Chelsea famously won seven of nine FA Youth Cups between 2009 and 2018, which led to widespread complaints their talented youngsters weren’t getting a chance.
That’s all changed in recent years, with Mason Mount the poster boy for the Blues academy. The midfielder made his final Chelsea Under-23s appearance in a 2-1 defeat to Derby County in May 2017.
After loan spells at Vitesse and Derby, Mount has become an established first-team regular at Stamford Bridge but what happened to his former Under-23 team-mates? We’ve taken a look at that Xl to see how they’ve all fared since.
GK: Bradley Collins
Collins, who joined Chelsea aged 12, won a host of trophies at youth level but that wasn’t enough to earn him a first-team appearance.
Despite impressing on loan at Forest Green Rovers and Burton Albion, the goalkeeper was released by the Blues at the end of 2018-19.
He then joined Barnsley on a free transfer and played against his former club in the League Cup in September 2020, conceding six goals at Stamford Bridge.
RB: Dujon Sterling
Sterling made two senior appearances under Antonio Conte in 2017-18 before enjoying a productive loan spell at Coventry City in League One.
A torn hamstring and a serious illness halted the right-back’s progress in 2020 and, after further loan spells at Wigan and Blackpool, he’s now back playing for Chelsea’s Under-23s.
CB: Trevoh Chalobah
The brother of Watford midfielder Nathaniel Chalobah, Trevoh had something of a breakout 2021-22 season and made 30 appearances in all competitions.
Previous loan spells at Ipswich, Huddersfield and Lorient had prepared the defender for the rigour of first-team football at Stamford Bridge and Chalobah slotted in well to Thomas Tuchel’s preferred three-man defence.
“He is a player despite being so young who plays like an experienced professional and that makes me really happy because I’m there alongside him playing the same position and I can see how he’s performing, how he’s developing,” Thiago Silva said in November 2021.
“A player like Trevoh Chalobah is the future of this club.”
CB: Richard Nartey (Joseph Colley, 63)
An FA Youth Cup winner in 2017, Nartey never broke into the first-team squad at Chelsea and was released at the end of 2019-20.
“I wasn’t sad at all,” Nartey told The Athletic. “Chelsea helped me to get where I am but I want to go out and be in the football world myself, to show I can start for a team as a member of a squad, not…
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