After Reece James signed a new long-term contract last week, Chelsea made a big song and dance over the fact a Cobham academy graduate had decided to commit their future to the club. It’s only now that the hierarchy have decided that the academy pipeline is a positive on the pitch, rather than only on the balance sheet.
Ever since BlueCo’s arrival and the appointment of Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley’s as co-sporting directors, Chelsea have sold on many credible first-team stars who had been at the club since they were children. Most of them left in the name of PSR needs, with academy sales counting as ‘pure profit’.
You can look at a handful of names and realise the error of Chelsea’s ways. Left-backs Lewis Hall and Ian Maatsen are probably the standouts still playing in the Premier League, but there are two instances which rankle more than others.
Mason Mount’s acrimonious exit in 2023 was complex and, to be fair, can’t fully be pinned on BlueCo. The overarching point is Mount was Chelsea through and through, one of the primary reasons why they won their second Champions League and seemed destined to play for them until the day he retired. It’s a shame more than an outrage that he is a Manchester United player.
But then there’s Conor Gallagher. Rivals Tottenham first wanted him in 2023, though he didn’t want to leave and new head coach Mauricio Pochettino didn’t want to sell him, despite Chelsea’s openness to a deal for PSR reasons. Gallagher stayed for one more year, was named a vice-captain by Pochettino, and was then put up for sale.
Gallagher had agreed to join Atletico Madrid, but they wanted to sell a player back to Chelsea as part of the arrangement. Striker Samu Aghehowa was the initial candidate, but that deal didn’t go through. Instead, the Blues brought back Joao Felix following an underwhelming loan spell in 2023. To announce Felix’s signing, Chelsea posted a clip of him at Cobham on social media with the caption, ‘Home again’. The extra slap in the face is that the Portugal international was bombed out of the squad five months later.
