Update on the future of Chelsea youth- The Chelsea youth are going to find it difficult to feature for Chelsea next season. Many of the Chelsea youngsters from the academy got into the first eleven for the Blues this season but the manager says the transfer ban helped them with respect to this. Chelsea was banned from registering new players for a couple of consecutive transfer windows for 29 incidences of breaching article 19. It is the same article that relates to the transfer of players aged under 18.
The ban however favoured the academy youths to get a break into Chelsea’s first eleven and to make a Premier League debut. Tammy Abraham, for example, was selected to be Chelsea’s number one forward ahead of Michy Batshuayi and Olivier Giroud.
That decision from the boss made him score 14 goals in all competitions for the blues but that was surely not good enough. Mason Mount and Fikayo Tomori would have gone on loan this season if Chelsea did not serve the transfer ban according to Frank Lampard.
“Would Mason have gone on loan again this year? Possibly. Probably,” Lampard told cousin Jamie Redknapp in an interview for the Daily Mail.
“Tomori definitely would. It was my decision to keep Tomori because I’d worked with him at Derby and loved his attitude.”
Lampard praises the efforts of the people behind Chelsea’s youth system and that made him took the chance of making the first-team regulars this campaign.
“The sweat, the tears, the hours that go into those prospects. Neil Bath and Jim Fraser, who has run the academy for years, but so much into it. The day we beat Wolves 5-2, Tomori got the first, Tammy scores three, then Mason scores. You want to ring them up and go, “Can we have a few pints tonight, lads?”
New signing Christian Pulisic had to find it hard to get into Lampard’s first eleven earlier in the season, but since he got that momentum, he proved himself to be a first-team quality. The young American was involved in 10 goals having scored 5 times including a brilliant perfect hat-trick. Since the New Year’s Day, injuries kept him out of the squad but now he is fit again. Ruben Loftus-Cheek, on the other hand, had a season break really with injuries and he is yet to make an appearance for Chelsea under Lampard. Callum Hudson-Odoi also has been in and out with some inconsistent performances and recently he was tested positive for Coronavirus, but now he is recovered.
These stories suggest that next season is going to be a critical one for Lampard to make a decision on which players he is ready to keep. Chelsea has promised Lampard a big £200m pounds transfer kitty for this summer to reshape his team and make it a threat again. The blues have had a very average season to their standards and they are sitting at fourth in the Premier League table. The only hope for the silverware is the FA Cup where they have reached the quarter-finals and will face Leicester city away once the season starts again.
