Where are they now? 9 Chelsea wonderkids you’ve totally forgotten about

Chelsea’s Cobham academy has proven to be one of the most productive in England in recent years, with the likes of Mason Mount, Reece James, Tammy Abraham and Fikayo Tomori breaking through as top talents.

But there was a long spell in which the club’s homegrown stars would shine at youth level – the Blues famously won the FA Youth Cup seven times between 2009 and 2018 – before struggling to kick on and nail down a place in top-level senior football.

We’ve taken a look back at nine former Chelsea wonderkids who showed lots of potential and garnered plenty of hype but they never quite made it at Stamford Bridge.

Michael Woods

Woods’ signing – alongside Tom Taiwo – eventually cost Chelsea £5million in compensation to Leeds after former Blues chairman Ken Bates kicked up a stink.

The midfielder only made a couple of FA Cup appearances for Chelsea and probably wasn’t worth the bother.

He left Chelsea in 2011 and has gone on to enjoy a half-decent lower-league career.

Nowadays the 33-year-old is turning out for South Shields and played a key part in their promotion from the Northern Premier League. Kevin Phillips was his boss and this season it’ll be Julio Arca. Wonderfully Wearside, that.

READ: What happened to the two starlets Chelsea poached from Leeds in 2006

Jacob Mellis

Chelsea signed 16-year-old Mellis from Sheffield United for a £1million fee back in 2009.

He made one brief appearance for the club in the Champions League but mostly ticked along in the youth ranks and was loaned out. The midfielder joined Barnsley in 2012 after doing well on loan at Oakwell and spent the following decade as a Football League journeyman.

Mellis was last seen turning out for Leatherhead in the Isthmian League and retired in June 2023 due to injury.

Kenneth Omeruo

Having earned 60 caps for Nigeria, Omeruo clearly has something about him.

But he can be filed in the ‘perennial loanee’ camp at Chelsea, having spent six different stints at five different clubs while on the club’s books between 2012 and 2019.

The defender never played for Chelsea and eventually signed for Spanish side Leganes. After five years at the club, including a spell as captain, he joined Kasimpasa in Turkey this summer.

Jan Sebek

Brought in as an understudy to his Czech compatriot Petr Cech in 2009, Sebek was something of a Football Manager favourite around that time.

He impressed Carlo Ancelotti on trial but he never made it past Chelsea’s reserves and never really forged a career in the game. He only made a handful of appearances and hasn’t played since being released by Baumit Jablonec in 2015.

Gael Kakuta

“The decision was expected,” said former Lens chairman Gervais Martel after Chelsea were given a transfer ban in 2009, having been adjudged to have illegally tapped up teenage prodigy Kakuta.

“The boy was under contract and they came to steal him from us… Chelsea behaved in an unacceptable way in contacting the player before he was even 16 years old and while he was still being nurtured by us as he had been since the age of eight and a half. He had the standard French-style training contract with us.”

The winger impressed in the youth ranks, voted the scholar of the year by Chelsea’s academy staff in 2008, but he only made six Premier League appearances and can be filed alongside Woods as “not worth the trouble”.

After a well-travelled career that’s seen him represent no fewer than 14 different clubs, Kakuta is currently turning out for Amiens.

Tomas Kalas

The Czech defender never nailed down a first-team place at Stamford Bridge but he’ll always be remembered for keeping a clean sheet against Liverpool in that Gerrard slip match in 2014.

Kalas became something of a stalwart for Bristol City, making over 100 Championship appearances for the Robins between 2019 and 2023. He is currently unattached.

Chelsea's longest-serving player, Tomas Kalas, has left the club after nine years.

He only played four games—one of them was the famous 'slip' game win over Liverpool in 2014 🔵 pic.twitter.com/xVXzrEpaFT

— B/R Football (@brfootball) July 1, 2019

Matej Delac

Eight years on Chelsea’s books. Zero first-team appearances. Nine loans away. That tale has a familiar ring to it.

The Croatian goalkeeper left Stamford Bridge in 2018 and since then has turned out for Danish Superliga club AC Horsens.

Izzy Brown

“My conscience tells me that if, for example, [Lewis] Baker, [Izzy] Brown, and [Dominic] Solanke are not national team players in a few years, I should blame myself,” Jose Mourinho said whilst on Chelsea’s pre-season tour in 2014.

Solanke has one England cap and it’s not out of the question he’ll add more after shining at Bournemouth, and while Baker isn’t quite international calibre he’s enjoyed a respectably solid Championship career.

Unfortunately things have gone quite differently for Brown, who showed great promise as a youngster out on loan in Huddersfield’s promotion-winning 2016-17 campaign, but suffered horrendous luck with injuries.

He was eventually released by Chelsea in 2021 and went on to sign a one-year deal at Preston North End but failed to make a single appearance for the club. In April he announced his retirement at the age of 26.

“Everything is new to me now,” Brown told The Athletic after reaching the decision.

“The world is new now I’m not seeing it from a football perspective. I can go and enjoy things I’ve never been able to enjoy before and go to places I never got a chance to go to. I’m going to take some time for myself and have a think if I want to be involved in football again.

“Football was my dream. It still is my dream. But dreams have to end one day.”

READ: The 3 Chelsea kids Mourinho tipped for stardom in 2014 & how they fared

Charly Musonda

The most promising of the three Belgian brothers Chelsea brought over Anderlecht in 2012, eldest sibling Charly Musonda never made it past the periphery at Stamford Bridge and could never quite escape the loan carousel.

The 26-year-old winger signed for Levante last summer and has since turned out alongside Roberto Soldado and Shkodran Mustafi in the Spanish second tier.

READ NEXT: The 20 most expensively assembled squads in Europe: Chelsea top…

TRY A QUIZ: Can you name all 22 of the players Chelsea have signed in 2022-23?