Tammy Abraham shows that Chelsea are happy to play without potential - and it has worked for them so far

Striking deal | Abraham is set to spend next season on loan at Swansea
Piotr Nowak/AFP/Getty Images
John Dillon22 June 2017

Chelsea's Tammy Abraham hasn't yet scored for England at the European Under-21 Championships, but he's undoubtedly one of the most notable players in the team which faces Poland this evening.

His former club-mate at Stamford Bridge, Dominic Solanke, made even more of an impact during England's Under-20 World Cup triumph in South Korea earlier this month, where he won the Golden Ball as leading goal-scorer.

So naturally he's being sold to Liverpool for a tribunal set fee because his contract has run out.

There was a time when these two stories would have provoked howls of outrage and groans of despair over Chelsea's persistent failure to promote even their most promising youth players into their first team.

But it would all seem a bit futile and needless now. And wrong, actually. The big time game is simply too big time for it to be an issue any longer. The biggest clubs buy success. End of story. Anyone who expects anything else is made delusional by wishful thinking.

With John Terry - the last to make the transition to the big time from the schoolboy ranks - having abdicated his throne in SW6, Chelsea's philosophy about team-building is more crystal clear than ever.

Their creed is to buy seasoned, experienced, ready-to-order top quality professional footballers for the first team - and then to win things. Prospects do arrive, but they are sent elsewhere, with now fewer than 36 out on loan at the end of the last campaign.

Romelu Lukaku, Alvaro Morata, Alex Sandro and Virgil van Dijk are among those on Antonio Conte's wish list this summer. It’s because in modern day European football, you really can't win anything major with kids.

The players on Chelsea’s transfer shortlist

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The fact that Chelsea are quite happy to do without the potential and the promise of the two most high-profile forwards of the England age group set, Abraham and Solanke, is making this idea more plain than ever this summer.

It hasn't done so badly for them during the Roman Abramovich era has it? There isn't anything wrong with it, either. Not if you accept and properly grasp the true, unrelenting realities of modern, elite football.

Among the Real Madrid starting line-up which won the Champions League final in Cardiff in May, only Dani Carvajal had risen through the ranks.

It’s one more successful graduate than Chelsea has just now. But you get the picture. And Juventus's starting line-up contained none whatsoever. At Bayern Munich, Thomas Muller and Mats Hummels are home products. But Hummels was sold to Bayern's virtual feeder club, Borussia Dortmund, and bought back after eight years in 2016. So Chelsea are not that different from all their aristocratic rivals in this matter.

There was a lot of hand-wringing here when England won that Under-20 World Cup. Would the players get a chance in the first team at any Premier League clubs?

England U20 World Cup 2017 winners arrive home - In pictures

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Only if they're better than the ready-to-order, fully formed top level pros even the smallest Premier League clubs can these days afford to cherry pick from all across the globe because of the vast TV incomes they have to spend on transfers.

Chelsea have just made their choices, drawn up their business plan and put it to work. And, boy, does it work.

They've won everything in sight during the Abramovich period, most of it more than once and both major European trophies.

Ask the supporters, who it is said by many spend their time yearning for a local boy to make good, to use the old parlance?

Would they prefer that to having won the European Cup, the Europa League and five league titles under Oligarchal rule?

Yes, it would be nice, commendable, encouraging; All of that stuff. But winning the Champions League - as Chelsea did in 2012 - is even nicer.

Yes, they have a fabulous youth set-up and it produces dozens of players. But they're not being groomed for the first-team. They're being nurtured so they can be sold as part of the club's income stream. That's why 36 of them were out on loan last season, including 19-year-old Abraham, who scored 23 times for Bristol City.

If a Cristiano Ronaldo or a Lionel Messi came along at the Cobham HQ, things would be different. But Chelsea do not bank on that. They bank on buying men like Eden Hazard, Diego Costa and Marcos Alonso.

Some of them they even buy twice like David Luiz and Nemanja Matic, and probably Lukaku again this summer. Surely that particular double whammy makes clear what the plan is all about?

Flashback | Lukaku with Mourinho in 2013 Photo: Getty Images
Getty Images

Abraham may return from the tutelage of former Chelsea coach, Paul Clement, at Swansea and really make the big time at Stamford Bridge. But the precedents suggest not.

In fact, the odds on the club winning the Champions League again next season would be better. And that is just how Chelsea plan it.

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