Development Squad: Oxford United 2-1 Chelsea
Six months has rarely felt so long. 190 days after Chelsea beat Everton in PL2 action, competitive academy football returned with the Development Squad’s opening EFL Trophy fixture away to Oxford. Andy Myers’ boys suffered a narrow 2-1 defeat, and will be frustrated with the result on the balance of play, but pleased to be back playing. It was a new-look Development Squad too, with 17 year-olds Levi Colwill, Lewis…
Previewing the 2020-21 Academy Season
The end of the 2019-20 academy season was as abrupt and as unexpected a development as most involved at this level will ever experience. The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic worldwide left a near six-month hiatus from competitive football, but the coming week sees the return of meaningful action at this level where, once again, Chelsea figure to be keenly involved when it matters most. What a twelve months. Emboldened…
The Loan Report: August
And we’re back. The 2020-21 Loan Army season started five days before the 2019-20 season finished, when Victor Moses and Inter were on the losing side in the Europa League Final against Sevilla, drawing a line under the longest campaign any of us are likely to witness in our lifetimes. Earlier that week, however, Danilo Pantic had made his debut for Serbian Premier League side Čukarički, kicking off another year…
Bouncing Back in 2020-21: Five Players To Watch
Sometimes things just don’t go to plan. Saturday’s FA Cup Final is a case in point; losing to Arsenal wasn’t part of the script as far as Chelsea were concerned, but it happened, and now Frank Lampard and the club have to plot a path forward and continue to make the promising progress they’ve shown throughout much of the extended 2019-20 season. On an individual level, the same thing happens…
Vindication
First things first, nobody’s pretending it was a perfect season. We know where the club is, where it needs to improve, and how much work is ahead in order to close the gap on Liverpool and Manchester City. That being said, it was a season of vindication. It was a season that proved that giving young, home-grown players a chance is a choice, not a by-product of winning or of…
The Loan Report: July 20-26
The final Loan Report of the season wraps up the loose ends from the last week in England and, while action continues for a while yet in Italy, we’ll keep track of that on Twitter. England Premier League Aston Villa saw out the season and achieved Premier League survival without Danny Drinkwater, who made just three appearances and played 207 minutes there. Championship There was far more intrigue in the…