Why Chelsea's academy has been saved by victory over Tottenham
Cameron Smith
- 8 May 2022 18:48 BST
- 4 min read
Chelsea's academy has long been considered one of the very best in world football.
It holds that reputation for good reason as well. Although the Blues rarely produced much talent from the Cobham academy following John Terry's progression into the first-team, over the past few years things have really ramped up.
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The transfer ban suffered in 2019 allowed Frank Lampard to finally give youth a chance, and the players involved certainly took their chance.
Mason Mount and Reece James are the shining light from those who Lampard gave a chance, but Tammy Abraham and Fikayo Tomori are both crushing it in Serie A, while Callum Hudson-Odoi and Ruben Loftus-Cheek, who were promoted into the first-team before Lampard arrived, are both first-team regulars.
Chelsea's success in producing top class academy players cane be demonstrated by their FA Youth Cup domination during the 2010s. The Blues have won the competition nine times, second only to Manchester United, with seven of those wins coming between 2010 and 2018.
That era was Chelsea's era in academy terms, and no club even came close.
In fact, their talent production level is clearly seen by their Academy Player of the Year winners. The award was introduced in 2015, with Dominic Solanke, who has helped Bournemouth to promotion with 29 goals in the Championship this season, the first winner.
Since then: Tomori, Mount, James, Conor Gallagher, Billy Gilmour and Valentino Livramento have won the prize, which is a monumentally impressive list.
The likes of Lewis Hall and Harvey Vale are in the current crop of youngsters and have both already made their mark on the first-team squad.
However, disaster nearly struck for the U23 this season. For such a strong academy, the Premier League 2 side had an incredibly poor season.
How Chelsea's academy saved themselves
Languishing near the bottom all year, Chelsea needed to beat Tottenham on the final day of the season to avoid relegation to the second tier of U23 football. Chelsea are used to winning things in youth football, not relegation, so dropping down a division would've confirmed the drop off the academy has suffered in the past couple of years.
The Blues were 1-0 down until the final stages, and it took late goals from Dion Rankine and Joe Haigh to secure a vital 2-1 win and confirm their status in the top division of U23 football.
Their form has gone under the radar this season, with Chelsea's academy constantly praised for their work producing the likes of Mount and James, but it hasn't been smooth-sailing.
In fact, Trevoh Chalobah and Malang Sarr both dropped down from the senior team and were included in the starting XI, as was Mason Burstow who was signed from Charlton in January.
Tuchel, Kai Havertz, Timo Werner, Thiago Silva and countless others from the first-team set-up were in attendance, knowing the importance of the result.
Chelsea are known for their academy and Todd Boehly, who is expected to takeover the club in late May, has promised to invest heavily into the youth teams, so relegation would've been so costly.
The Blues would no longer have been seen as one of the elite academies and players may have even pushed for a move to a team in the top league.
Counting on senior players to ensure results is not what Chelsea need, but for now the academy's reputation has been saved.
Furthermore, the U18 side won the Premier League Cup against Fulham, so there's hope for a brighter future than a bleak one staring down the barrel of relegation as has been the case this time around.
