Key Highlights
- Five Chelsea players were nurtured at the academy that sits a few hundred yards from the Etihad Stadium, on the other side of a bridge. The London club’s recent recruitment has been heavily influenced by City’s teaching of players and coaches.
- Tosin Adarabioyo, Cole Palmer, Liam Delap, Jamie Gittens and Roméo Lavia were members of City’s youth ranks, most working there under Enzo Maresca.
- If one thread was unpicked this week when Maresca dramatically departed Chelsea, the link remains strong because Sunday’s caretaker, Calum McFarlane, was formerly the under-18s assistant manager at City. Another year, another manager – but it is unfair to paint Chelsea’s project as a flop | Jacob SteinbergRead morePalmer and Delap won the FA Youth Cup with City in 2020, defeating Chelsea in the final alongside Morgan Rogers, Taylor Harwood-Bellis, Oscar Bobb and James McAtee.
- “We had so many unbelievable players,” says their former City teammate Ben Knight.
- “When you’ve got that many top, top players, you just feel like you’re never going to lose.
