These are words said from someone running the club’s daily operations about an academy player who has/will be sold in the last/next 12 months (unnamed to protect the staff member and player). It’s sadly the state the sport is in at the moment, and especially at Chelsea too. It’s brainwashed fanbases, club directors, and even head coaches, with Enzo Maresca justifying Conor Gallagher’s sale in the summer of 2024 (after the club threatened him to the bomb squad alongside Trevoh Chalobah) with some ridiculously incorrect comments:
“This is not Chelsea’s problem, these are the rules. All the clubs at this moment are compelled to sell players from the academy because of the rules. It’s all of the Premier League clubs’ problems.”
🚨The new ownership sees fault everywhere with the club they inherited. From the shortcomings on digital & licensing revenue, to why academy players needed extensive loans to prepare themselves for the senior team while Man City’s young talent have been PL ready. [telegraph] #cfchttps://t.co/jDcoOmvfp4
Ignoring the last part of the report above, which is complete nonsense, a lot of change has happened – this is kinda what private equity firms do. They come in, find things they don’t like, find things they like, and change it up to suit their philosophy. Van Der Kraan and Joe Shields joined Chelsea from Manchester City and said Chelsea were doing things the old and wrong way. They argued Cobham’s old-fashioned culture was the reason we hadn’t won the FA Youth Cup or UEFA Youth League in a while, why we lost the likes of Rio Ngumoha and Ryan Mcaidoo, and why we were falling behind other academies in recruitment. It’s why Jim Fraser was pushed out of the club, a move pretty inevitable to anyone in the academy building who knew about Joe and Jim’s previous relationship, and why Neil Bath’s departure swiftly followed. It’s why there has been a huge staff turnover in the last 6 months, from coaches to local scouts to groundsmen, and by the sounds of it it’s only going to continue.
There will be plenty of the old-guard too who will happily tell me that a slight change and a new shock was needed and very much welcome at Cobham – I’m not doubting that either. One of the new moves under the new academy leadership team has seen the ‘best’ talents been pushed very quickly (to the right extent where they’re not skipping instrumental parts of development, maybe apart from Josh Acheampong) and getting such valuable experience at a young age, and I’m a fan. We started to see it when Kiano Dyer was featuring for the U21s regularly as a first-year scholar, but in previous years, there’s a strong argument to be had that someone like Ryan Kavuma-McQueen or Reggie Walsh would not have been getting such U21s and first team exposure with multiple older players available in their positions.
With change, comes impact. The new leadership team will be very much aware, and perhaps using to their advantage, that a persistent and lasting impact on academy football and culture can take multiple years to process in terms of credibility, sustainability, success and pathway – at the end of the day pretty much all of the elite U21s and U18s players you’re watching at the moment have been at Chelsea for over 5 years before any (serious) change was made. The previous work done to produce the players you’re seeing dominate the U18 Premier League and the UEFA Youth League must not be diminished in the slightest.
Matt Law, from The Telegraph, recently released an article discussing Chelsea’s factory at Cobham and how the academy has produced almost £1bn worth of young players who are now owned by a club in a top European league. I mean that is just ridiculous. Just have a read of some quotes from an agent with clients at the club, and Michael Emenalo (former sporting director and father of academy player Landon Emenalo):
Agent – “Neil Bath deserves a statue. Not just for what he did for Chelsea, but also the number of careers he is responsible for.” Michael – “Player development is about nurturing to last longer than a mercenary contribution. Like planting a tree, the seed does not become a tree overnight. We planted very good seeds, tended it, and gave them time to take roots. I am not at all surprised by the successful trajectory of these wonderful young men and football artists.”
The reality is, that if things go well in the next few years in the academy, the new leadership will take all the credit (whether it’s deserved or whether it was inevitable success is the burning question), and if things go badly, they’ll be blamed (while trying to put the blame on the old-guard). It is just how things are going to be.
Speaking of change…what a crazy few weeks we’ve already had! Let’s get into why a lot of people would’ve clicked on this article, before discussing a bunch of other things.
K!net!c academy is a hotbed of… talent! Many new, fresh faces leading the Chelsea academy have roots here, or have left & worked with each other, that’s normal in many industries! This video presents publicly available career information and does not allege any misconduct. pic.twitter.com/5p0wlDjOYp
Without being too blunt, some optics in the last 6 months are bad. There is no way of convincing yourself otherwise and don’t let anyone try to do so. It didn’t start off so great in the summer when Calum McFarlane, who was originally appointed as the U18s assistant to Hassain Sulaiman, was promoted to the U21s head coach after Filipe Coelho left for Strasbourg. Chelsea promoted Harry Hudson, the original U16s head coach to the U18s assistant, who has since taken the U21s head coach role with Calum pursuing first team duties under new gaffer Liam Rosenior. When Harry was promoted to the U18s assistant in the summer, Chelsea appointed Dan Hogan as the U16s head coach, who has now been promoted to the U18s head coach with Hassan no longer working with any age group.
Joe Shields had previously worked very closely with Harry while they were at the Kinetic Foundation academy, the same institution in which Calum and Dan were a part of. Jadon Sancho, former Manchester City and Chelsea player, has been pictured training with foundation a few times. Joe McCallum, another player from the academy foundation, was recently on trial at Chelsea after allegedly having his contract mutually terminated at Coventry City due to poor attitude. It’s no coincidence (imo) that for Calum’s two interim games in charge of the first team, his official assistants James Simmonds and Andy Ross were not sat beside him, and it was instead Dan and Harry.
The director of Elite Project Group (EPG), an agency with clients such as Romeo Lavia, Jamie Gittens, and Sancho, is a former colleague of Joe, and recently one of the scouts at EPG joined Chelsea too. This sorta agency stuff has been happening at clubs for decades though, so, whatever. I mentioned this point because it was talked about in the video I linked above. Similarly to questionable agency moves, the importance of connections and networks has always been so important, in and out of football – there’s no doubting that. And also, if you speak to any of the players, they’ll speak really highly about Dan, Harry and especially Calum! First team players, including Reece James and Cole Palmer, were very impressed with the level of coaching during Calum’s interim shift. They are very good at their job and very good at coaching, supposedly. I just disagree with the way the club have gone about certain things, and the way they have kicked out some of the elite staff who have built up the best academy in the country over the last two decades.
Everyone at the club knew what was happening to Hass, himself included, but no one was really allowed to speak about it. I have it on pretty good authority that Chelsea weren’t even originally planning to announce his departure from the U18s age group until it was made to be a thing online. Those with a sharp eye may have noticed that, despite Sulaiman being the official head coach of the age group, over the last few months he was never actually leading the team on the touchline. Often he would be sitting with the substitutes, or watching the game from elsewhere, while his assistant Harry took charge in-game. The move was very much coming, and his departure from the club is almost certainly set to follow.
The skeptical, which does include myself, would say that it’s pretty good timing to officially chuck him out while the U18s are unbeaten in the league and progressing in the FA Youth Cup with the best squad in the country, and the U19s finished top of the UEFA Youth League group stages. Not a bad time to take charge of the teams and get some trophies on your CV, aye? My critics are almost certainly currently calling me a hypocrite, saying that I’d be praising Hassan if we went on to win trophies this season, and you’re not wrong! And I’m also not doubting that Dan/Harry are very good coaches and could be as, if not more, successful with this squad! I just, as I said above, disagree with the way things were done and the way we have treated a coach who has worked at the club for almost 20 years and worked his way up, while he was looking forward to leading such a talented group. Come the end of the season, when I am confident we will have trophies on our hands due to the talent of our players and quality of coaching, Hass’s incredible service to the club and academy is going to be forgotten about while the leadership team will be praised for making such drastic changes, and I think that’s a massive shame. Most of you won’t care and will say the game’s the game, which is fine, but that culture which has made the academy one of the best in Europe is slowly changing. Whether it changes for the better is only something we’ll be able to assess in a couple years.
Change hasn’t just happened within the academy. Enzo Maresca’s departure just 6 months after winning the Club World Cup was announced on New Year’s Day in a remarkable 48 hours. What was the general feeling about Enzo from an academy point of view, you may ask? Obviously I haven’t been speaking to everyone, but it was a mixed response. Most appreciated his academy background, the number of debuts given, his glance on the other side of the road when needing a player for training numbers…but it also wasn’t perfect. Some of the debuts felt like token gestures rather than anything meaningful, players who impressed in their limited minutes such as Genesis Antwi, Sam Rak-Sakyi or Shim Mheuka weren’t given a proper chance to break through, and Josh Acheampong & Tyrique George could’ve, and should’ve, played a lot more. Maresca spoke extremely highly of Josh in interviews, and yet at the same time would say he needed to be ready ‘when other players were injured’, and he refused to give Tyrique a proper chance on the wing last season (including cup games) while the likes of Sancho and Pedro Neto were actively losing us games.
Rosenior has come in, and we just cannot expect too much unfortunately. Giving a cameo to Shim in the Carabao Cup semi-final first leg against Arsenal was encouraging, but no doubt he’ll still be behind Marc Guiu in the pecking order. He praised Tyrique’s attitude in training, claiming he’s a player with ‘immense potential’ who he’s been aware of for a long time, yet hasn’t used him in any of the three games, and didn’t involve him in the squad at Charlton (while simultaneously starting Facundo Buonanotte who left the club the following day). As every manager is and will be, he’s a huge fan of Josh Acheampong, but even his minutes is likely to be restricted with Tosin coming back into the lineup (let alone Wesley Fofana, Benoit Badiashile, or god forbid Axel Disasi).
Let’s talk about Josh. All I’ll say is – keep an eye. There are whispers, and please don’t go reporting or tweeting about it if you’ve made it this far down into the article (because I can’t be bothered to confirm it from another person even though I know it’s true), that Acheampong has rejected the latest contract Chelsea have offered him (a much longer deal with huge financial gains) and that his camp are exploring opportunities elsewhere. Josh’s future has been in doubt for as long as I remember, right from signing his scholarship and first-year-contract to last Summer, so you can perhaps take it with a pinch of salt but there’s definitely some thought going into it. Josh hasn’t been perfect on the pitch this season, which you can almost certainly put down to a complete mismanagement of his minutes over the last two years, but he has shown so much promise. His performances at Stamford Bridge against Sunderland and Liverpool are ones to remember, except that feels so long ago, and you just haven’t seen any momentum since. He completely skipped U21s football, played mostly at fullback with the U18s, and so you can see that rawness and a lack of game intelligence at times. He’s only going to learn through minutes, though, and they need to come fast – he’s turning 20 in just a few months.
Last August I compared his numbers to fellow international and club teammates, and it didn’t make the most pleasant viewing. I mean, do you remember last season what the perception of Lewis-Skelly and Nwaneri were compared to Josh and Tyrique? Are you really telling me there’s that much of a difference? That also brings up a nice other point that if you’re challenging for the league and winning week in week out, a lack of academy involvement is somewhat understandable. *Chelsea are not at that stage*. Chelsea have known a couple months into each of the last few seasons that they wouldn’t be challenging for the league, and as soon as that happens, you need to start thinking about the future. Why shouldn’t we be starting Josh, and even someone like Genesis Antwi when Cucurella/James aren’t fit, for the rest of the season (which is also ignoring the strong argument that they improve us on the pitch anyway)?
The problem is, he is such an exciting talent, so managers are always going to want to keep him around rather than think about the player in the long-term. He should have gone on loan (imo), and I’m not saying this in hindsight – it was obvious to me. If he had started 40 games this season, I would be willing to bet a lot of money that next season we’d be starting Josh and Levi Colwill as our two centre-halves. After all, Chelsea have been strongly linked with signing Jeremy Jacquet for over £60m, the 20-year-old French centre-back who has a total of 34 top division starts, and is supposedly a similar profile to Josh. I also do think it’s worth mentioning that Levi isn’t dead, he’s going to be coming back in a few months, and if you think Chelsea are going to be able to sell/loan all of Tosin, Badiashile, Fofana, Chalobah, Anselmino, Sarr and Disasi within 6 months (while also not signing anyone else), then I need some of your positivity!
Josh was often used as the typical, yet completely mindboggling, argument of “if you’re good enough you’ll force your way in and make it just like Reece and Levi”. I think his involvement so far in the last 18 months have shown that it very much isn’t the case, let alone if he does actually go and leave. Fans mentioning Reece and Levi also seem to forget that James was close to joining Crystal Palace before Frank Lampard and Jody Morris gave him a ring, and that Colwill was set to permanently join Brighton until an extremely last-minute switch from the club. Yes, your Cobham guys in the first team also didn’t see a pathway, and they wanted to leave – it is not too difficult to understand. Another quite mindboggling argument that some fans seem to constantly mention is how Lewis Hall is the only academy player Chelsea regret selling, with many stillsomehow not realising the importance of having a strong squad. I’m sure Gallagher would’ve been of more use than Felix, Buonanotte, or Dewsbury-Hall. Guehi or Bashir Humphreys more than the plethora of defenders we’ve signed instead. Livramento more than Hato or Gusto (even though both are fine). Callum Hudson-Odoi instead of the dross we’ve signed in his position since (even though I agree he absolutely should have left for his own development). I could go on and on. Opportunity cost is a thing which we don’t seem to know a lot about.
Guehi’s move to Manchester City has opened a few eyes up, and yes his wages are too high for the current Chelsea model, but I don’t even think he gave us a chance. Players, agents, family members – they speak to each other. He’d have seen how the club treated his friends such as Mason Mount, Conor or Trev. Everyone’s watching. Every single decision has an impact somewhere, and the uncertainty of the direction of the new version of Cobham is most definitely raising eyebrows within. A parent of one of the best academy players we have produced, who shall remain unnamed, said to me in December: “Set a reminder in one year’s time and give me a ring. Mark my words, my son will be at another club, and in a couple years , they will be talking about him in the same way our fans do about Kevin de Bruyne and Mohamed Salah.”
In my 2025/26 academy season preview, I praised the club and Joe Shields for their efforts in keeping Kavuma-McQueen, fighting off tough competition from the likes of Manchester City and Liverpool. This season they go again with Mahdi Nicoll-Jazuli, a midfielder who has been involved all the way up to the U21s level as a 15-year-old, and has trained with the first team on multiple occasions in the last two years. They will also be pushing to keep Reggie Watson and Isaac Badu, and positive conversations with all three parties are believed to have already occurred, with any final outcome decided in the next few months. While the club will see this is as a huge win, which it is, the club have also seen many of their other U16 players reject scholarship offers as they look to explore opportunities elsewhere. Like I said, the focus will be on the big three, but the so called ‘fillers’ is what makes Cobham so special, and if these sort of departures continue in volume, it perhaps provides a stronger signal into what families and players really think about Cobham’s current state. Chelsea will always attract elite talent at young age groups, and as much as this article has an uncertain tone regarding the future, there is plenty of good with the new-guard and we’ll just have to see how things go.
I’m always very keen to get your feedback, so please do share the article around and message me what you think! We’ll get a more detailed preview of the year to come in terms of players and teams on the pod very soon…
In our third episode of Cobham Chronicles, Parth (@CFCParee) is joined by Phil (@chelseayouth) to discuss the strong first three months in the academy and their big upcoming fixture in the FA Youth Cup!Timestamps:00:00 – The unbeaten U18s & U19s | Ezenwata, Mheuka & Derry12:35 – U16s stepping up | Mahdi, Watson & Badu24:48 – Josh Acheampong & Tyrique George30:43 – Reece James34:44 – FA Youth Cup aspirations | Brentford (A)▶️ THE CHELSEA SPOT◀️🐦 Twitter – @thechelseaspot📱 Instagram – @thechelseaspot🌐 Website – thechelseaspot.com🎧 Podcast – Spotify, iTunes & Amazon🔵 Parth (Owner & Founder of The Chelsea Spot)🐦 Twitter – @CFCParee📱 Instagram – @parthg03🔵 Phil (Chelsea Youth)🐦 Twitter – @chelseayouth📱 Instagram – @chelseayouth🌐 Website – thechels.net
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