Mourinho has promised to create a bright future for England as he insisted: If my boys don’t make it, blame me!
Mourinho has given England Under-17 European Championship-winners midfielder Isaiah Brown and striker Dominic Solanke their chances to impress on Chelsea’s pre-season tour, while midfielder Lewis Baker is set to be promoted to the first-team squad.
And while the Blues’ habit is to send promising players out on loan, Mourinho wants to groom this trio of homegrown starlets – as well as French attacking midfielder Jeremie Boga – under his own watchful eye.
“If, in a few years, Baker, Brown and Solanke are not national team players, I should blame myself.
“They are part of a process the club started without me, during that period before I came back.
‘This group of players – Baker, Brown, Solanke and [Jeremie] Boga – these four are not all going to be in my squad, because I cannot have 30 in my squad, but these four are going to work with us all season and these four are going to be Chelsea players.
‘At 16 or 17 I don’t think it’s good for them to go somewhere else to play, like in the Championship. At 17 they have to train with us and they have to learn with us. They will learn a lot.
‘And they can play in the Under-21s and wait for the chance to play with us now and again, in a Capital One Cup match, or an FA Cup match. But they are 17, they are not 20. When they are playing in the Under-21s they are playing against 20-year-old guys. But if they are with us every day for them I think it is fantastic.’
For the 2014/15 season, Mourinho already has certain plans in place – but also has an important decision to make.
‘Officially, in the first team squad – not the Under-21s that will come to join us now and again – we have [Andreas] Christensen, [Nathan] Ake, and probably another one because I want to have one more English player,’ the manager said.
‘I need an English player in my squad and I have to make a decision about that, but we are going to have in the first team squad three players coming from the Academy. In this moment I start to have this feeling that our Academy is bringing players to our level.’
Written by Steve Milne
