A new era at Chelsea rarely seems to be far away these days. Ownership, Directors, Head Coaches, Recruitment, Medical & Performance, Academy…the list goes on seemingly forever, but that’s the nature of the beast as we approach the start of the fourth full season of the Clearlake-Boehly regime, and this time the academy really is heading into its own fresh start after a 2024-25 campaign which will very much go into the record books as a ‘year of transition’.
It was in early July 2024, after all, that Neil Bath and Jim Fraser said their goodbyes to the club after a combined 50 years of service to not just youth development at Chelsea, but across the world. It was the first week of October that the new leadership team of Jack Francis and Glenn van der Kraan was made official, and it was really only this summer that the plans devised thereafter were fully implemented, making this new season the true beginning of an operation that carries a renewed energy and a determined focus while still striving for the same high-level goal: to be the best academy in football.
With a new coaching curriculum comes new coaches; Filipe Coelho has graduated through the BlueCo hierarchy to join Liam Rosenior’s senior coaching staff at Strasbourg after a year in charge of the Development Squad, leaving a position that has been filled by former Southampton Under-21 lead Calum McFarlane. A highly-rated practitioner who forged an early reputation at grass roots outfit Kinetic Academy, he cut his professional teeth at Manchester City and has made a positive early impression on the players he’s inherited from his Portuguese predecessor.
He’ll be joined in the Dev Squad dugout by James Simmonds, who continues in his role as Assistant Coach, and Andy Ross, who moves up after spending four years in the same capacity with the Under-18s. Bill Thompson bids farewell as goalkeeping coach, being replaced by former Milton Keynes goalkeeper David Martin, most recently on the staff at Ipswich as he transitioned into retirement. Jack Mesure, an Assistant alongside Simmonds the last three years, moves into a pathways position strategising and liaising with players who are on loan and those who have aspirations to be.
Hassan Sulaiman remains the 18s lead coach with a refreshed coaching staff around him; his Assistant Jimmy Smith departed in May after five years back with the club he spent his academy playing career with and, with Ross stepping up to the 21s, the Blues welcome Harry Hudson into the fold from Wycombe. He’s another Kinetic Academy alumni, as is Dan Hogan, who will lead the Under-16s and likely play a keen role with the 18s too, such is the close proximity with which those two age groups work nowadays.
A return to the UEFA Youth League after two years away is undoubtedly the highlight of the games programme for the forthcoming campaign; while Chelsea are unlikely to be considered among the leading contenders in the same way they were between 2014 and 2020, when they won the competition twice and finished runners-up two further times, they carry a very young yet exceptionally talented squad into battle and the variety of opportunities to play overseas against top-class European competition will be incredibly valuable for their individual and collective development.
On domestic shores the Premier League 2 and Under-18 League South league schedules are interspersed with cup football in the form of the EFL Trophy (vs Shrewsbury Town, Walsall and Northampton Town), the Premier League International Cup (vs Dinamo Zagreb, Paris Saint-Germain, Benfica and Real Sociedad), the Under-18 (vs Sheffield United, Manchester City and Crystal Palace) and Under-17 (vs Brighton, Southampton and Charlton) League Cups, with the FA Youth Cup rolling into town in December and being met with a huge appetite from those inside the hallowed walls of the academy building to bring it back to its rightful place.
For, while Chelsea have won a couple of those trophies over the last five years, it’s been seven years since they were able to say they were truly a dominant force on the pitch at academy level. At the end of the 2017-18 season, Jody Morris’ young stars had won a record-equalling fifth successive Youth Cup, had claimed all seven trophies available to them in that season, and compiled a decade of unrivalled success that is unlikely to be matched or bettered by anyone in the foreseeable future.
Since then, the Blues have remained a steadfastly reliable source of home-grown talent that has made an impact at home and abroad, at Stamford Bridge and most other English stadiums, for England and several other national teams across almost every confederation, and there’s no reason to think that’s going to stop any time soon. A healthy intake of sixteen first-year scholars is to be supplemented by the addition of two more England youth internationals in Jashayde Greenwood-Mensah and Riley Ebho before the end of the month, while Under-16 standouts Reggie Watson, Mahdi Nicoll-Jazuli, Heze Grimwade and Isaac Silva join them in what could well be the deepest and most talented squad in the country.
Some of them will spend much of the season with the Dev Squad – Ryan Kavuma-McQueen and first-team fledgling Reggie Walsh in particular – while McFarlane’s group stands to be younger in itself with the likes of Shim Mheuka and Landon Emenalo figuring to be regulars despite still being eligible for Sulaiman’s group. The Devs also welcome Kian Best and Jesse Derry into their number, with long-term injury victims Jimi Tauriainen and Dujuan Richards aiming to make up for lost time alongside familiar faces like Harrisons Murray-Campbell and McMahon and graduating youth teamers like Leo Cardoso and Ollie Harrison.
It all promises to be as exciting and as entertaining as usual, and more accessible than ever before. The club are set to increase their online offerings including but not limited to a broadcasting schedule that hopes to deliver every match live to viewers all over the world – with no more restrictions on coverage when Sky or TNT are showing Premier League football – should you not be able to take advantage of frozen ticket prices for games at Kingsmeadow, which will cost no more than £4 per match and many can attend for free.
The first of those matches is on Monday night against defending PL2 champions Manchester City. Given the connections between the two clubs at these levels, on and off the pitch, and the aim of winning multiple pieces of silverware this season to set the highest of standards, an opening day win against the current standard-bearers would be a great way to kick things off. Whatever happens over the next nine months, you can guarantee it’ll be interesting. Join us for another wild ride, won’t you?