http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2937796/It-s-not-quite-Jody-Morris-cleaning-Dennis-Wise-s-boots-Chelsea-filling-youth-teams-local-heroes.html

Interesting point that the academy is mostly made up of local English players now rather than overseas imports like we saw when the likes of Stoch, Piazon, De Santo etc were turning out for reserves. 

 

Could be that because of the need to have a homegrown contingent in the first squad in the Premier League there is more focus on the academy being a means to help acquire those players? 

Great article, nice to see some good press for a change. I really do think we're in a new era at Chelsea where we will see these youth players start coming through.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2937796/It-s-not-quite-Jody-Morris-cleaning-Dennis-Wise-s-boots-Chelsea-filling-youth-teams-local-heroes.html

 

Shame it's not in the mainstream media and the agenda against us continues. 

 

Ashton is a decent journo and whatever you think about him, he does tend to get a lot of stuff about is fairly correct (more than others at least).

 

As the youth setup goes I do think we're at a crossroads where we have enough of a stable platform to start integrating youngsters, and once we start doing that then maybe we can use phrases like 'conveyor belt of talent' with some regularity.

 

What I will say is that we have a fantastic youth team who play some incredible football and are all brought up to play 'the Chelsea/Mourinho way'.

Great article, nice to see some good press for a change. I really do think we're in a new era at Chelsea where we will see these youth players start coming through.

 

I really, really hope so. We have so many promising youth players. But I doubt we'll see it happen. It's encouraging to see Ake, Christensen and RLC in our 1st team squad but when it comes down to it, we usually just jettison youth. See: Ryan Bertrand. Some say he was not good enough but to be honest I haven't seen great shakes from Luis yet either.

I really like that they're getting an education too, and also going back to the old school ways of performing tasks like cleaning dressing room and equipment to keep them grounded. I just automatically assumed that most club's academy players just play football, go home and have growing egos just like a lot of first team players, so it's nice to hear what really goes on. Another great thing is educating them for life after football, and gaining sufficient knowledge on drug abuse etc. I truly think we have a great bunch of youngsters at chelsea, so hopefully they develop as we hope.