What next for Chelsea’s graduates?

Last week, Chelsea’s U18 side thrashed Manchester City 5-1 to lift the FA Youth Cup for the sixth time in seven years. Since the turn of the decade only once have the side not reached the final – when Paul Pogba lifted the trophy for Manchester United. Since 2011, the Blues’ worst performance in the competition has been a runners up spot. For any side, in any competition, that is an incredible domination. It’s playground bullying.

This year, the victory was watched, in the flesh, by Roman Abramovich and Antonio Conte, as well as club legends John Terry and Frank Lampard. For the highest of powers at the club to be taking such a keen interest in the progression of youth players, it should indicate that this new stock of young, blue blood have a probable future on the pitch at Stamford Bridge. Yet again, we’ve seen this story a hundred times before.

The first winning team of this incredible period, in 2010, included Jeffrey Bruma (now at Wolfsburg), Gökhan Töre (West Ham United) and Josh McEachran (Brentford). These three players have since made over 500 senior appearances, combined, since 2010 yet only 31 of those have been in the blue of Chelsea. This was the start of a generation of young prospects that achieved so much in the academy, and yet were eventually forced to quit their Chelsea dreams and look elsewhere for the sake of their careers.

Whilst various players have come to the academy, won, and moved on, the last six years have bred a core group within the development side. The ‘seniors’ of the football school per say. This group consists of Nathaniel Chalobah, Nathan Aké, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Lewis Baker, Ola Aina, Dominic Solanke and Tammy Abraham (with Isaiah Brown joining later from West Brom).

Having spent years winning domestic and European youth competitions, their only rewards had been sporadic loan spells to the lower leagues, or to Vitesse Arnhem in Holland.

Then, in 2014, Jose Mourinho came along, and said this:

“My conscience tells me that if, for example, (Lewis) Baker, (Isaiah) Brown, and (Dominic) Solanke are not national team players in a few years, I should blame myself.

“They are part of a process the club started without me. In this moment, we have players who will be Chelsea players. And when they become Chelsea players, they will become England players, almost for sure. At 16 or 17 I don’t think it’s good for them to go somewhere else to play, like in the Championship. At 17 they have to train with us and they have to learn with us. They will learn a lot.’’

It was a very welcome change of tune for Chelsea fans, and it looked like the young stars might finally get a shot at Chelsea’s first team. That season, Mourinho gave a total of 12 appearances to youth products in all competitions (bar John Terry of course). Out of the aforementioned Brown, Solanke and Baker, one substitute appearance was made and Baker was shipped out on two lower league loans. So much for staying at Chelsea being best, Jose.

This season under Antonio Conte has seen some improvement at least. As of 27th April, 31 appearances have been given to Nathan Aké, Nathaniel Chalobah, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Ola Aina.

For the vast majority of the games this season, at least two of them have been part of the match squad at the very least. To add to this, Lewis Baker (Vitesse Arnhem), Isaiah Brown (Rotherham/Huddersfield) and, most noticeably, Tammy Abraham (Bristol City) have all had breakthrough loan spells. It’s not ground-breaking, but it’s the best we’ve seen.

What next though? These players are arriving into their early 20s and, without beating around the bush, need to be playing football. It’s acceptable to say that, at 17, being in the match-day squad is ‘good experience’, but for players like Aké, Chalobah and Loftus-Cheek, this period of their career is coming to an end and they need to start racking up minutes. Just take a look at Marcus Rashford and Kylian M’Bappé for evidence of what experience on the field can do.

With that in mind, we’re going to take a look at every member of this ‘senior’ group and have a stab at what next season will have in store, and whether their future is blue…