Chelsea are renowned for their youth talent spotting, and though they are equally known for loaning lots of these players out rather than making use of them themselves, that has started to change.
Recent years have seen some of their academy graduates make the step up to the first team, or make the grade elsewhere. Which should give hope to their latest crop of young starlets looking to break through.
Here’s how their eight previous Academy Players of the Year have fared since earning the honour.
2015: Dominic Solanke
The striker was awarded the inaugural Chelsea Academy Player of the Year award after scoring 41 goals during the 2014-15 season, when he also made his debut for the first team as a late substitute in a 6-0 win over Maribor in the Champions League.
He spent the next season on loan at Vitesse and finished as their third-highest goalscorer with seven goals from 25 games, returning to Stamford Bridge to fight for a place in 2016-17 only to fail to make a single first-team appearance all season.
He joined Liverpool at the end of his contract in 2017 but scored only once in 27 games before somehow being sold to Bournemouth for a reported £19million.
Solanke scored just three goals in 42 Premier League appearances for the Cherries, but seems to have found his feet since their relegation, registering 29 Championship goals last term to fire them back to the Premier League.
2016: Fikayo Tomori
Tomori won the award after scoring in the Youth Cup and UEFA Youth League final wins in 2015-16, making his first-team debut as a 60th-minute substitute in the final game of that season.
He didn’t play again for the first team in the first half of the following campaign and so joined Brighton in January 2017, making 10 appearances, before consecutive season-long loan spells at Hull and Derby.
The second of those was particularly productive under Frank Lampard, and when the Chelsea legend returned to Stamford Bridge as manager in 2019, he decided to keep Tomori around, with the defender scoring twice in 22 appearances in 2019-20.
However, Tomori seemed to fall down the pecking order following the arrival of Thiago Silva and he was subsequently loaned out to AC Milan for the latter half of the 2020-21 campaign. He subsequently moved to the San Siro for £25million and was outstanding as they won the Scudetto last term.
READ: All hail Fikayo Tomori, Milan’s Serie A campione and England’s best CB
2017: Mason Mount
Mount captained the Youth Cup side…
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