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Chelsea have made an encouraging start to the 2024-25 season despite having comfortably the youngest starting XI average age of all teams in the Premier League.
When Todd Boehly and the Clearlake consortium bought Chelsea from Roman Abramovich in 2022, their approach in the transfer market quickly became clear.
They set out to buy as many highly talented young players as they could, signing them up to lengthy contracts in the hope enough would develop into superstars for Chelsea and therefore lead the club to glory, or at least become good enough to sell on for profit.
The agent of one of those players, David Datro Fofana, told the Norwegian newspaper VG in early 2023 that Chelsea had a “very clear plan of how to make them succeed as best as possible”. Obviously, it was never going to work perfectly for every single player, but the long contracts maximise the possibility of the club profiting even if one player’s development is considerably slower than one of his teammates.
Chelsea’s is an approach that’s attracted considerable criticism. Some have questioned their use of funds as the spending spree has forced them to sell academy products; others believe their stockpiling of talent is unethical and potentially even detrimental to many of the players themselves.
The second phase of Chelsea’s strategy was to embrace the multi-club model. Boehly outlined their plans in no uncertain terms a few months after arriving at Chelsea, saying they wanted somewhere in Europe they could reliably send young players to earn meaningful experience but without putting “their development in someone else’s hands”. Less than a year later in June 2023, BlueCo acquired French club Strasbourg, thus creating a multi-club group.
While the Strasbourg link-up remains a sore subject in Alsace, the ownership group’s strategy is unmistakably already shaping Chelsea. This isn’t necessarily news – after all, it’s not like they weren’t buying and fielding young players at the start of 2022-23.
But Chelsea’s pivot to youth has undeniably found a new level this season.
The headline fact is that the average age of their starting XIs in the league this season is just 23 years, 195 days – that has them on course to break the Premier League record for a single campaign (Leeds United in 1999-00 – 24y, 162d).
And that’s just the average. They’ve named starting XIs younger than that six times in the Premier League this term.
The 10 youngest starting XIs named in the Premier League in 2024-25 have all belonged to Chelsea, with the bar set at 23y, 89d against Newcastle at the end of October. They named the exact same team in Sunday’s 1-1 draw with Manchester United, meaning the average age went up by seven days to 23y, 96d.
That was – unsurprisingly – the youngest starting XI Chelsea have ever named for a Premier League game against United, with 26-year-old Robert Sánchez the oldest player in the Blues’ starting lineup at Old Trafford.
Sánchez isn’t quite the oldest player to feature for Chelsea in the league this season, but he’s not far off. Christopher Nkunku is four days older than the Spanish goalkeeper, while Tosin Adarabioyo – at the grand old age of 27 – is the oldest and only 27-year-old to play for them in the top flight in 2024-25 (that will likely change this month when Sánchez and Nkunku turn 27). Ben Chilwell, 28 in December, hasn’t featured at all in the league and played only a half of football in the EFL Cup.
Chelsea are the only club in the Premier League this season who’ve not given a single minute to players aged 28 or older, with the likes of Thiago Silva (39), Hakim Ziyech (31), Romelu Lukaku (31), Raheem Sterling (29) and Kepa Arrizabalaga (29) among those to depart over the summer.
Interestingly, though, Chelsea aren’t actually the team with the youngest average starting XI this season across the top five leagues. Similarly, two clubs have named at least one lineup that was younger than the one the Blues chose against Newcastle.
Parma suffered a late collapse away to Napoli in Serie A on 31 August, losing 2-1 thanks to stoppage time goals from Lukaku and André-Frank Zambo Anguissa after naming a starting XI with an average age of 23 years and 12 days.
The average age of their starting XI for the season is 24 years, 39 days, however, making it older than Chelsea’s.
If you’re still trying to guess which team might be the only one younger than Chelsea’s on average this season, you might want to scroll back up to the part about multi-club ownership… Indeed, the answer’s not that surprising now, is it?
Chelsea’s sister club, Strasbourg, are the only team in the top five European leagues to have a starting XI with a younger average age than Maresca’s men (boys?).
The median age of the Ligue 1 side’s lineups this season has been 21 years, 322 days. The youngest team they’ve named was 21 years, 243 days old on average, while their oldest was 22 years, 243 days – that’s still younger than the youngest starting XI used by Chelsea.
There’s more to this story than just the numbers, however. If you take a more cynical point of view, you might consider Strasbourg as essentially a talent farm for a bigger club. That’s precisely how some Le Racing followers perceive the situation, with fan group Fédération Supporters RCS publishing an open letter last month in which they referred to the club as “only a training centre”.
They added: “BlueCo’s imposition of an obligation to buy only very young hopefuls is senseless on a sporting level and the fans don’t relate to their team at the moment.”
It’s a debate that’ll continue to rage indefinitely, especially while vocal Strasbourg supporters struggle to rebuild an emotional attachment to their club. Whether BlueCo are right to run these clubs in such a way isn’t really for us to say, however.
Rather, the ownership group pledged to focus on the development of young players, and that’s what we’re seeing at both clubs.
Each of them have enjoyed decent starts to 2024-25 on the pitch, as well. Strasbourg, who’ve finished higher than 10th in Ligue 1 just twice this century, are ninth after 10 games, while Chelsea are fourth in the Premier League after the same number of matches.
It’s still only early days, though Chelsea are starting to see shoots of progress under Maresca with a core group of players who could become world class over the next seven years or so – if they aren’t already.
Only time will tell if they need a better blend of youth and experience to be successful. However, it’s worth remembering the record for youngest Premier League champions was set by José Mourinho’s Chelsea in 2004-05. Their starting XIs that season had an average age of 25 years, 250 days.
No one is expecting them to challenge for the title this season, but they are laying the groundwork to be a force in the not-too-distant future.
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