The last 10 Chelsea academy graduates who moved abroad – & how they fared

Summer 2024 has seen another couple of Chelsea academy graduates fly the Cobham nest and leave the familiarity of Stamford Bridge behind.

Academy-boy-turned-first-team-captain Conor Gallagher eventually departed for Atletico Madrid, and long-time hot prospect Tino Anjorin signed for Empoli as they look to avoid another Serie A relegation fight.

Chelsea still have about 700 players on their books, and they can’t play them all. We’ve picked out the last ten Chelsea academy graduates who move abroad on a permanent deal directly from the Blues. How are they getting on now?

Ruben Loftus-Cheek

RLC is a London boy through-and-through. Born in Lewisham, joined Chelsea at the age of 8, loans at Fulham and Crystal Palace as well as 155 appearances for Chelsea’s senior team. He was raised in Kent, sure, but he’s still a London boy.

Loftus-Cheek’s career was stalling a little at Chelsea. He hasn’t played for England since 2017, he went out on loan to get game time, and he’d been played out of position under Antonio Conte.

In 2023, though, Milan came calling, and the big-yet-graceful central midfielder said grazie di cuore and off he went to Italy.

The Englishman’s first season in Italy was a big success, and he even chipped in 10 goals in 40 games from midfield for the Rossoneri. Big.

Andreas Christensen

Christensen joined Chelsea’s youth setup from Brondby in 2012, in the dying embers of the Andres Villas-Boas era.

One season later he’d signed a professional contract and was involved with the first team, making three appearances before heading out on a two-year loan with Borussia Monchengladbach.

Upon his return to London, Christensen was a mainstay of the first team, and remained one until his departure to Barcelona in 2022.

Barca won La Liga at the end of Christensen’s first season, but it’s not been so plain sailing since then, with the rise of Carlo Ancelotti’s quite frightening Real Madrid side.

Charly Musonda

Belgian attacking midfielder Musonda was something of wonderkid when he was growing up in Brussels. During his time at Anderlecht’s youth academy he was coveted by Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Manchester City, bit it was Chelsea who won the battle for his signature.

Chelsea signed Musonda’s two older brothers at the same time but young Charly was who they were really after. He spent four years in the Blues’ youth system, and was sent on loans to Real Betis, Celtic, and Vitesse.

Musonda did make seven Chelsea first team appearances in the 2017-18 season, half of which he spent on loan at Celtic, but that all he got in a Blues shirt.

The last of those three loans (Vitesse) ended in Musonda suffering a serious posterior cruciate ligament injury that led doctors to giving him just a 20% chance of ever playing again.

In the summer of 2022, Charly signed for Levante in Spain, after being out injured for over 1000 days, and spent one season in the Spanish Segunda division.

At the end of that season, his contract was terminated and he signed for Anorthosis Famagusta, who play in the Cypriot First Division.

TRY A QUIZ: Can you name every Chelsea player to score 20+ Premier League goals?

Tammy Abraham

Tammy joined Chelsea at under-8s level and didn’t leave until 2021, a full 17 years later. The long lad from Camberwell signed for Jose Mourinho’s Roma in 2021, and it was glorious.

The Romanisti took Tammy into their hearts and there were banners of his face in the stadium before long, mainly due to the fact that he was scoring lots of goals.

An ACL injury kept him out for almost the entirety of the 2023-24 season, and Roma have signed Artem Dovbyk from Girona in the meantime. Tammy has gone on loan to AC Milan for the season, where we fully believe he’ll score plenty more Serie A goals.

Chelsea have just had a chaotic transfer window during which they failed to secure Victor Osimhen from Napoli.

On an unrelated note, the Blues have a £68m buyback clause included in the deal for Tammy, who guarantees goals wherever he goes. Just saying.

Fikayo Tomori

Tomori spent the first year of his life in Calgary, Canada, home of the Calgary Flames ice hockey team. His family moved to London when he was a baby, and little Fikayo grew up idolising Thierry Henry as opposed to Jarome Iginla (one for the hockey fans).

The centre-back spent 11 years in Chelsea’s academy, went out on various loans in the Championship, and made his England debut in 2019 when he returned to Chelsea.

In January 2021, Fikayo joined Milan on loan, and the Rossoneri chose to make that move permanent at the end of the season.

If you like Chelsea players, have you tried AC Milan? There are enough West Londoners in Lombardy to realistically start a book club.

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TRY A QUIZ: Can you name every goalkeeper to play for Chelsea in the Premier League?

Ola Aina

The Nigeria international who was born and raised in Southwark, South London, spent eight years in Chelsea’s academy. After successful loans at Hull City and Torino, he signed for the latter permanently in 2019.

Aina made his way back to England via a loan at Fulham in 2020-21, which led to Nottingham Forest signing the full back in 2023 (among swarths of other players).

Gael Kakuta

Gael Kakuta is 33 now, and has been on no fewer than nine loan spells in his career. He was Didier Drogba’s protege, Michael Ballack tipped him to be the next big thing, but it never really came to fruition for the Forward from France.

Kakuta has reached double figures in just one season in his career so far, racking up 11 Ligue 1 goals whilst on loan at Lens. He finally left Chelsea in 2015, joining Sevilla, playing five games, then being sold to Hebei China Fortune.

The former wonderkid has just completed his second season with Amiens in Ligue 2.

Jeffrey Bruma

Dutch centre-back spent a couple years in the Chelsea under youth setup after signing from Feyenoord. Bruma never really managed to make an impact on the first team, and four years after coming to London, he’d returned to the Netherlands to sign for PSV Eindhoven.

Bruma saw out a one-year contract at RKC Waalwijk in the Eredivisie last season and, as far as we can see, is now without a club.

Lamisha Musonda

Lamisha is Charly Musonda’s older brother, one of the brothers who came over to London as part of the deal to bring Charly to London. He played, according to the record books, 18 competitive games in his career, including nine for Belgium U21s.

Lamisha left Chelsea after two years, joining Mechelen in his native Belgium, had a brief stint in Spain’s lower leagues, and finished his career in Congo with a team called Mazembe, whose bade features a crocodile with a football in its mouth. Class.

Michael Mancienne

Solid loan signing on Football Manager 2008, was Mancienne. A centre-back with the potential to become an England international. In real life, he declared for the Seychelles, and has now retired.

Another youth prospect who never rally made a dent on the senior team, Mancienne went ended up leaving Chelsea for Hamburger SV in 2011.

He spent the majority of his career at Nottingham Forest, enjoyed a couple of years in MLS with New England Revolution, and retired at Burton Albion in 2013.