Chelsea's biggest flop

Since Abramovich took over the club in 2003, the infrastructure of the club was in desperate need of fixing, the Harlington training ground was badly out of date and was light years behind the likes of Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool. In 2004, Chelsea recieved planning permission to build a new training facility on a 140-acre site in Cobham, Surrey. The first team moved in during the 2005 season, however the complex was not official opened until 2007, while the final phase, and the one I will be looking at more closely, did not finish until 2008, the academy and community pavillion for for Chelsea's youth teams and football in the community projects.

Chelsea has never been a club that has brought players through it's academy, yes we have brought through some great players like Peter Osgood, Bobby Tambling, Graeme Le Saux and current captain John Terry, but the list is nothing like the ones boasted by the likes of West Ham and Manchester United. And since Abramovich invested his oil money into the club, the progress of youth team players has been stunted even further, because managers can go into the transfer market and buy ready made players without having the trouble of trying to bleed a youngster into the team.

Since the move to Cobham in 2008, the clubs reserve and academy teams have had success, last season the reserves won the Premier League reserve league, while the academy team lifted the famous FA Youth Cup in 2010. The top goal scorer in the reserve league was Fabio Borini, a striker who has made just four appearances for Chelsea since arriving in 2007, his reward for his goalscoring form? A loan move to Swansea. The Youth Cup winning team of 2010, a team which included Jeffry Bruma and Josh McEachran, their rewards? One a loan move to Hamburg and the other gets left out of the first team all together, and for the rest of them, reserve team football is as good as it gets.

And McEachran is a very good example of the point I am trying to make, the boy clearly has talent and is good enough to make it in the Premier League, he requested a loan move to Wigan Athletic earlier this season, but the move was blocked by Chelsea because they said he featured in their first team plans, so far he has played just eight minutes of Premier League football, and is there is talk of Chelsea signing Jack Rodwell from Everton for £20 million in January.  Another is Carl Magnay, who spent five years at Chelsea in the academy and reserve team without making a single first team appearance. He decided to give up and move on, like Michael Mancienne, who spent years out of loan without even getting a glimpse of the first team. Youngsters don't want to sign for Chelsea because they know that the chances of them making it into professional first team football are so slim.
I guess the main point I am trying to make is, what's the point of having a 20 million pound state of the art training ground complex for the youth and academy teams if they have no realistic chance of joining the first team? With the Financial Fair Play rules coming into force very soon, we might not be able to go and splash £20 million on a midfielder who is only 20-years-old. Instead we might have to introduce somebody like Connor Clifford, a midfielder who was captain of the FA Youth Cup winning side and captain of the Premier League reserve league winning side into the team, but maybe then we might start seeing some value for money as far as Cobham is concerned, because right now, it's been a failure.

Chelsea Web Chat

The future Mr Chelsea?

At the age of nine Sam Hutchinson signed as a youth player for his beloved Chelsea, following in the footsteps of father Eddie, who was also on the books with the Chelsea academy.

Sam progressed through the youth set up with relative ease, graduating as a third year scholar and becoming reserve team captain in the process. Sam was to turn professional in 2006, but suffered injuries during both the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 seasons, which hindered his progress into the first team despite then manager Jose Mourinho claiming he would be a future Chelsea first team player.

Sam's breakthrough came in 2007, when he made his debut on the final game of the season against Everton and signed a new four year deal with the club.

Sam was taken on the pre-season tour to America, sadly, after just a handful of reserve team appearances Sam would face another injury that would limit his season to just six reserve team appearances.

Sam couldn't be kept down for long, back in the first team squad in early 2009, Sam would again travel with the first team to America and made appearances in pre-season friendlies against the Seattle Sounders and Club America.

Sam then got his second Chelsea appearance, coming on against local rivals Fulham in late August. A month later, and Sam got his first start for Chelsea against QPR in the Carling Cup, a game Chelsea won 1-0. Sam made his final Chelsea first team appearance in a 7-0 win over Stoke, where he assisted Frank Lampard to score the final goal.

Injury however, would get the better of Sam, as aged just 21 he decided to retire from football due to his prolonged knee injury, sustained over the previous three years. But Sam didn't leave Chelsea, he stayed working in the academy while studying Sports Science and aiming to earn coaching qualifications.

That would have been the end for Sam, you would have thought. But at the start of this season, Sam returned to the Chelsea reserve team after recovering from his knee injury, after keeping fit at the Chelsea academy while studying for his Sports Science qualification, playing 45 minutes in a 6-1 defeat to Crawley Town.

On the 3rd of October, Sam was back, captaining and playing 90 minutes in a reserve team match against Aston Villa. The knee-injury that he once thought ended his Chelsea career, was gone and yesterday Sam was offered a contract extension to stay at Chelsea for another 18 months.

The fact that Chelsea have stood by Sam even though he struggled with injury shows you how highly they rate the youngster. A few years ago he was nearly ready to step up and challenge John Terry, now he could be ready to take over from Terry, not only as a Chelsea player, but as our new Captain, Leader, Legend.