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It is fair to say Ethan Ampadu has been impressing at Chelsea this season.

The 17-year-old put in another fine display against Hull City on Friday night, ending the game with a 100% pass completion rate.

He is a brilliant prospect and it is commendable that Antonio Conte has elected to play someone so young, particularly at a club like Chelsea, who have been criticised for their poor record of using young players in recent seasons.

Yet the issue of compensation still hangs over the Blues' newest hot prospect. Exeter City are still yet to receive a penny from Chelsea for the player who made the move from Stamford Bridge from Devon in the summer.

That is not the fault of Chelsea - they had a different valuation for the player than the Grecians did, with City chairman Julian Tagg describing the difference between the two clubs' offers as being "a massive disparity".

The fact that this is a player who the Blues have deemed good enough to play a part in their first team this season means the disparity in the two clubs' valuations is slightly worrying but Chelsea are just trying to get the best deal for themselves, as any other club would do in their situation.

They are not to blame for how long the tribunal is taking to come to fruition - it took around nine-and-a-half months for the compensation Liverpool had to pay Burnley for Danny Ings to be confirmed, and the compensation package that Tranmere Rovers had to pay Chester City for James Alabi, who joined Rovers on July 10 last year, has only recently been decided in the last week.

(Image: Getty)

It is expected that the tribunal will take place at some point in the near future, and the emphasis is now on the Professional Football Compensation Committee to decide the price - and it is one that could have a large impact on how youth players are handled in the lower leagues.

After all, if City are given peanuts for a player they invested almost a decade of hard work into, then where would be the incentive for other clubs to do the same? Whilst Ampadu impressed in the Grecians' first team last season, they certainly did not fully reap the fruits of their labour on the pitch, so it is only fair they are rightfully compensated by Chelsea.

Indeed, whilst it has never been truly clear whether a players' performances and achievements after a transfer can have an impact on a tribunal's decision, Ampadu's burgeoning Blues reputation should only serve to increase City's chances of a fair compensation package.

Whilst Ampadu has performed impressively in a Chelsea shirt, anyone who paid attention to him last season will tell you these sorts of performances are nothing new - he has simply picked up where he left off for City.

Of course, the teenager's development will be strengthened in the long term by his exposure to Premier League football, but he is not performing any noticeably different to how he did for City - and he has not been at Stamford Bridge long enough to have had such a significant boost in his ability over the last six months to suddenly find himself at a level where he can play for a Premier League first-team.

He was already in the Wales squad whilst at City so, whilst his international debut was a nice boon, it was the next natural step on his pathway with the Wales team and very little to do with his Chelsea performances.

In reality, it is Exeter City who should be taking the plaudits for Ampadu's recent performances - it is them who have mainly contributed to the player's development so far and for this, they should be fairly compensated.

If the tribunal should favour Chelsea, then a lot of lower-league clubs would be forgiven for seeing a talented youngster move to the Premier League and wonder what the point of their youth system even is.