Chelsea have now made over £300MILLION on academy stars in four years as Chalobah and George are latest to be shown door

CHELSEA’s academy is one of the best in the world. Not only in terms of the players it has produced for their first team, but in terms of the profit it has produced for the club more recently. Trevoh Chalobah is the latest Cobham product to get a good fee for Chelsea Credit: Getty While Mason Mount still commands the highest fee for a Blues academy player Credit: Reuters The Blues have made over £300m with the sales of the gems from their academy starlets in the last four seasons alone, with Trevoh Chalobah and Tyrique George being the latest to leave Stamford Bridge after lengthy careers in blue. Since BlueCo took over the reigns of the club from Roman Abramovich, players have been traded at a rate like never before. Sign up for the Chelsea newsletter Thank you! But using Cobham as a money-printing tool is nothing new, with the Russian oligarch also using the academy as a profitable system, selling the likes of Tammy Abraham and Fikayo Tomori for huge fees. It has always been the case that only the finest to come through Cobham will have long-term futures at Chelsea, while the others will be sold off to make careers elsewhere. And it is generally a system that is accepted by both the club and its players. Chelsea need to be careful though, because their academy identity is important to their fans, particularly with the club accused of feeling ‘soulless’ by sections of the support in recent seasons. Some claim that they feel a lack of connection to the big-money signings who represent their club on the pitch,. And they miss the days of academy players shining in the first team like they did when Frank Lampard was in charge. Most read in Sport BEST FREE BETS AND BETTING SIGN UP OFFERS Chalobah was a player who, despite a few shaky moments last season and throughout his career at Chelsea, was utterly ‘proper Chels’ – a commodity that is priceless in modern football. He joined the Blues as an eight-year-old boy, spending a total of 18 years at the club. In that time he went from being a promising defender who was sent out on numerous loans, to a first-team regular in the Premier League and the Champions League in recent seasons, and won the Champions League with the club. But his treatment at Stamford Bridge was not always ideal. He was exiled from the first team as Chelsea looked for a sale, stripping him of a squad number and leaving him off of their pre-season tour in 2024. After failing to find a move, they loaned him out to Crystal Palace. He was having an impressive season in the Premier League before being recalled him due to defensive injuries that meant they needed him once more. He worked his way back into the first team and never complained, a testament to his professionalism. Chalobah was a model professional at Chelsea Credit: Reuters Chelsea’s academy sales under BlueCo Reece James and Levi Colwill now stand as the role models for the abundance of talent in the Blues’ Cobham setup today. Youngsters like Shim Mheuka, Mahdi Nicoll-Jazuli, Ryan Kavuma-McQueen, Tayo Suboloye and Jesse Derry will all be optimistic of their chances to make it at Chelsea, despite their continued spending on more and more wonderkids. But they, and their agents, will also undoubtedly be prepared for the eventuality that only the very best of them will become first-team regulars, at Stamford Bridge at least. Now Reece James and Levi Colwill are the academy flagbearers at Stamford Bridge Credit: AP Comment now