4 Notable takeaways from Chelsea’s winter spending spree

No, Chelsea doesn’t need to promote more youth players

This may be a bit controversial, but Chelsea is promoting just the right amount of youth players at the moment. They may not have done a good job of promoting players in the past, but they’re doing so now. Bringing players that are not good into the first team just because they expect it doesn’t benefit anyone. Conor Gallagher has gone on two Premier League loans where he played 35 games on average each season. He has still not been able to lock down a starting lineup in the senior team, until very recently, and no one can say confidently that the Blues’ best lineup with everyone fit actually includes Gallagher.

There are few players that actually deserve to come through the academy and become mainstays in the senior team, and there is nothing wrong with that. The point of a youth setup is to create competent football professionals, that are saleable for profit. If players in the academy are so good that they’d benefit the first team, even better.

Boehly’s transfer strategy has been to recruit good players that are young, if the Benoit Badiashile and Mykhailo Mudryk signings are anything to go by. Yes, Mudryk cost a considerable amount of money, but Badiashile did not, and over time these things will balance themselves out. Boehly didn’t just promote some academy players who have shown nothing to deserve it.