José Mourinho believes Ruben Loftus-Cheek’s progress into the first-team squad at Chelsea this season will serve as a truer inspiration for the club’s academy players than the junior team’s success in winning the FA Youth Cup and Uefa Youth League.
Loftus-Cheek, an England Under-19 midfielder who was promoted to train with the senior squad in January, will start his second successive Premier League game against West Bromwich Albion on Monday night. Isaiah Brown, who began his youth career at The Hawthorns before a controversial transfer to Stamford Bridge, will also make his senior debut in the fixture, while Nathan Aké will be involved at some stage as the Premier League champions offer some of their younger players game time.
Mourinho is painfully aware that Chelsea have not counted a youth team graduate as a senior regular since John Terry emerged from the set-up but the manager claimed that situation is “changing”. Players such as Andreas Christensen, Dominic Solanke and Mitchell Beeney have also enjoyed time with the seniors this term, with a strategy now in place and clear progress being made to bring through younger talent. “Academies are a process,” said the manager. “It starts with the facilities but it ends with the co-operation between the academy and the first team. At this moment we are working well. The players are the best witness of that work and they feel it. We know we are going in the right direction.
“This year, the most important title for the academy was Ruben, not the Uefa Youth League or the FA Youth Cup. It was Ruben: the best trophy. I’m excited but I keep emotional control. If I don’t I’d lose the players or help them go the wrong way but, yes, I am excited – but with stability. At this minute, that’s what they need.”
Mourinho acknowledged that his summer business in the transfer market must not block the passage of youngsters such as Loftus-Cheek into the first-team. “Maybe he’ll end up being better than anyone I buy and, if that is the case, he’ll play and the one I buy won’t,” he said, while last week’s £4.5m signing from Atlético Paranaense, the Brazilian teenager Nathan de Souza, will not be a threat next season. “Nathan will not be in Chelsea’s squad next year, simple as that,” said Mourinho. “You buy, in very good circumstances before the price goes to the moon. You develop the player. He belongs to you, is on loan, and in the right moment you bring him back.”
Instead, the manager will continue to preach to the youngsters the need for steady progress, with a pathway into the senior set-up now established. “These kids trust us and know what we do is the best for them,” added Mourinho. “They know the decisions for next season are the best decisions for them. Ruben is going to stay as a member of the first-team squad. The others who have been here in the seniors for one year [Christensen, if he signs a new contract, Aké, Jamal Blackman among others] are ready for the next step: that’s not the first team but a loan to a good team, to a good league and then to come back.
“That would open space for kids who are now in the academy to be in the first-team squad next season. So imagine Christensen going on loan. If he does, he goes to a high-level market. It opens space for another defender in the academy now to become part of the first team. If his development in the first team is so strong, like Ruben’s, that allows him to stay in the first team for ever, then perfect. If not, he reaches another level and gets another loan. So, for example, maybe Ola Aina will be in our first-team squad next year.
“We have this system in place for them – and I know it brings results.”