The only player younger than Trevoh Chalobah to play more minutes than him in the Premier League last season at Chelsea was Reece James. His impressive debut season saw the unproven 23-year-old rack-up game time that outnumbered Hakim Ziyech, Timo Werner and Christian Pulisic.
That attacking trio cost Chelsea more than £130m in transfer fees. Chalobah came through the academy. He was also coming off the back of a decent but not spectacular season in France with Lorient. He started the campaign as a defensive midfielder before being moved to centre-back.
For all purposes, his career at Stamford Bridge looked to be coming to an end this time one year ago as Chelsea pursued Jules Kounde. If you asked anyone at that time who was more likely to be still in Thomas Tuchel's plans 12 months later, Chalobah would have been a pointless answer.
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Even heading into the first match of the season, Chalobah was expected to leave. Had he not scored on his debut against Crystal Palace, and perhaps more importantly, had he not had the slice of fortune to gain a first Chelsea start due to squad injuries, Chalobah almost certainly wouldn't be in the position he is.
The lesson to learn is twofold. When Chelsea produces young players, they are made to be ready to compete at the top level, and a lack of top-flight experience is no reason not to trust a young player with a squad role.
When you now look throughout the rest of the Chelsea squad and see the bright young talents that have come from within, Mason Mount, Reece James, Callum Hudson-Odoi, and even Ruben Loftus-Cheek, it can look like the Cobham academy is doing its job. But that job actually seems to be a grey area because, if the job of Cobham is to produce high-level talent simply, then it does that, there is little doubt. If the role of the world-class facilities is to generate funds for the first team, it does that as well. But if the job of Cobham is to provide a genuine and consistent pathway into the Chelsea first team for young footballers, it stops well short of ticking that box.
Chelsea are lucky enough to have their four graduates in the squad right now. With a large reliance on James and Mount for the past two seasons, this pair rarely lets Thomas Tuchel down. They are consistent first-team picks, players to build the new rebuild around and offer little issue within the club. This is a success. Chelsea have produced these players and continued to nurture them as people, as well as impressive leadership figures, European Champions, future captains and Ballon d'Or contenders.
This sort of success coming through a club is pretty much unparalleled in the past two decades, Barcelona's incredible La Masia stint aside, let alone two world-class talents coming through within two years. The worry for Chelsea fans should be that it was almost very different.
Albeit this takes some retrospective thinking and a bit of hypothetical crystal ball gazing, given the club's record on either side of a transfer ban, they're extremely fortunate even to have James and Mount, let alone Loftus-Cheek and Hudson-Odoi.
The latter had Chelsea in a stranglehold to be given a chance as the best young player in 2018 under Maurizio Sarri. Without that, he would likely have been sold to Bayern Munich, who were willing to try their luck. Despite being the rising star of the academy in the mid-2010s, Loftus-Cheek wasn't trusted in a first-team role until 2018 himself. By that time, he was 22. Injuries have hampered his progress since, but it feels like a missed trick for the now 26-year-old to have never been used seriously before then.
Then turn to James and Mount, and also finally, the emergence of Tammy Abraham and Fikayo Tomori in 2019. Realistically, without the transfer ban, there is no Frank Lampard. Without Lampard, there is probably no Chelsea start for the famous four that kickstarted what was meant to be the Cobham revolution. The chance for youngsters to find a way through and into the first team.
There hasn't been a single minute of league action given to a teenager since Lampard left, though. Abraham and Tomori have been sold, Tino Livramento, the star of his academy team, has gone, as has Lewis Bate, another youth gem. Add Marc Guehi to the list, and you're creating quite a team of players - more of that later.
For a club that has produced players with so much talent, not enough of it is being cultivated at Stamford Bridge. The simple reason is that it is easier to spend £20m (often more) on so-called established players than wait for young players to develop. The issue with this is that Sarri and Antonio Conte, who weren't keen on offering chances to youth, finished third and fifth respectively in the seasons 2017/18 and 18/19, nowhere near challenging for the title.
Since then, with youth used more, there has been a fourth-placed finished (under a transfer ban), another fourth-placed finish (and a Champions League), and a third-placed finish. Despite having four, at minimum at times, Cobham graduates in the side, Chelsea's league position has remained. So an argument for not wanting to relinquish any short-term pain because the club might drop out of the top four seems strange.
Another commonly used statement is that Chelsea scraping to fourth isn't and wasn't good enough, but since 2019, Mount and James have won the Champions League, played in six tournament finals and an international final, whilst Mount won back-to-back player of the year awards at the club. These are high standards for a club still trying to repair years of mismanagement.
Abraham has gone to Italy under the tutelage of Jose Mourinho, previously heralded for his own issues in using youth players, and scored 26 goals in one season, regaining a spot in the England squad. Tomori has won Serie A and been in an England squad. Livramento was on track for an international call-up before his injury curtailed the season. Guehi is now an England international as well, captaining his newly Crytal Palace side in his debut season in the Premier League. This doesn't even touch on the mistake of letting Declan Rice and Jamal Musiala leave too early, falling short of playing Jeremie Boga enough and selling Nathan Ake.
The issue with many players is a lack of trust in key parts of their careers. There is always a chance that they will develop after the age of 23, but by keeping them sidelined in their late teens and stunting development, it's tough for them to grow. There needs to be patience. That word is forever banned from the corridors of Cobham and Stamford Bridge, though.
For a group of players that were judged not good enough to get Chelsea a top four spot, at minimum, they've done very well for themselves. And now the buyback clauses look to be a decent valuation of where Chelsea might have had them. Abraham can be rebought for £67m, Livramento £30m and Guehi is available for whatever price Palace might agree with another club. Chelsea are seriously considering spending north of £40m on Ake. As for Rice, he would be the most expensive of the lot.
As much as buying them back might look good, they were still Cobham players originally. Remember, the business sense simply isn't there. By purchasing Ross Barkley or Davide Zappacosta, Tiemoue Bakayoko, Kennedy or Danny Drinkwater even, these are players for £30m, or thereabouts, that simply maintain the squad. Hand similar rotation roles to the younger players coming through at an early age, and the manager can look at his youngsters, build them in a way they like and get more than a pre-season look at them.
This isn't a system that works with the hire-fire attitude of the Roman Abramovich era, but it's something fans would hope that Todd Boehly's American model might include.
This brings us to the latest academy player to be given a chance, or not so much. The news that Levi Colwill might be permanently moved on by Chelsea was a shock, but maybe it shouldn't have been. It doesn't seem to matter what a player's potential is at Chelsea because unless they are first-team quality straight away, the club aren't interested. Even Tuchel, who has shown an overreliance on experience at Chelsea, doesn't seem interested.
Colwill is a player that is arguably the best centre-backs to come from the club since John Terry. He's had a loan spell, his first taste of men's football, that rivals James' Wigan season and Mount's term with Derby. He has more pedigree than Tomori did before his debut. The 19-year-old is more qualified than Armando Broja was in senior football before his debut against Southampton.
Chelsea's continued insistence that they can't give enough minutes to the younger generation coming through at the club remains flawed as long as Malang Sarr, Ross Barkley and Kennedy are earning positions on the bench. These are senior players on large wages that offer little in the long run. Giving Broja or Ian Maatsen, who looks set to leave on loan for Burnley, the same opportunities as genuine senior players are offered would see a marked difference in the sustainability of the club.
Although things can change, and Colwill as the latest example might still remain, this is the time for Tuchel to make a bold statement to Harvey Vale or Xavier Simmons, along with the rest of the emerging talent. It's time to show them the way through. It's not meant to be easy or straightforward, but the best should still be Chelsea players before they are sold too soon.
Here is a team, and some extras, that could be made up of players to come through the Cobham academy. The fact that other developed Premier League and Champions League players are being left out should count as a further example of the head-scratching use of such a valuable asset.
Chelsea's Cobham XI (4-3-3): Nathan Baxter; Reece James, Fikayo Tomori, Marc Guehi, Nathan Ake; Declan Rice, Mason Mount, Conor Gallagher; Callum Hudson-Odoi, Jeremie Boga, Tammy Abraham
Honourable mentions: Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Dominic Solanke, Levi Colwill, Ian Maatsen, Andreas Christensen, Jamal Musiala, Armando Broja, Billy Gilmour, Ethan Ampadu
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