{"id":670919,"date":"2026-01-03T10:00:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T10:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/670919\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T10:00:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T10:00:15","slug":"graduates-reunited-chelseas-former-manchester-city-talents-return-premier-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/670919\/","title":{"rendered":"Graduates reunited: Chelsea\u2019s former Manchester City talents return | Premier League"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chelsea\u2019s visit to Manchester City<\/a> on Sunday will be a homecoming for members of the travelling party. 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.<\/p>\n

The London club\u2019s recent recruitment has been heavily influenced by City\u2019s teaching of players and coaches. Tosin Adarabioyo, Cole Palmer, Liam Delap, Jamie Gittens and Rom\u00e9o Lavia were members of City\u2019s youth ranks, most working there under Enzo Maresca. If one thread was unpicked this week when Maresca dramatically departed Chelsea<\/a>, the link remains strong because Sunday\u2019s caretaker, Calum McFarlane, was formerly the under-18s assistant manager at City.<\/p>\n

Palmer and Delap won the FA Youth Cup with City in 2020, defeating Chelsea<\/a> in the final alongside Morgan Rogers, Taylor Harwood-Bellis, Oscar Bobb and James McAtee. \u201cWe had so many unbelievable players,\u201d says their former City teammate Ben Knight. \u201cWhen you\u2019ve got that many top, top players, you just feel like you\u2019re never going to lose. And we had a season at under-23s after we won the Youth Cup [when] we were just ridiculous, even when we played against the men\u2019s teams in the Papa Johns [Trophy]. I don\u2019t really remember ever losing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adarabioyo and Lavia had first-team opportunities under Pep Guardiola, and Gittens spent two years in Manchester after joining from Reading. City\u2019s selling of academy graduates is a key part of the business model, earning \u00a340m from the sale of Palmer<\/a> to Chelsea alone. Lavia, Gittens and Delap moved elsewhere but sell-on clauses further boosted income via Stamford Bridge. The thing all five have in common is that their path at City was blocked.<\/p>\n

Joe Shields, the co-director of recruitment and talent at Chelsea since October 2022, worked at City as head of recruitment and talent manager, giving him knowledge of the next generation. All five former City players have joined Chelsea on his watch.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving the City education and then putting your own spin on it and being able to play with freedom has definitely benefited Cole,\u201d says Knight, now of Cambridge United. \u201cCole was the type of player that needed a bit of freedom to be at his best. I wouldn\u2019t say he really had that at City. It was quite structured in the way Guardiola wants people to play. Cole\u2019s gone to Chelsea as the main man; he can go where he wants to go and get on the ball and do what he wants to do. He\u2019s always been quite a relaxed character with so much talent, and the best thing for him to do, in my opinion, was to go to another club. It\u2019s worked out at Chelsea.\u201d<\/p>\n

The aim at City is to produce for their own first team. In order to do this there is a stylistic and tactical structure which mirrors Guardiola\u2019s side to make the transition as seamless as possible. Keeping the ball and dominating matches is also part of Chelsea\u2019s mantra, so when they are looking for exciting talents, a degree from a high-quality football university is advantageous.<\/p>\n

Enzo Maresca (right) worked alongside Pep Guardiola at Manchester City before becoming the Chelsea head coach. Photograph: Adam Vaughan\/EPA<\/p>\n

\u201cI would try and copy Bernardo Silva, McAtee would try and copy David Silva,\u201d Knight says. \u201cI don\u2019t know who Cole was watching, but you try and be like them. The hardest thing is they\u2019re \u00a3100m players and you\u2019re trying to take their position and that is really hard. It\u2019s almost next to impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palmer was close to being released by City as a small 16-year-old, with some in the club thinking he did not have the attributes to make it at the top. \u201cHe had like a mad growth spurt,\u201d says Knight. \u201cI played with him for England when we were both tiny and he sort of struggled a little bit. And then Covid happened and he went with the first team and it was like: \u2018Oh my God, how good is he now? He\u2019s just ridiculous.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Being a City graduate brings a level of cachet, and the quality that comes out of the club is impressive. Smart recruitment and coaching help to keep City ahead and make them the envy of others. An eagerness to invest gives the club an advantage; Lavia, Delap and Gittens were all brought in from elsewhere as teenagers.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst year Liam was good, but I never really looked at him and thought he was going to do what he\u2019s done,\u201d says Knight. \u201cAfter that year, he suddenly just became ridiculous. When you\u2019ve played with players that are now doing what they\u2019re doing, you can look back to those times and think of the moment you realised: \u2018Wow, he\u2019s going to be a very, very good player.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

All had the chance to work with Guardiola and learn what is required to be a top Premier League<\/a> player. Maresca was a disciple and would return to City as Guardiola\u2019s assistant after managing Parma. Knowing the calibre Maresca has worked with was an attraction for Chelsea and he left a world beater.<\/p>\n

Within academies there are a lot of voices on how best to develop young players but Maresca was his own man. \u201cWhen Enzo came in, he said: \u2018No, I\u2019m choosing the team,\u2019\u201d Knight says. \u201cEnzo had his own way of doing it, and he was the one in charge.\u201d Traits learned at City continue to influence Chelsea from near and far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chelsea\u2019s visit to Manchester City on Sunday will be a homecoming for members of the travelling party. Five…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,393,4884,2465,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-670919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-manchester","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115830589964221729","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}