With very little positive transfer activity going on at the moment, a hot topic of conversation is the Chelsea Academy. A quick look on the official Chelsea Website sees an interesting interview with Chelsea academy boss Neil Bath.
With Tammy Abraham and Kasey Palmer, signing new deals today before being sent out on loan, Bath talks about the need for senior football for the ‘kids` before making an impact in the 1st eleven. To directly quote him, he says
“Realistically, to break into a first team like ours you need to have played 150 to 200 games at senior level.
“Even someone like Eden Hazard had done that in France before coming to Chelsea, so the reality is our young players will need to experience the same, which is almost three full seasons out on loan.”
“If a player goes out at 18 or 19 years old, that means they will be 22 years old before being able to really compete for a regular place in the team.”
I guess that gives a bit of an insight as to what is going on in the minds of those at the top of the club. I`m not that sure it rings true though. One player I remember who was going to be our next ‘breakthrough` academy player was Josh McEachran, the new ‘Frank Lampard’.
He joined the academy at the age of 7 before going through the ranks and signing a 5 year deal at 18. He made just 11 1st team appearances before being sent out on loan to 5 different teams. He was sold to Brentford in 2015 for a fee reported to be £750,000.
Now maybe he just wasn`t good enough to make it, plenty thought he would. Or maybe he was let down by the vast turnaround in managers the club has seen and ultimately the system the academy itself employs. Either way it seems like it will be a long time before we see another John Terry.
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