Is Chelsea’s youth policy finally changing? The future of club and country

Long and short term plans

Roman Abramovich wanted instant success, so he bought a lot of big players. His project for long-term success, however, was built on the idea that players would come through from the incredible new academy setup. Sadly no manager has lasted long enough to be able to implement any long-term, club-wide strategy.

The club demands instant success, and managers have been too focused on winning games short-term to look at the long-term. This is compounded by the fact that each new manager has his own ideas.

He plays a different system and wants different players, which leads to a high turnover. Gary Cahill is the only surviving player from the Champions League triumph of 2012 and he was only bought six months before it.

The ex-managers are not to blame. The pressure from the board and owner for short-term success has been far too great to be able to foster long-term success. Youth players highly rated by one manager are considered surplus to requirements by the next. The most famous example of this in recent years was Josh McEachran. Under Carlo Ancelotti in 2010 and 2011 McEachran thrived, only to be squeezed out by Andre Villas-Boas in 2012. His career never recovered.

In the absence of a long-term plan, Chelsea has been forced to sell the players that each manager has deemed not good enough for the club. This is why it looks like an incredibly cynical setup that is built on profit-making and little else.