36 minutes ago, coombsie said:

What is clear is that Chelsea are planning for the future. With Slonina and Chukwuemeka apparently done and the pursuit of Cesare Casadei at Inter still going on, we will have three teenagers virtually ready for the First Team squad. It may be that the "pipeline" from the Academy is beginning to dry up, or that TT and the coaches are not impressed by the lads coming through. Who know? but the future is looking bright 🌞

I was thinking the same thing. Here we are raving about our academy lads, as young as our recent signings or as our rumoured targets, and yet we buy. Our own boys probably don't offer (yet) what the new kids presumably do for the first team. That is, if they're not going on loan from day 1.

8 minutes ago, Valerie said:

I was thinking the same thing. Here we are raving about our academy lads, as young as our recent signings or as our rumoured targets, and yet we buy. Our own boys probably don't offer (yet) what the new kids presumably do for the first team. That is, if they're not going on loan from day 1.

The academy has dried up a bit which is natural. We are bringing in masses of young talent at an early age and even though the work in our academy is probably very good it is a matter of luck as well how good some of them are going to be. 

Didn't one of our youth teams just almost get relegated...

51 minutes ago, coombsie said:

What is clear is that Chelsea are planning for the future. With Slonina and Chukwuemeka apparently done and the pursuit of Cesare Casadei at Inter still going on, we will have three teenagers virtually ready for the First Team squad. It may be that the "pipeline" from the Academy is beginning to dry up, or that TT and the coaches are not impressed by the lads coming through. Who know? but the future is looking bright 🌞

Looking at the make up of the current development squad, and their poor results from last season (battling relegation at their level) , you'd have to think that we've had our "class of 96" moment, and are now back to earth with a bang ... 

The academy really did have a purple patch with Mount, James, Abraham, Chalobah, Tomori, Guehi, Lamptey, Livramento, Gallagher, Broja, Colwill, etc etc

5 minutes ago, Sexyfootball said:

Looking at the make up of the current development squad, and their poor results from last season (battling relegation at their level) , you'd have to think that we've had our "class of 96" moment, and are now back to earth with a bang ... 

The academy really did have a purple patch with Mount, James, Abraham, Chalobah, Tomori, Guehi, Lamptey, Livramento, Gallagher, Broja, Colwill, etc etc

Very good point. I completely forgot how bad the academy league performances were last season.  Got used to winning the FA Youth Cup every season as seeing the players regularly on TV. I probably couldn't name one of the current crop now. There must be a reason for this ???

10 minutes ago, coombsie said:

Very good point. I completely forgot how bad the academy league performances were last season.  Got used to winning the FA Youth Cup every season as seeing the players regularly on TV. I probably couldn't name one of the current crop now. There must be a reason for this ???

We can probably pin the blame on Marina 🙂 

In all seriousness, I think you need an element of luck when you are scouting 8 year olds ... we certainly had a great crop of them from 2008-2010 or so ... maybe the pool of talent just got smaller due to growth of youth involvement in social media, online gaming, and the relative ease of access into that vs the hard slog of sports training etc etc

 

Looks a tidy player and if Tuchel wants him i'm happy. I imagine with J5, Kante, Kovacic, Gallagher all on the books still he'll have limited game time this season. More likely to see him next year when J5 and Kante depart. Good rotational player with Kovacic for when he picks up one of his 37 seasonally injuries though.

he could do what Camavinga did for Madrid

he didn't start that many games but he was very influental when he came from the bench, always bringing some new impulse to the game

4 hours ago, Sexyfootball said:

Looking at the make up of the current development squad, and their poor results from last season (battling relegation at their level) , you'd have to think that we've had our "class of 96" moment, and are now back to earth with a bang ... 

The academy really did have a purple patch with Mount, James, Abraham, Chalobah, Tomori, Guehi, Lamptey, Livramento, Gallagher, Broja, Colwill, etc etc

Also the managerial set up behind the scenes became disrupted with fisrt Jody Morris moving onwards and upwards to senior football and Joe Edwards doing the same 

13 hours ago, mwblue10 said:

Can I ask you something? I think you are one of the biggest proponents of utilizing our Academy and youth. 
 

I really don’t think that utilizing our youth more is going to result in success like you think it may. We’ve only really had two youth players who have come in and become important for the first team. Mount and James. Tammy for a little bit. To me it seems like the argument for using our Academy and youth is kind of a cop out. There’s no other big teams in the PL who are utilizing their youth. It’s all one player here and there. Everyone is buying players. In fact, I feel like I read somewhere that Chelsea utilize more of the Academy than most big teams in the PL.

I doubt that Chelsea regrets any of the sales they’ve made recently when it comes to Academy players. Even Tomori, Who has probably been the best of the bunch who have been sold, You can make the argument that he’s playing in an easier league. The same argument that people make regarding Lukaku success in Italy and his failure here.

I realize my opinion is contrarian here, but I’m totally fine selling Academy players. The trophy cabinet speaks for itself.

I'm a bit in the middle. We need to be promoting the elite ones and using the squad roles with Chalobah types but at the same time i find this bashing of the club/Tuchel for the youth policy very odd.

Which clubs with demands to win have done better than our current efforts of recent times? Outside of Pep's Barca and United's CO92 i genuinely cannot think of any in modern (Pl/CL era) times.

Nizaar claiming Chukwuemeka and Casadei are part of the long term plan to replace both Jorginho and Kante. 

4 minutes ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Nizaar claiming Chukwuemeka and Casadei are part of the long term plan to replace both Jorginho and Kante. 

I wonder what does that mean for Gilmour ? Obviously he is not good enough.

Just now, TheGermanOne said:

I wonder what does that mean for Gilmour ? Obviously he is not good enough.

Gilmour and Ruben are as good as gone once their contracts are up. 

I imagine this is our midfield in a year or two. 

 

De Jong, Kovacic, Gallagher, Chukwuemeka, Casadei

23 minutes ago, Argo said:

I'm a bit in the middle. We need to be promoting the elite ones and using the squad roles with Chalobah types but at the same time i find this bashing of the club/Tuchel for the youth policy very odd.

Which clubs with demands to win have done better than our current efforts of recent times? Outside of Pep's Barca and United's CO92 i genuinely cannot think of any in modern (Pl/CL era) times.

You make good points. I agree with you, promote and work in the elite of the elite and sell the rest. The bashing is confusing, it’s a quite solid business model - the youth are all free additions essentially and when we sell Guehi, Livramento, Tomori, etc for 20m a pop - it’s the reason our academy continues to be the best in the world.

2 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Nizaar claiming Chukwuemeka and Casadei are part of the long term plan to replace both Jorginho and Kante. 

I like that. And if you get them at that age you can hone them to the system as well.

Bit dangerous posting this in the general section when he has not signed yet. Barca are still lurking.

I don't we would have seen Mount, James, Tammy etc if it wasn't f2f the transfer embargo..

There's something about academy players that have been with us for years that I love, I think the fans are more patient with them too. Every player that we buy has been thru another clubs academy system anyway,   and we have seen some expensive rubbish over the years, don't know much about this boy but our academy kids must look at some of our First team underachieving millionaires with puzzlement sometimes.

Anyway, I'm hoping the new players are going to inject some pace and energy into our playing system, I'm certainly more positive about the future, which is usually a bad sign

Come on you BLUES !

 

22 hours ago, HazardousChoice said:

RLC isn't infront of anyone.

I'd actually say Chuk is being brought in to be what we thought RLC could be before his injuries.

He is being brought in purely because of his nationality and nothing else..

28 minutes ago, The Rising Sun said:

I don't we would have seen Mount, James, Tammy etc if it wasn't f2f the transfer embargo..

 

 

i liked Sarri 🚬 

1 hour ago, Argo said:

 

 

Lol, shame he didn't stay then, Mount playing Sarri ball would have got the fans off their seats !

1 hour ago, azpi28 said:

i liked Sarri 🚬 

Great bloke  , we're still playing in his style today !

Just now, The Rising Sun said:

Great bloke  , we're still playing in his style today !

i feel like he did really unlock something in Kanté where he contributes more in our attacking play

2 minutes ago, The Rising Sun said:

Lol, shame he didn't stay then, Mount playing Sarri ball would have got the fans off their seats !

Sarri said he identified 3 loanee's that year he wanted in his squad had he stayed. Mount and James were obviously two but not sure on the other, if pushed i'd say Tomori.

5 hours ago, mwblue10 said:

You make good points. I agree with you, promote and work in the elite of the elite and sell the rest. The bashing is confusing, it’s a quite solid business model - the youth are all free additions essentially and when we sell Guehi, Livramento, Tomori, etc for 20m a pop - it’s the reason our academy continues to be the best in the world.

Then blow £100 million on one useless player and millions on other players who don't perform  and the " business model" is wrecked. Some of those players are better then those we have brought in.

3 minutes ago, Argo said:

Sarri said he identified 3 loanee's that year he wanted in his squad had he stayed. Mount and James were obviously two but not sure on the other, if pushed i'd say Tomori.

Well fair  play to him then, I like any manager who looks to the youngsters .