Academy Weekly Review

[EskWeston 696]

Having had a week off last week there is plenty to catch up on at the Chelsea FC academy. There has been plenty of game action to catch up on. At U21 level there has been 4 games, 3 friendly games and the first league game ever as an U21 team. The first friendly was away at St Albans, it was a good performance from the boys who have kept improving during pre season and came away from this game with a 3 – 0 win, Patrick Bamford, Adam Coombes and John Swift got on the score sheet. This was followed up with another 2 games firstly against Kingstonian and then against Dundalk both finishing with the blues winning 1 – 0. So for the U21’s pre season finished and overall it was pretty successful, good results, plenty of players used and a lot to look forward to.

All that preparation led to Friday evening. The official start of the new Premier U21’s League. Manchester City were to be our first opponents, not an easy fixture at all and it finished with a 0 – 0 draw. It was good to see Chelsea youth football back at Griffin Park, the players enjoy playing in front of crowds and there were clearly plenty of young people who cannot afford to go to Stamford Bridge down there to cheer on the young blues. The team selected was also very interesting to see, the bulk of the team was the FA Youth cup winning team. Considering that team was a pretty young U18’s side last season it shows that they are an even younger U21’s side. But this is a very talented group of young players and they deserve to be pushed forward to this level to progress and become better players. The game was very good, Chelsea were dominant throughout, definitely deserved to win the game and were very unlucky not to. It was a first look at new arrival Thorgan Hazard, it is clear that the young man has a lot of ability and he showed in this game what he can do with some good skill and neat crucial passes. It will be interesting to see how he continues because he and Piazon on the flanks could be a very potent force indeed.

The U18’s finished their pre season with a mini tournament at Old Trafford playing some top opposition of the likes of Arsenal, Tottenham, Aston Villa and Manchester United. It would have been a very good test for them and set them up nicely for their start of the season, which came against Manchester City. As always with the U18’s playing at home the setting was Cobham training ground on Saturday morning, nice weather but no one could have expected the result that came. Chelsea demolished their City counterparts with a 6 – 1 win, Mitchell, Houghton, Loftus-Ceek, Boga, Colkett and Dabo scored the goals on the day in what was a very impressive win. Goalkeeper Beeney certainly played his part pulling off a number of impressive saves.

In addition to the game action there has been a number of loan moves at Chelsea. Romelu Lukaku has moved to West Brom for the season and will look to establish himself as a premier league striker getting himself his fair share of goals. Connor Clifford has joined struggling Portsmouth on an initial month’s loan which will surely be extended, he also will be looking for game time that he has been missing recently. Finally, Sam Hutchinson has made his first move away from the club with a season long loan move to Nottingham Forest, for Sam it is a big test to see how his body copes with the regular football, more so than him improving himself with game time. Hopefully he will be able to hold out and come back in a position to fight for a place in Chelsea’s first team squad.

So as far as the academy is concerned it has been a very good start to the season, the U18’s have shown what a force they can be and the U21’s have shown they are a very talented group and if they can bring the last bits together are going to be a very difficult team to overcome.

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