Chelsea can become an attractive club for underappreciated youth

Chelsea have enough youth in the first team and in the pipeline to let the club plan for a solid future while using the transfer market for experienced, near-world-class players. However, now that they are an attractive destination for young players, they should still scoop up those few as good as than their own.

Twenty minutes into Chelsea’s game at Wolves this weekend, Mason Mount will have as many minutes in the Premier League as Phil Foden has accumulated since his debut in December 2017. In the next game against Liverpool, Tammy Abraham’s Premier League minutes for this season will probably surpass Foden’s career tally. Fikayo Tomori could be in the mix by early October, depending on Antonio Rudiger’s injury and the performances of the other centre-backs.

That’s quite remarkable for Mount, Abraham and Tomori, three players who have never been compared to Lionel Messi, unlike Phil Foden. Unless you think Pep Guardiola habitually, maybe compulsively, takes the p***, something is amiss.

After years of being rightfully scorned for their policy of developing and then neglecting some of England’s best young talent, Chelsea are becoming the Premier League’s model club for an academy-to-first team pipeline.

Not only are players like Mount, Abraham, Tomori, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Callum Hudson-Odoi connecting Cobham with Stamford Bridge, they are having a similar impact at St. George’s Park. Mount made his England debut over the weekend. Hudson-Odoi earned his first cap in March. Abraham will likely join the Three Lions for the next international break, if for no other reason than to cap tie him and end Nigeria’s last ditch pursuit.

Meanwhile, poor Phil Foden is still with England’s U21’s. Hopefully Gareth Southgate watched his two-goal game against Kosovo on Monday or his two-assist game against Turkey on Friday. Somebody at the senior level has to see what Foden is capable of, and Southgate needs to take what few opportunities he has to see the young midfielder in action.

That could be Foden’s best chance of making his way into Southgate’s squad this season. Foden’s not optimistic that Pep Guardiola watched the games, saying “it will be nice [if he did] but maybe he’s taken a little holiday to play golf or something!”

Chelsea used to have a manager like that, one who couldn’t be bothered to watch his players in international action. But they corrected that deficiency over the summer, and now have a manager who – along with his staff and a handful of players – attends Chelsea’s academy games. You can be sure Frank Lampard, Jody Morris and the rest have not missed a minute of England this break, and probably not too much of the other international games featuring their Blues.

Chelsea are suddenly an attractive destination for high talent young players. Whereas signing for Chelsea used to be a prestige contract and then a loan, joining the club now means you join the team, as well, regardless of age.

Foden will not stick around Manchester City for long if he stays on the bench while Mount, Abraham and his former teammate Jadon Sancho become stars for club and country. He will see his career stagnating at City the way careers used to stagnate in the Chelsea loan army. With City now hoarding young players and stashing them on the bench, in their academy or on loan, they really are becoming Chelsea at their worst. What better time for Foden to leave for Chelsea at their best.

Or if not Phil Foden, any number of bright prospects from around Europe. Simply as a matter of squad balance and management the Blues do not need many more young players, if any at all. Most of the best U23’s in Europe are already established in their first teams. Chelsea should not try to pry any of them away unless they are truly world-class.

But if Chelsea can spot a youngster of similar quality and potential as their own wallowing away on a bench somewhere, for the first time in years, they are an attractive outlet.

A young player who would like nothing more than to show his former coach and club what they missed out on would be a powerful weapon in the years ahead. And if that former coach is Pep Guardiola, so much the better. Chelsea could use another, younger Samuel Eto’o.