CAN THE ACADEMY BOYS REALLY CUT IT AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL?

For Chelsea, the big question this season is one that has been echoing around the forums, threads and phone-ins for some time. Now, in 2019-20, we may finally get an answer either way.

Successive managers have found excuses to kick the can down the road, blaming top-down pressure to play it safe in the quest for results. They put all of their chips on experience, assured that Eden Hazard or a set-piece would earn the Blues a result. But with Hazard having departed to Real Madrid and the London club’s hand forced by a well-documented transfer ban, the time to roll the dice is now.

Hiring Frank Lampard was an easy morale buy for the club. The reaction to his arrival was nothing short of ecstatic, with the refrain of ‘Super Frankie Lampard’ firmly at the heart of Chelsea fans’ repertoire once again. On those terms, at least, the 41-year-old is the perfect manager for a fanbase feeling desperate for some sense of continuity. However, it is Lampard’s assistant – the highly-regarded Jody Morris – who should benefit the squad most.

As youth-team coach at Stamford Bridge, before joining Lampard at Derby for a season, Morris reared much of Chelsea’s golden generation himself, helping them to win an unprecedented youth quadruple in 2017-18. The board hope he’ll pick up where he left off.

Chelsea have an astonishingly talented roster of young players on their books, but getting the best out of them, while also managing the expectations held by the couple of dozen senior players at the club, requires a manager with bravery and – that rarest of Premier League qualities – patience. Appointing those young players’ favoured coach seems a canny step in that direction, as does promoting Joe Edwards from the academy to first-team coach.

Can Chelsea become the Ajax of west London? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The laws of probability and football dictate that only a few members of this feted academy will have careers at the very top of the game. Between Mason Mount, Callum Hudson-odoi, Trevoh Chalobah, Ethan Ampadu, Fikayo Tomori, Reece James, Jake Clarke-salter and more – not to mention senior England internationals Tammy Abraham and Ruben Loftus-cheek – some will swim and some will sink back to the depths of youth football.

But with game time, and the pressure level reduced to ‘mild’ for one campaign, Chelsea’s kids could show a sceptical club that the future is now.