they’ve been doing that for over a decade and selling off their talents for smaller sums in large quantities to pay off some of the spend they do on first team mainstays. one of the many benefits of having a rich owner dump money on your club, you can set up systems like that.
As shammy says, we do ok in that dept too.
Yeah, this.
Roman was really a visionary in this regard. They invested hugely in Cobham soon after he arrived and there was a period when they just clearly had the best facilities and were spending the most to woo all the top youngsters at very early ages. Most of these players started at Chelsea between 2005 and 2010, when nobody else was really competing on the same playing field as Chelsea for these very young kids. Eventually City, United, and Arsenal all also made big investments in their academy programs so we should see a lot more equality eventually. But being the first mover has paid off hugely for Chelsea.
Credit belongs to Emenalo
Could you make a decent starting 11 out of them names? I can’t see a goalkeeper there?
Did a very good job before he was run out of town by Maria
Just put Musiala in for Bertrand Traore
Chelsea will go big for Rice in the summer surely
Where would he play?
United makes more sense.
I’d make space for him personally.
Kova and Kante is good but I’d like Rice in there for one of them even though they have both been good for Chelsea
I don’t think he’s better than either.
I don’t see DM as a need for Chelsea, perhaps they see differently though.
This rhetoric is starting to make me think that you’re OA’s undercover Chelsea fan, if anyone is.
Cobham can go fuck itself. Not hard to have a good youth team when you throw Russian petro-dollars at it just like you do everything else.
Dickheads snubbed ESR showing they don’t know fuck
Chelsea Chelsea Chelsea!!!
Chelsea Chelsea Chelsea Chelsea Chelsea Chelsea Chelsea Chelsea Chelsea Chelsea Chelsea
How many youth players have they bought, and loaned out? I recall it was in the hundreds at one point.
They haven’t won anything because of youth. Nobody does.
Better just acknowledging that and not building teams or hopes on it anywhere.
Nothing to see. Just buy as good a set of players as you can at the rate you can afford.
No, but their youth policy is a good revenue stream.
They also buy smart, for the most part. Identify where they are weak, and buy a world class player to fill that spot. It’s not rocket science.
They don’t win because of their youth set up sure but it certainly helps them plug holes in their squad and throw gratuitous sums of money at other areas
It does reduce their net spend but they have plenty of poor signings.
Drinkwater, Morata, Bakayoko, Kepa (lol), Batshuayi and more are flops.
Werner looks a flop at £47mil and jury is still out on Havertz who looks underwhelming and cost £75mil and Pulisic who cost £58mil is always injured and inconsistent too.
Since the start of the season I’ve maintained that they won’t win the league and much of it is due to poor recruitment.
Barkley is a flop too.
True, they signed him for cheap. Maybe they break even.