A youth exodus at Chelsea has been on the cards for years

The Chelsea fanbase is one of the most divided and hostile on social media nowadays. There are different factions of supporters on the internet, each one choosing to die on their own unique hills. Of course, this is nothing new—the Mason Mount haters and Maurizio Sarri fanatics have been around for years, bickering over petty [redacted] like rival families in a popular Shakespearean play—but there has been a hot topic on the social streets that many of these groups are agreeing on recently: the future of the Blues’ youth.

The past few seasons have seen a lot of Chelsea academy graduates depart and go on to become successful players at other, usually English, clubs. This particular period of youngsters leaving west London to pursue other opportunities has seen talented individuals, such as Tammy Abraham, Marc Guehi, Tariq Lamptey, Tino Livramento and Fikayo Tomori, all exit in favor of playing time elsewhere. As rumors regarding the futures of Armando Broja, Levi Colwill and Billy Gilmour begin to circulate, it’s time to address the elephant in the room: the fact that this so-called youth exodus has been brewing for years.

Chelsea’s youth exodus was seemingly inevitable over the last few seasons

Young Chelsea players banking on their abilities and taking their talent elsewhere for the sake of development is not a new concept. Dominic Solanke and Jamal Musiala most famously denied the opportunity to remain with the Blues as they prioritized their own careers just a number of years ago. While those two have had totally different developmental stories since the day they left SW6, they set a precedent for the next wave of talented Chelsea academy graduates.

Solanke and Musiala are seen as trend setters in west London, but players taking matters into their own hands and prioritizing playing time over anything else is not a concept unique to the Blues. Anybody even remotely familiar with American college athletics knows the business all too well. The NCAA—the governing body of college athletics in the United States—has seen a spike in players entering the “transfer portal” over the last few seasons. It’s a trend unique to the newer generations as the reality has started to set in that sports careers don’t last forever. Players are no longer content with waiting for their opportunities to break into their respective starting lineups.

FIFA’s updated loan restrictions aren’t doing the Blues any favors throughout this process either. Chelsea’s famous, or infamous, depending on your view, loan army can now be classified as a small militia due to these new policies. The Blues have been a lot more strict about which players they hang onto nowadays, but even then, the prospect of being stuck in a seemingly endless loan cycle naturally does not appear to many. Athletes no longer put their club’s needs before their own, nor should they be expected to. Thus, instead of waiting around for an opportunity, a lot of young Chelsea players are now using loans as an opportunity to scout future destinations.

At the end of the day, not every player who graduates from Cobham will become a success story with the Blues. Trevoh Chalobah, Reece James, Mount and others are seen as the lucky ones. They’re the exceptions, not the standard. The writing has been on the walls for years now.

The Chelsea academy has arguably produced the most talented group of prospects in football over the last decade—aside from perhaps Barcelona‘s La Masia academy—so it’s understandable that not every player will make it. Scouting young footballers is one of the most unpredictable tasks in the world of sport, so each player that makes it big is seen as a success to those who taught them, bonus plaudits come in when the individuals play for the club that brought them up.

When everything is said and done, some of the Cobham graduates will inevitably move on and begin life/a career elsewhere. It’s impossible for any team to retain every youngster it develops, especially at a club as big as Chelsea. The Blues need to continue to focus on prioritizing the academy as a useful tool for the first team and let the rest of the cards fall where they may.

Which young player(s) would you like to see the Blues retain? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter!