Academy: A short catch up

Once again it has been that time when the club football takes a back seat and international football comes into our lives no matter if we want it to or not. But as there was no blog post for a couple of weeks due to me being rather unwell and very busy plus the international break there are plenty of match highlights to catch up with and they were all uploaded last week.

First up was the U18's 5 - 0 demolition of Middlesbrough:

Next was the U19's 4 - 0 win in the UEFA Youth League against Bucharest:

Followed by a 3 - 1 win for the U18's against Southampton:

And rounded off by a 2 - 1 win for the U21's against Manchester City:

Next up at academy level will see the U18's away to Tottenham Hotspur, always a tricky fixture and that game will be tomorrow. Also on tomorrow will be the U21's in action away to Sunderland at the stadium of light will be a nice fixture for the boys. That game will be quickly followed by the next UEFA Youth League game in which the U19's will be away to Schalke on the 22nd October. So on top of the first team game tomorrow there is action across all levels of Chelsea football club to keep an eye out for.

There has been a lot of interesting stories regarding the academy coming out over the last couple of weeks with the international break, all of it from the official Chelsea website and blues news which i would recommend everyone read. It has been very interesting to hear that the U21's will take priority over the FA Youth Cup which has been a competition that Chelsea has prioritised in recent years. Now we will be looking to field our strongest team at the U21's level.

There has also been plenty of talk of bringing the youngsters through to the senior team, most recently Lewis Baker has been involved in the Capital One Cup and last season Nathan Ake saw a fair bit of game time. There has even been talk from Jose himself that we need the be looking at the next group of players to be "made in Chelsea". The idea being that there has to be a core of English players ideally from the academy to give the club its identity and with the likes of JT, Lampard and Cole coming to the end of their Chelsea life it is something the club are hoping to focus on.

I hope to do an special blog post in the next few weeks covering what the future can hold for Chelsea youngsters making their way into the first team and who those select few may be so keep and eye out for that.

Now the international break is over with things will get to normal on the this Academy report posts with full coverage of the loan players and any games played at the academy.