Chelsea have an average squad age of 26, it's the fourth youngest in the league. That number also includes the outlying Thiago Silva. To some extent Cesar Azpilicueta at 33 and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, also 33, are anomalies as well.
Of the 11 players that have played the most minutes this season the average age is 27, though. For all the young quality in the squad they aren't getting the minutes needed to develop. This is not just relevant to academy hopefuls like Lewis Hall and Harvey Vale but also for January additions Noni Madueke and Mykhailo Mudryk.
The average age of the starting 11 that faced Brentford on Wednesday was 28. Although there was nothing to play for in the game other than west London pride, which has already gone considering the Blues are 11th after 32 games.
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It poses the question what Frank Lampard is trying to achieve. It's not his fault entirely, though team selection and tactical faults have been highly criticised in recent weeks, but part of the logic behind his appointment was cutting to the future. At least for a glimpse of what it could be.
Instead, Lampard left Mudryk and Madueke on the bench, Hall played development team football earlier in the week, Vale doesn't get a sniff and even the £20m summer addition of Carney Chukwuemeka didn't make the squad.
Ahead of the trip to Arsenal on Tuesday the approach needed at SW6 has never been clearer. It was almost exactly one year this week that Mikel Arteta showed that he had gotten to the end of his fuse. Out went the safe buffer of experience and in came the youth rawness.
Arsenal's line-up at Stamford Bridge, with it all on the line and a Champions League place at stake, had an average age of 24.5 and that was massively boosted by two 29-year-olds in midfield. Now it is Chelsea's turn to try the youth and flip the narrative.
Lampard has tried for the important games and failed to get a tune out of the expensively assembled squad at his disposal. There is little shame in that, Thomas Tuchel and Graham Potter are both more established and astute tacticians and head coaches and did little better.
What he must now do is take advantage of the budding stars also available to him. On current form it is hard to see Chukwuemeka offering less than Mateo Kovacic in midfield or Christian Pulisic in attack. David Datro Fofana is just as lively as Aubameyang and Benoit Badiashile has shown signs of maturity beyond his years.
Throwing them together in the deep end is perhaps just what this side need and there have been positive signs ahead of the game that this is exactly what could happen. Whereas Hall has hardly been given a look in under the 44-year-old, he was seen in training ahead of this match.
The left-back-cum-central midfield jack-in-the-box hasn't let his side down yet when called upon in the senior set-up and no longer has anything to participate in at youth level. Not using him and some of his baby-faced teammates would be a mistake and if there's a manager or a squad that prove it, it's Arsenal's.
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