Is Chelsea’s focus on youth and squad churn harming their ability to compete?
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6661949/2025/09/29/Chelsea-squad-age-churn-recruitment-analysis/
It has been more than 30 years since the legendary Liverpool centre-back turned pundit Alan Hansen uttered six words that continue to resonate with football fans today.
And though the Scotsman’s claim — “you can’t win anything with kids” — has been repeatedly challenged in the seasons since, the idea that competitive sides require a healthy balance of youth and proven experience continues to hold weight when it comes to building Premier League squads.
Chelsea have not stuck to that line of thinking since the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital consortium took over the club in 2022. There has been more than £1.5billion ($2bn) of investment into the squad in transfer fees alone, with 36 of the 48 permanent signings made aged 23 or below since the deal was struck.
It means the potential at Enzo Maresca’s disposal is frightening, but there have already been games this season in which his side have looked a little overawed and undercooked for the gruelling schedule to come.
“In terms of experience between them and us, I think there was a huge difference,” admitted the Italian after the recent 3-1 defeat to Bayern Munich, in which his opponents boasted more than seven times the Champions League appearances of the 23 players in his squad.
Even after an uncomfortable Carabao Cup win against third-tier Lincoln City, Maresca pointed out some of his players have not yet been exposed to the physicality and intensity of English football.
“Jamie Gittens had never played against a League One side. Jorrel Hato had never played this kind of game before,” said the manager, cooped up in the cosy press room at the Sincil Bank stadium. “We need this experience. We need it.”
On Saturday, they lost 3-1 against Brighton & Hove Albion — giving them two wins, two draws and two defeats from their opening six Premier League games.
There are tactical issues for Maresca to iron out and key injuries to account for too. But there is also a distinct feeling that, despite enormous outlay in the transfer market, the constant churn of players for the future is making it difficult to lay lasting foundations for the season.
Chelsea’s squad has been drastically reshaped over the past three campaigns, with the aim of bringing in exciting, technically gifted players at an early age and giving them time to develop — sometimes on loan, other times with the first team — while contracted to the club.
That strategy is clear when tracking the average age of Chelsea’s starting XI since the turn of the century, where we can see a noticeable dip in recent years.
Chelsea’s team has been the youngest in the Premier League in each of the past three seasons, while only six of the 20 current Premier League squads, including the three promoted sides, have made fewer cumulative appearances in the competition.
That does not have to be a bad thing. Chelsea’s title-winning squad in 2004-05 was the youngest to win the Premier League in the competition’s history, while their 2024-25 side was the youngest to finish in the top five (they finished fourth). If the talent is there, and it is managed well, then there is little concrete evidence to suggest younger teams are at an inherent disadvantage over their more seasoned rivals.
But circumstances have changed over the summer for Chelsea, now competing in the Champions League rather than the Europa Conference League, who face much sterner examinations of their squad depth during midweek games. A persistent groin injury has kept the talismanic Cole Palmer out of action, while Liam Delap, Levi Colwill, Dario Essugo and Tosin Adarabioyo are also on the treatment table. This means too much responsibility has been placed on young and inexperienced shoulders in these early weeks of the season to realistically expect consistent results.
Maresca was criticised for his team selection in the 2-2 draw at Brentford, when he included the 19-year-old Hato from the start, alongside debutant Facundo Buonanotte, 20, and the out-of-form 21-year-old Gittens.
With just 22 minutes of competitive action under his belt for his new club before his maiden start, it was evident Hato was still getting to grips with his new, very specific role in this Chelsea side. The €40m-plus summer signing from Ajax was tasked with drifting into midfield and disrupting the opposition’s shape when his team-mates had the ball.
He struggled to impact the game like Marc Cucurella often does from that position, but it is difficult to blame him for playing it safe on his very first Premier League start. The Netherlands international often looked hesitant to drift too far from his prescribed position in Maresca’s highly structured system.
Jorrel Hato, 19, struggled in the 2-2 draw with Brentford (Harry Murphy/Getty Images)
Things will undoubtedly click into place, but patience is required, and that is something that has not always been afforded to Chelsea’s project players since the new owners took over.
It is not only that they are attempting to “win with kids” — which can be done in the right conditions. Chelsea are trying to win with a different set of young players every year. More stability in the market would allow them to develop more reliable depth across the squad.
The Athletic recently looked into the impact of overhauling playing squads on performance and found that generally, the best-performing teams maintain a stronger spine of players from the previous season.
The graphic below illustrates the average “squad churn” of each team to finish in each position over the past 30 seasons. It is a metric that calculates how the share of playing minutes shifts from one season to the next, where a churn percentage of zero would mean that every player from last season played the exact same proportion of minutes. A score of 100 per cent would indicate a completely rebuilt side.
Unsurprisingly, newly promoted sides tend to experience the most turnover as they look to bridge the gap in quality between the Championship and the Premier League, but there is an interesting trend towards tighter-knit squads as the position in the table gets stronger.
Chelsea made nine permanent signings in the summer, with four teenagers joining the squad, while 16 players left the club for good. Of those who departed, 10 had joined Chelsea within the last two years.
The speed at which Chelsea are happy to replace players who have not quite clicked means that, aside from a small core, they have a constantly revolving selection of inexperienced players who have not been afforded the time to settle in.
Looking at Chelsea’s own squad churn over a similar time period, we can see they have undergone continuous upheaval across the past three years, way above the current rates that, historically, correspond to high Premier League positions.
The sheer extremity of Chelsea’s approach means that they are likely to defy precedent. No team have invested so heavily, and so frequently, in so many high-potential players across such a short period of time — wherever they finish at the end of the season, they will likely be the youngest Premier League team to do so.
There is no doubt the transfer strategy has yielded some players — from Palmer to Moises Caicedo, Colwill to Enzo Fernandez — who will drive the progress of the club for years to come. In Joao Pedro, Estevao, Kendry Paez, and Hato, they may have identified some more.
But it is also clear the current group of players lack some of the intangibles — genuine leadership, dependable consistency, and good old-fashioned knowhow — that only come from experience at the level required.
It feels like it is time to supplement the squad with proven talent, or at least give the newest recruits sufficient time before ripping up the plan and starting again next summer.
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