Finally Chelsea has a manager who is giving Chelsea’s academy kids an opportunity in the first team.
Chelsea’s youth teams have won a host of trophies in the last five to six years with plenty of young players emerging from the youth team but failing to get the opportunities. Nathaniel Chalobah, Dominic Solanke, Izzy Brown are some of the names that come to mind.
Frank Lampard has taken over as the manager of Chelsea and has placed his faith in the Chelsea academy products, although how much that has to do with Chelsea unable to sign players due to transfer ban we will know soon enough.
Chelsea has appealed their transfer ban to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and the ban is likely to be uplifted. If the ban is uplifted Chelsea will be able to sign players in the January transfer window.
But many Chelsea fans might feel that Chelsea does not need to sign players with the academy graduates taking their opportunities.
All eleven of Chelsea’s Premier League goals have been scored by academy graduates this season. Tammy Abraham has 7, Mason Mount 3 and Fikayo Tomori has 1 that being the screamer he scored against Wolves.
After initial doubts Tammy Abraham is finally looking the part as Chelsea’s number one striker, the 21-year-old now has seven goals in his last three Premier League appearances including a hattrick against Wolves last Saturday, his manager Lampard praised Abraham after the match but also warned him,
“Tammy is [looking the part] and that’s work, having gone out on loan and scoring a lot of goals in the Championship, having a year in the Premier League and now I think he feels the responsibility of the Chelsea shirt as he should. The last three games speak for themselves.
“The only challenge for Tammy now is can he keep doing it? Can he get better and better because the way he’s playing, he’s a huge threat for our attack upfront and there is competition within from [Olivier] Giroud and [Michy] Batshuayi so he needs to keep it at that level and get even better.
Tammy Abraham in recent games has shown an element to his game that was probably not seen before, Abraham has been good with his hold up play and has even dropped deep to receive the ball, Abraham, of course, has the pace to run in behind defenders as seen when he skipped past the defender to score his third goal against Wolves.
Chelsea has been linked with plenty of strikers in the past but with Tammy Abraham banging in the goals Chelsea may not need to spend big to sign a new striker.
Mason Mount has won the battle to play the attacking midfielder role against Ross Barkley with some brilliant performances. The England international looks like the second coming of Frank Lampard, he is a brilliant finisher and has bundles of energy often leading the press in the opposition area.
With fellow academy graduate, Ruben Loftus-Cheek to come back from injury Chelsea are well stocked in the attacking midfield position and are unlikely to sign players to play in that position.
Chelsea’s main issue this season has been their defense with Chelsea conceding a whopping 13 goals in five Premier League games, if there is an area the club will want to strengthen in the January transfer window then it will be in defense but that will likely stunt the progress of academy products Andreas Christensen and Reece James. Antonio Rudiger is the first choice center-back at the club and if Chelsea signs another center-back then he will most likely line up alongside Rudiger, ushering Christensen out of the team. Reece James is one for the future and signing another right-back will limit his opportunities in the first team.
Chelsea can still sign players to strengthen the team but the club should be mindful of not stunting the progress the academy graduates have made since Lampard took over as the manager.
