smokey
Honorary Master
Eh... forgot about him... so that makes 9 under the age of 21. Which is fine by me... not all players are suited to start so young as I have said before. Players need time to mature (Bendtner being a prime example - at 25 onwards, he'll be an awesome player). The fact is that I reckon Bruma, Van Aanholt and K.akuta could all do a good job as squad members. Relying too much on youth is bad unless you have a golden generation. Let's be honest here... how many Scholes/Giggs/Bechams are going to find in one generation? Messi/Bojan also being prime examples. Don't forget that Chelsea have been slowly buiilding up their academy - it was never great shakes except in the 70s/early 80s. Since ol' man Bates came along, we haven't produced much and the emphasis has only started since Abromovich came. He invested around 20 million into our academy and it takes time to pay off. Most people seem to forget that Wenger has been at Arsenal since 97 (iirc) and probably started his grand youth scheme then, he was just forced into bringing it up a notch due to the stadium building induced financial constraints placed on him.