Just recently, Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho has expressed his desire to provide future first team opportunities for a trio of youngsters from the Blues triumphant FA Youth Cup side.
Isaiah Brown, 18, Dominic Solanke, 17, and Ruben Loftus-Cheek,19, have all been groomed as first team members in Mourinho’s squad for next season.
“Next season, Ruben will not be a kid in the development process. He will be a first-team player, absolutely ready to play and compete. And we will do the same with two or three or four players,” Mourinho said in the Daily Mail.
“From that team that won the UEFA Youth League, four belong to my squad. Four are my players, first-team players who train with the first-team every day and develop with the first-team.”
It is the fourth time in six years Chelsea has taken out the FA Youth Cup, on top of also claiming the UEFA Youth Cup competition.
One of the interesting onlookers at that Youth Cup final was owner Roman Abramovich, who is rarely seen besides on match day sitting outside his lavish executive box at Stamford Bridge.
Both Mourinho and Abramovich are fixated on short-term success and quick fixes, hence the club’s reluctance to promote its prodigious young talent into first team calculations.
With an abundance of quality youth at its disposal, the club has still felt the need to splash considerable fees on youth from across the continent, including the likes of Eden Hazard, Oscar, Romelu Lukaku, Kevin De Bruyne, Marko Marin, Marco Van Ginkel, Mohammed Salah and Victor Moses.
With the exception of Hazard and Oscar, the rest have flattered to deceive, either loaned out or sold, along with promising youth product’s from yesteryear including Josh McEachran, Gael Kakuta and Jeffrey Bruma.
McEachran was touted as one of the next big things in English football, receiving glowing praise from former Chelsea assistant Ray Wilkins, comparing him to Arsenal and Juventus great Liam Brady.
The Englishman, who is now 22, has been loaned out to a staggering five clubs in the past two seasons, and has completely lost his way after signing a five-year deal with the club back in 2011.
He is now plying his trade for Chelsea’s feeder club Vitesse in the Eredivise.
During the Blues’ 2015 League Cup campaign, Mourinho continued to go with his regular first team members, with Nathan Ake the only youth player to feature during the competition, making just the solitary appearance.
The League Cup has been used as the breeding ground for young players by a number clubs, providing them with valuable exposure as they look to find their feet at the highest level, especially during the earlier rounds.
Of the current squad, John Terry is the club’s sole youth graduate while 26 players under the age of 25 are currently out on loan, which is an incredibly high amount of loanees for one club to have on its books.
Loftus-Cheek made his first team debut at the weekend and held his own in the middle of the park, completing 100% of his passes, after impressing immensely for the Chelsea youth team this term.
The question is, will Mourinho be bold enough to thrust a young player into a Premier League match in a crucial period of a season?
While Mourinho’s attention to detail and tactical nous is remarkable, his obsession with personal success will always inhibit the need to promote youth from within a club.
And especially after Chelsea has just been crowned champions of England, there is absolutely no way he will want this dominance to end.
Jose will never get sick of winning. As a manager, that is a wonderful trait to have and something he has prided himself on at all the clubs he has managed down the years.
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Remembering also that it was indeed Abramovich who sacked Mourinho back in 2007, and it is certain that sour ending still sits in the back of the 52-year old’s mind, knowing only a constant stream of success will ensure he remains employed at the club, regardless of his urge for ‘stability’ at the club.
Mourinho, Abramovich and the word ‘stability’ will never go hand-in-hand for as long as the two are involved in football.
It is likely that Mourinho and Abramovich will look to add proven quality this summer to strengthen their quest of defending the title next season.
What does that mean for Chelsea’s current crop of youth starlets?
Knowing the track record of Mourinho, you would be taking his comments with a generous pinch of salt.
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