Chelsea hit enormous £250m transfer dilemma as controversial Arsenal and Man City point made

Over the past three seasons, Burnley have helped to make Chelsea £91.5million from transfers. Directly, £54million have come from simply buying their players.

When adding in the loan of Ian Maatsen, which helped develop him into a £37.5million left-back, that figure rises. Maatsen’s best moments at Chelsea were limited, but he impressed enough at Borussia Dortmund – reaching the Champions League final – to warrant a big-money move. His promotion-winning season under Vincent Kompany in 2022/23 was a precursor.

Although there is an argument that Maatsen might have been able to help Chelsea, the fee they were offered for an academy graduate was deemed too much to turn down. He was seen as more valuable with a price on the books – registered as pure profit after Chelsea did not pay to buy him in the first place – than in the squad.

With Marc Cucurella going on to become one of the world’s best in his position, the decision has been justified. Maatsen remained behind Lucas Digne at Villa for most of last season and only clocked 1,100 Premier League minutes with 10 starts.

However, the trend of being able to sell Cobham graduates for high prices remains beyond just Maatsen. It was something that the Roman Abramovich regime took advantage of and that has only continued under the Clearlake Capital-Todd Boehly-led consortium.

Chelsea’s academy, specifically between 2010 and 2020, has helped to produce some of the world’s finest young talent over the years. Regularly, those who come through the Cobham pathway have lifted some of the game’s biggest titles.

This culminated in 2021 with a side including Reece James and Mason Mount winning the Champions League. Tammy Abraham, Andreas Christensen, and Billy Gilmour had all played a significant role in the season’s work. Fikayo Tomori was part of the squad for the previous 18 months under Frank Lampard, which brought this homegrown group together.

Alongside this core, Tino Anjorin and Callum Hudson-Odoi all posed with the trophy. Four years on, each player is still in one of Europe’s top five leagues with three of them going into the Champions League.

The list of those to have come via Cobham is too long to simply write out, although it does make for fun reading (Marc Guehi, Declan Rice, and Nathan Ake are just three picked at random to make the point). Dominic Solanke, Tino Livramento, Ola Aina, and Eddie Nketiah are others. Myles Lewis-Skelly was there for a brief period.

Meanwhile, in Enzo Maresca’s playing squad, the strands across the road at the Surrey-based training complex continue. James is now club captain, whilst Trevoh Chalobah has consistently fought himself back into the fold despite numerous attempts to get rid of him from higher up. Levi Colwill is one of the best young defenders in the world.

Josh Acheampong and Tyrique George are the latest to breakthrough from age-group football into the senior game but Maresca showed a willingness to turn to the academy when needed throughout last season. Ultimately, Chelsea’s calibre of options at Cobham remains among the best in the world.

Harrison Murray-Campbell, Sam Rak-Sakyi, Genesis Antwi, Shumaira Mheuka, Reggie Walsh, and Kiano Dyer all got first team chances in the Conference League (at least) last season. Even in their formative years, Chelsea have been able to call on individuals worthy of European appearances, even in the third tier.

Many debates have been had over how effectively they have been utilised on the playing side in the past. For example, was the £60million investment in Cucurella wise when 18-year-old Lewis Hall established himself as a defender at ease with the challenges of adult football just a matter of months later?

Cucurella has gone on to be successful at Chelsea but did not look to be for over 12 months, meanwhile Newcastle United signed Hall and loaned him with a deal to buy of £32million, almost half of the Cucurella transfer and for a younger player.

This conversation can happen countless times over two ownerships and more than a decade. Should Ruben Loftus-Cheek have been better managed? Was the trade-off of ditching Abraham to prioritise Timo Werner the right call? How did Hudson-Odoi leave for so cheap?

These are now moot points, on the whole, but if nothing else, the academy is a source of cash for Chelsea. Whether the quality and players could be better utilised is another matter entirely for now.

In fact, Chelsea have generated more from transfer fees under Clearlake-Boehly (since the summer off 2022, three years ago) than Arsenal have as a senior setup in six years going back to 2019. Academy graduates make up a large portion of their biggest sales (Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is still top with Nketiah, Folarin Balogun, and Emile Smith Rowe not far behind).

However, Maatsen would be the second most expensive on that list. Mount would top it, with Conor Gallagher and Hall inside the six. Armando Broja, who has just joined Burnley for £20million (one of the Burnley deals) would be in the top 20 for Arsenal but doesn’t make the top 30 for Chelsea.

In fact, six of Chelsea’s top 20 sales are all academy graduates with Mount in at third. Arsenal’s includes eight from Hale End but the fees are hardly comparable.

Since 2022, Chelsea have made more than £250million from selling academy players which is over £100million more than the next most (Manchester City) and over £150million more than Arsenal. It is both a source of pride and a bone of contention.

As mentioned, with players this valuable, could they not have been better integrated, especially when looking at some of the flops signed for even more and on much larger wages? But there is also a sense of being good business.

Chelsea have needed the academy, albeit to support their own financial mistakes at times. It has been a little too obvious and uncomfortable for much of the process but remains a viable tactic, if not always an ethical or moral one. Chelsea are good sellers (regardless of failures in buying at the same times) and Cobham is fundamentally an excellent footballing school for players.

The academy helps to build strong people and characters as well as athletes. In a brutally transactional world, Chelsea have had success on this side, even if they might have had more with balancing the academy players into teams rather than selling.

City have gone even further. Their academy sales figures would look a lot more impressive going back a few years before 2022. Kelechi Iheanacho, Brahim Diaz, Douglas Luiz, Angus Gunn, and Jadon Sancho were all graduates earning more than £10million each.

Chelsea can do the same with Guehi, Livramento, Abraham, and Tomori. Cobham is a goldmine that has been used in differing ways. It always comes out on top, though.