Chelsea account for many of the costliest signings ever involving Premier League clubs selling their academy graduates. They released 1) for nothing.
1) Declan Rice (West Ham to Arsenal) – £100m rising to £105m
Joined West Ham academy at 14
Chelsea decided not to ’embarrass’ certain staff members when considering moving for a player who spent eight years in their academy. Arsenal had no such qualms over Rice, ending his decade-long association with West Ham in 2023.
2) Jack Grealish (Aston Villa to Manchester City) – £100m
Joined Aston Villa academy at 6
The Aston Villa first-team manager when Grealish started his official association with the club was John Gregory, who might well have pulled a gun on the 25-year-old when Manchester City came calling.
3) Harry Kane (Tottenham to Bayern Munich) – £86m rising to £100m
Joined Tottenham academy at 11
After one year at Arsenal and six weeks on trial with Watford, Kane started his inexorable path towards numerous Tottenham records but zero Tottenham trophies.
4) Mason Mount (Chelsea to Manchester United) – £55m
Joined Chelsea academy at 6
Over 18 years in Chelsea blue, Mount won the Champions League, Super Cup and Club World Cup as a two-time Player of the Year and manager’s dream.
5) Benjamin White (Brighton to Arsenal) – £50m
Joined Brighton academy at 16
“The day that I did get released [by Southampton], I spoke to my mum about it. She said, ‘do you want to be a footballer?’ I was saying yeah, so she got on the phone to different clubs and managed to get me some trials in different places.” Brighton will not regret taking that call.
6) Raheem Sterling (QPR to Liverpool) – £49m
Joined Liverpool academy at 15
QPR can claim the bulk of the credit for Sterling’s early development but Liverpool were bold enough to take the punt and within two years of moving to Anfield the young forward was making his first-team debut.
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7) Aaron Wan-Bissaka (Crystal Palace to Manchester United) – £45m rising to £50m
Joined Crystal Palace academy at 11
It took Wan-Bissaka a single season at Manchester United to match his number of career appearances for Crystal Palace, who really did see their Premier League rivals coming.
8) Ben Chilwell (Leicester to Chelsea) – £45m
Joined Leicester academy at 12
An alumnus of the Rushden & Diamonds centre of excellence, Chilwell traded up for a place on the Leicester books before he became a teenager and never looked back from there.
9) Kalvin Phillips (Leeds to Manchester City) – £42m rising to £45m
Joined Leeds academy at 14
There might be an element of regret in how things have turned out but the Marcelo Bielsa version of Phillips was something else.
10) Anthony Gordon (Everton to Newcastle) – £40m rising to £45m
Joined Everton academy at 11
Being released by Liverpool after four years in their system “affected me mentally and dented my confidence” but Gordon bounced back across Stanley Park and has earned fresh interest from the Reds through his Newcastle performances.
11) Cole Palmer (Manchester City to Chelsea) – £40m rising to £42.5m
Joined Manchester City academy at 8
Those add-ons might well already have been achieved across a strikingly brilliant debut season at Stamford Bridge which culminated in Palmer scoring in a European Championship final for England.
12) Ian Maatsen (Chelsea to Aston Villa) – £37.5m
Joined Chelsea academy at 16
The legwork was undoubtedly done in the Netherlands between Feyenoord, Sparta Rotterdam and PSV but Chelsea swooped in to claim both credit and some delicious future pure profit.
13) Elliot Anderson (Newcastle to Nottingham Forest) – £35m
Joined Newcastle academy at 8
When the Magpies needed a PSR sacrifice they somehow made a record sale of a player with more career starts for Bristol Rovers in League Two than Newcastle United in the Premier League.
14) Andy Carroll (Newcastle to Liverpool) – £35m
Joined Newcastle academy at 12
Far more ridiculous were the circumstances surrounding a panicky Liverpool making Carroll the eighth-most expensive footballer of all time by valuing his career goals to that point at more than £1m each.
15) Tammy Abraham (Chelsea to Roma) – £34m
Joined Chelsea academy at 6
A winner of two FA Youth Cups and a pair of UEFA Youth League trophies, Abraham never fully convinced at senior level for Chelsea but left with a respectable enough record.
16) Luke Shaw (Southampton to Manchester United) – £27m rising to £31m
Joined Southampton academy at 7
If Shaw sees out the entirety of his contract at Old Trafford his 13 years of service would outstrip the 12 he spent rising through the age groups of Southampton.
17) Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall (Leicester to Chelsea) – £30m
Joined Leicester academy at 8
It was a long road from academy to seniors for Dewsbury-Hall, who made his first-team debut at 21, but a short trip to Chelsea from there.
18) Lewis Hall (Chelsea to Newcastle) – £28m rising to £35m
Joined Chelsea academy at 7
Less than three months after being named Chelsea Academy Player of the Year, Hall was shipped off to Newcastle on an initial loan which the Magpies soon made permanent.
19) Wayne Rooney (Everton to Manchester United) – £27m
Joined Everton academy at 9
‘ONCE A BLUE, ALWAY’S A BLUE’ turned out to be both grammatically incorrect and factually false; the message he revealed on his undershirt after scoring in the 2002 FA Youth Cup final counted for little when Manchester United made their interest known.
20) Fikayo Tomori (Chelsea to AC Milan) – £25m rising to £5m
Joined Chelsea academy at 8
“Fikayo Tomori absolutely has a long-term future at this club,” said Frank Lampard about a week before sending the centre-half on a loan to Italy from which he would never return. The manager was sacked a couple of days later, although probably for general underperformance rather than selling academy graduates.
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