Chelsea advanced into the Fifth Round of the FA Youth Cup on Wednesday night after a hard-fought win away to Norwich City, prevailing on penalties after a goalless 120 minutes. Four successful spot kicks saw Adrian Viveash’s troops home as Jamal Blackman saved one and watched another hit his crossbar in the dreaded shootout. Viveash was able to welcome back Daniel Pappoe from injury and included the second-year in the…

Reserve team players Gael Kakuta and Ben Gordon have this afternoon finalised loan deals for the second half of the 2011-12 season. Kakuta’s protracted move to French top division outfit Dijon FCO has finally gone through, whilst Gordon will make a return to Kilmarnock, where he spent the first half of the 10-11 campaign. News of Kakuta’s proposed move was around as early as a few days before Christmas but…

Chelsea’s first under-18 match of 2012 ended in stoppage time heartbreak as they went down 3-2 to West Ham United. Twice the Blues had gone behind in the first half but goals from Amin Affane and Nathan Ake restored parity. Unfortunately, a stoppage time indirect free-kick from Jack Powell saw all three points go back to East London. With Wednesday’s FA Youth Cup tie away to Norwich very much in…

Having turned 17 last month, young defender Nathaniel Chalobah has this week agreed his first professional contract with Chelsea. The England Under-19 international will put pen to paper on a deal which which keep him at Stamford Bridge until at least 2014. The two-year deal is a standard length for a first pro deal at the club but will likely have extension options involved. Chalobah appeared in a Chelsea matchday…

Those of you who have kept a keen interest in Chelsea’s loan activity this season will have noted that not everything has gone smoothly. Whilst the likes of Thibaut Courtois, Tomas Kalas and Jeffrey Bruma have all featured regularly for their temporary clubs and are generally having good seasons, at the other end of the scale Gael Kakuta, Patrick van Aanholt and Matej Delac have struggled for playing time and…

There are currently eight young Chelsea players out on loan both at home and abroad. A further trio – Milan Lalkovic, Sam Walker and Ben Gordon – have already spent time away and are now back at Chelsea. With the opening of the winter transfer window, attentions not only turn towards the high-profile deals the first team may make, but also to the moves Neil Bath and the academy staff…

You don’t find too many £18m signings playing reserve team football, but Romelu Lukaku is something of a special case. Much is expected of the gigantic 18 year-old forward, but for the majority of his first few months in England he has most often been found playing for Dermot Drummy’s second string team. With an array of senior forwards ahead of him in the pecking order, playing time was always…

Five goals and two assists in thirteen matches, England Under-16 captain (complete with goal and assists), and a place on the reserve team substitutes bench aged 15. It’s not been a bad 2011-12 campaign so far for schoolboy Ruben Loftus-Cheek, and whilst coverage of Under-16 players should be tempered, the young midfielder makes an impact so often that he’s hard to ignore. For the best part of 18 months through…

With both the youth and reserve teams on a winter break, it’s time to take a look at some of this season’s key players and look at how they’ve been developing. The first in a series over the New Year period is Amin Affane. — As a general rule of thumb, a second-year scholar stands out amongst his younger team-mates in academy football. He is typically a bit bigger, a…