State of the Chelsea youth revolution: Breaking the barriers down

Three, maybe four, players have succeeded at breaking the barrier to the first team down in Chelsea’s youth revolution. Who has broken through?

In hindsight, it is kind of crazy that several players were on loan in the Championship one season, and they were starting in the Champions League for Chelsea the next. In was one part desperate times, one part overdue. Players like Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Andreas Christensen had put chinks into the barrier from the academy to the first team, but they never truly shattered it.

Maybe that would have remained the case without the transfer ban. Chelsea wouldn’t have had to turn to a manager who would play the youth and restore the “Chelsea way”, though the latter was still sorely needed. They wouldn’t have had to use players from the second division in the biggest competition in Europe. But the ban did happen, and Frank Lampard came in to restore Chelsea to something he remembered. And with the help of three youth in particular, he shattered the barrier between the first team and the youth system and showed that these youngsters could very much be a part of one of Europe’s biggest clubs.

Tammy Abraham was plying his trade at then Championship Aston Villa. He had unsuccessfully had a Premier League stint at Swansea. Reece James was on his first ever professional season at Wigan. Finally, Mason Mount had departed Vitesse for a tutorship with Lampard at Derby County. Neither likely knew where they would be just a year later.

All three were great Championship players, but many young players had been great Championship players before. They never got their chances at Chelsea and without the ban that would have stayed the same. Abraham was likely to transfer to a Premier League club. Mount would have probably gotten a Premier League loan. James would probably have gone to a better Championship side on loan. But that isn’t how their story unfolded.

Lampard helped smash the barrier for these three, but really all he did was all that ever had to be done; he gave them a chance to break the barrier themselves. It was likely always the case that surrounding talented young players with better players would make them better too. That is why it was never worth looking at Abraham’s loan at Swansea as a failure. He was surrounded by some of the league’s worst (at the time) players that season. At Chelsea, he, Mount, and James would have a much higher quality teammate.

When given the chances, they took them. It wasn’t always perfect or pretty, but half of being willing to play youth when other options are available is a willingness to push through those bumps in the road. Now in their second season, these three are all key figures to the Chelsea team.

But this is about the barrier being broken, which means they had to have been joined by someone completely off the radar before. Enter one Billy Gilmour. It would have been nearly unheard of for an academy player of any amount of talent to be starting against Liverpool when there were other options available before 2019/2020. But because those other three broke the barrier, Gilmour was given the chance and he took it with both hands. While it may be too early to say Gilmour is truly a first team player, it is also certain that he won’t be playing for the academy long term again any time soon. His story is still on part one, but by all evidence it is going to be as successful as Abraham’s, Mount’s, and James’.

The question now is not when will the next Chelsea youngster break through, but who breaks through next. This year is a little weird with bringing players in due to Covid, but you best believe Lampard already has an idea as to who will be given their chance to impress next.