Academy Report: More loans confirmed

It is international break in the world of football at the moment but there are still a few things to bring ourselves up to date with Chelsea's academy especially since the transfer has officially (thankfully) passed.

Going back to last Saturday though and the U18's were in action away to Everton. It turned out to be a frustrating day for the young blues as sloppy defending, a red card for Fankaty Dabo and missed chances saw Chelsea slip to a 3 - 2 defeat. Viveash was frustrated with the result but pointed out that we have had to play 3 games close together and also fielded a younger side so there is plenty to take away from the game. It was Dabo and Kasey Palmer who scored the goals on the day and it was also good to see more minutes for Jordan Houghton who is recovering from a long injury.

 Moving on swiftly to the transfer activity and there was a new arrival at the Bridge but one that has immediately joined the ranks of young players out on loan and that is Christian Atsu who has joined from Porto. Atsu is a 21 year old Ghana international who plays as a winger or as a second striker. An intriguing prospect he is also a player that has had question marks raised over his temperament, but confidence is something that the young man does not lack. He has immediately gone over to Holland to join Chelsea's friends at Vitesse Arnhem there he joins up with Patrick Van Aanholt, Gael Kakuta, Lucas Piazon, Christian Cuevas and also now having also made the move this week after some speculation Sam Hutchinson.

As i am sure you will know Sam has had a torrid time with injuries even to the point of deciding to retire at one point. He returned to action last season playing at Nottingham Forest but again injuries hampered his progress. Sam will take up a position in the team that Kalas recently vacated and will hope that this season can be the one where he really does turn a corner.

At a more senior level there was also movement in the form of Victor Moses who has moved to Liverpool for the season where he will be looking to get games that he would not have got at Chelsea. Remains to be seen if he now has a long term future at Chelsea but Moses is still young and hopefully a season of football will do him good. Another player who this week moved on loan is 22 year old Mexican Ulises Davilla who has returned to the Spanish second division but this time with Cordoba. And finally we surprisingly saw Romelu Lukaku return out on loan this time however to Everton. Many people felt that Lukaku would have a big season at Chelsea this year but the descision has been made to allow him to play the maximum number of games he can and improve his game even more before taking a bigger step into Chelsea's first team.

As intriguing as the players who have gone out on loan are the players who have not. It was widely expected at the start of pre season that Nathaniel Chalobah and Josh McEachran would head out on loan to a Premier League club and despite some apparent interest those loans did not materialise. Both will be able to move on loan to the Championship shortly and i would fully expect them to as well as Billy Clifford who is looking for a new loan move after his Yeovil loan did not work out.

In loan action this week Thibaut Courtois put in another impressive display for Athletico Madrid as he also announces that he has no fear in challenging Cech for the number one spot at Chelsea next season. In the football league there was start for Sam Walker, George Saville, Milan Lalkovic and Patrick Bamford in the football league trophy mid week, Patrick Bamford bagging himself another goal. Van Aanholt and Piazon were the only Chelsea loanees to feature for Vitesse last week but i am sure that will change greatly after the international break with at least Atsu likely to feature and maybe Cuevas pushing for a spot, Hutchinson may need more fitness before starting a game. Thorgan Hazard continues to be key man for Wargarem scoring as they defeated Anderlecht. The level of loan involvement i think will step up after the break and i will do my best to keep you updated with the news on this blog.

In fixture news there was confirmation this week of the fixtures for the group stages of the UEFA Youth League competition that will run alongside the Champions League. Chelsea's group fixtures are as follows:

18.09.13 v Basel (H) 1pm
01.10.13 v Steaua Bucharest (A) 12pm
22.10.13 v Schalke (A) 2pm
05.11.13 v Schalke (H) 7pm
26.11.13 v Basel (A) 3pm
10.12.13 v Steaua Bucharest (H) 7pm

It will be interesting to see how we do in these games and hopefully Chelsea TV will be showing the group stage games live on Chelsea TV but if it is anything like the TV coverage for last seasons NextGen Series then it is unlikely we will see any live coverage until the knock out stages of the competition.

Coming up this week the U21's will be back in action on Friday at Home to Norwich which will be live on Chelsea TV, the U18's will then follow that up with a game at Cobham on Saturday against Liverpool.