least one of them to stick around till 2026 as a fourth option for the first team (for some reason). Gaga Slonina has joined them in receiving academy minutes in the last few weeks and the club must work out a solution. There are four very good goalkeepers below in the 18s – Hudson Sands, Jack Austin, Freddy Bernal & Toby Bell – who will all be keeping a very close eye on the situation. They all need to get their minutes in somehow.
Mahdi and Reggie celebrating together in the semi-finals of the U15 PL International Tournament which Chelsea went on to win!
That’ll be important for the other U21s too, with plenty of players moving up and new additions arriving. Kian Best has signed after being released from Preston, and his signature at left-back seems much more of a stopgap solution rather than anything else, with Chelsea hoping to get a similar outcome as they did with Dylan Williams and Zak Sturge.
Jesse Derry, cousin of Reggie Watson and boyhood Chelsea fan, has joined after rejecting a pro contract at Crystal Palace – he’s highly rated and a talented winger who caught the eye of multiple clubs after his impressive U19 Euros campaign. Some have argued that he’s too good for academy football, but I’d be inclined to keep him until January and reassess given his lack of recent gametime.
Centre-half Justin Osagie has also been on trial for the last couple of months and is expected to sign a short-term deal after recently receiving the offer. The former West Ham academy defender is looking for that breakthrough in his career and will hope to use this opportunity to platform his talent to clubs in and around Europe.
He’ll be joining an experienced and confident backline. Kaiden Wilson, Harrison Murray-Campbell and Richard Olise were regulars under Coelho and are expected to remain at the club. They’ll be providing vital balance to a team which is otherwise expected to be young and fresh following the imminent departures of Brodi Hughes, Kiano Dyer, Rak-Sakyi and others.
Tayo Subuloye will likely move between both teams, having featured majorly for the 21s in pre-season. Murray-Campbell has spent plenty of time with the first team since their return to Cobham, including yesterday’s training session, and if this was to continue, Tayo could make that step up more often that not.
The one defender I haven’t mentioned yet, but we ought to discuss, is Genesis Antwi. I’ve got him down as my predicted Chelsea Academy Player of the Season. He spent most of his gametime last season in the 21s as a winger, and as much as I suspect he’ll drop back into defence this season, those minutes have made him twice as effective. He has the ability to invert and receive the ball with his back to goal, his acceleration and dribbling out wide is ridiculously strong, and he’s quickly learning how he can influence the scoreline. He’s not flawless, and he’ll want to improve defensively as well as being able to maintain his sprinting intensity over 90 minutes, but he really does look like another gem out of the Cobham right-back factory. There’s a blend of Lamptey, Livramento, Sterling, Aina…he’s really got it all.
"Chelsea really have picked up where they left off!"
Antwi’s brilliant assist for Chelsea’s first team last week!
While not being signed this Summer, there are players returning from lengthy injuries who will feel like new additions to both squads. Kobe Barbour has missed practically two years of football due to multiple injuries, and yet whenever he’s managed to find minutes, you swiftly remember why a few people in the club wouldn’t have had him too far off Ngumoha. It was great to watch him in pre-season again, and while I couldn’t initially fully recognise the player, it didn’t take me too long when he picked up the ball for the first time and went on one of his runs.
Dujuan Richards’ return is an exciting one and primarily because we saw so much raw talent before he suffered a nasty knee injury which put him out for over a year. Despite his size and speed, he has one of the sweetest left foots around, dribbles past players for fun, and shrugs them off with ease. If he stays fit, he will be a huge gamechanger for the 21s. Chelsea will be keen on keeping him fit, as he got a 30’ minute cameo the other day, but clubs will be without doubt eyeing him up for a move in January – I know for a fact that a couple League One clubs and managers were desperate for him on loan last season (before his injury) despite the rawness he had shown.
And finally, Jimi Tauriainen is back and is also expected to stay with the Blues until January, before seeking senior football minutes. It feels so long ago when Mauricio Pochettino handed him his first team debut, but injuries have stalled any progress since. As always with Jimi, he needs to work out what sort of player he would like to be – previous managers have used him both in midfield and on the wing. He’s not a prolific goalscorer, but he glides on the ball, is comfortable in all areas of the pitch, and has impressed the younger ones in training with his ability and leadership skills.
What a big season in store for Dujuan Richards! (Image Credit: Chelsea FC)
Minutes for Jimi won’t come too easy though, for sure. Harrison McMahon’s been involved with the 21s rather than ‘the bomb squad’ in recent weeks, so one can expect him to stick around. He captained the team last year and made huge strides under Coelho before suffering an injury, so he’ll hope to replicate that progress under Calum.
I’ve not been the biggest of Ollie Harrison fans at times, sometimes looking for a lot more from a player capable of controlling games at a quicker tempo, but staff members love the boy from Newcastle and his performance against Stoke’s U21s just a few days ago was potentially the most impressed I’ve been. He moved the ball quickly, offered himself in riskier positions and switched the ball intelligently. If he can continue to do that and McFarlane builds around him, he’ll be a useful asset.
They’ve certainly got big boots to fill. Alex Matos, Reiss Russell-Denny and Kiano Dyer are all extremely talented footballers who will go on to have very good careers, and their departures from PL2 football at Chelesa should inspire the next crop. Landon Emenalo continues to impress every game I watch of his – constantly winning every duel and being so technically sound – and he’ll be balancing minutes at left-back, centre-back and midfield for both Sulaiman and McFarlane.
After the departures of Neil Bath and Jim Fraser and the arrivals of new leadership, one minor change we’ve seen is a general shift towards using a 4-2-3-1 instead of the standard 4-3-3. McFarlane has used the attacking midfielder so far in his games, focusing on an initial narrow press with the no.10 staying high, especially from opposition goal kicks. The use of the attacking midfielder has given Reggie Walsh the opportunity to be fast-tracked and it’s no doubt one of the reasons why Enzo Maresca and Joe Shields adore the young talent.
He’s not the only first-year-scholar who’ll be a part of Calum’s squad. It would be almost rude to not mention Kavuma-McQueen. While you don’t want to say too much about a 16-year-old, it’s not been easy when Ryan keeps doing what he’s doing. I started writing an article on the forward at the beginning of the year, and while I never got around to completing it, I just thought I’d share the introduction:
“Ryan Kavuma-McQueen picks up the ball on the half-way line, cuts inside and dribbles past two players, to then pick out the top corner at Kingsmeadow from 30 yards out to complete his hat-trick and win Chelsea the Floodlit Super Cup Final.
Only those who were there on the night can describe the feeling in the crowd. A small silence emerged before the eruption into applause as if everyone had to take a second to appreciate what they had just seen. I looked towards some mates sitting in-front and beside me, and the expressions remained the same – everyone recognised how fortunate they were to have seen something special from a hopefully-soon-to-be special player.”
Ryan Kavuma-McQueen scoring from weird angles is something you’re going to have to get used to! (Image Credit: Mark Sandom @fleetphotos)
I’m not going to dive into his profile or start player comparisons because it doesn’t take too long to work out the type of player he is. What I will say is that I think he is really going to enjoy his role in the 21s this season. At younger levels, when teams have needed to score goals and win games, they have relied on simply giving the ball to Ryan and letting him produce something. You would have heard similar stories about Cobham forwards every now and then, with Callum Hudson-Odoi and Ngumoha springing to mind, but it’s not unfair to say that Kavuma-McQueen most likely won’t end up as that type of player. Instead, with the likes of Derry, Mheuka and Richards alongside him, that shared responsibility will truly allow him to focus more on his overall game, staying involved as a winger over the course of ninety minutes, and not getting easily frustrated if things don’t go his way. He will always have that clutch gene, as well as the ability to do something special out of nothing, and you won’t be able to take that away from him.
That clutch gene will almost certainly be required in Chelsea’s chase for silverware this season. This U17s group have won almost everything in recent years, packed with ridiculous individual talent that you all saw feature for the U18s last season as schoolboys. More excitingly, plenty inside the club are just as fascinated by the current U16s, especially with their overall team play and style. That balance with the help of second year scholars such as Emenalo, Mheuka and Barbour absolutely make Chelsea the favourites for more than a few trophies.
Chelsea’s 2025/26 scholars. (Image Credit: Chelsea FC)
Trophies aren’t the be-all and end-all in academy football, but there’s no harm in saying that the hunger to win shapes development and is an extremely important part of the game. After all, all you have to do is look at the Cobham graduates shining on the Europe’s biggest stages, and they have all won things during their time in Surrey.
Important context has been provided the last few seasons for why we haven’t won much: young teams, transition periods, and turbulent times at the club…but make no mistake – they’ll be going for that FA Youth Cup this year. It has been way too long.
They were favourites for the trophy two years ago until a shocking (not incredibly shocking iykyk) loss against Milwall in the Quarter-Finals knocked them out, but that same group won the U18 Premier League Southern Division and expectations will be just as high for this year’s group.
One trophy which they probably aren’t favourites for, but the club are extremely delighted to be back in, is the UEFA Youth League. Chelsea’s lack of first team success in recent years has stripped Cobham of this wonderful competition but the opportunity to play against Europe’s best on the biggest stage will pump up the players. It’s not going to be easy, with other teams likely to be bigger, stronger and older just as we saw in last year’s cup defeat to Manchester United, but with the support from some key 21s players you never know what could happen. I’m just looking forward to watching some good football in my lunch break like the good old days.
So, there we have it. I’ve not talked about everyone, or as much as I’d have liked to, but there’s enough there to start looking forward to what promises to be a fascinating 9 months. The 18s kick off their season this Friday in the Otten Cup in Netherlands, while the U21s open their PL2 campaign with a blockbuster on Monday – the almost-always sold-out clash against Manchester City at Kingsmeadow.
Time to get off to a good start. Time to win some trophies.
Feedback, likes, shares and retweets are always extremely appreciated, as is your constant support! I hope you enjoyed the read and whether you’re a parent, player or a fan I’m always down to have a chat!Just give me a message on Instagram or Twitter 😇
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