When Chelsea beat Leicester at home earlier this season, symbolically shifting the balance of power between last season's champions and this year's likely winners, Antonio Conte substituted on three homegrown prospects.

That is not supposed to happen at Stamford Bridge. The academy's finest players have traditionally found themselves nowhere near the first team. For a long time, the King's Road has been a temporary resting place for promising careers.

There seems to have been a structure, based around their use of the loan market, designed to produce players for sale rather than for first-team action.

Nathaniel Chalobah (left), a product of the Chelsea academy, gets to grips with N'Golo Kante in training at Cobham. He is one of a number of graduates making a first-team impression

Chalobah, 22, has stepped up seamlessly to the Chelsea first team this season

Antonio Conte is starting to reap the rewards of Chelsea's 10-year academy masterplan

Something has clearly changed. The explanation has commonly been that, in Conte, the club has found a manager who is willing to blood young players. He showed that with Paul Pogba at Juventus.

But Carlo Ancelotti had a pack of young players around the fringes of his side.

One, Aziz Deen-Conteh, recalled to The Set Pieces earlier this week: '(Ancelotti) really loved the young players… he gave a lot of players the opportunities to join in with the first team.'

Josh McEachran - who played nine times in the league under Ancelotti after making his debut at 17 - is probably the most familiar name from those involved in those circumstances, but others roll off the tongue. Gael Kakuta. Jeffrey Bruma. Patrick van Aanholt.

Their names were all excitedly mentioned in dispatches, but they rarely played.

Ruben Loftus-Cheek (left) and Nathan Ake (second right) pictured in training at Cobham

Chalobah (left) and Ake compete for the ball during a Chelsea training session recently

Chelsea's recent academy honours Under 21 Premier League champions 2014 Premier Reserve League champions 2010-11 UEFA Youth League champions 2015, 2016 FA Youth Cup winners 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016 Under 18 Premier League - Southern champions 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17 Advertisement

McEachran has had a nomadic career. Loan spells at Swansea, Middlesbrough, Watford, Wigan and Vitesse brought 84 league games.

He now plays for Brentford in the Championship. Not a bad career for a 24-year-old by any measure, but possibly not what was expected.

After all, he revealed in January that he had turned down a move to Real Madrid at 16.

Will it be the same for fellow midfielder Nathaniel Chalobah, who came on against Leicester? Is his involvement just another temporary situation, with the midfielder to be shipped out in the future?

There is a difference. Those that came before did not look completely first-team ready when used. Their presence owed something to a series of veterans leaving the club.

Chalobah, at 22, is ready, as are others like Nathan Ake, 22, Ola Aina, 20 and Ruben Loftus-Cheek, 21. They have the physicality and talent of a Premier League player.

Chelsea celebrate after winning the UEFA Youth League last season, beating PSG in the final

Young guns Fikayo Tomori (left), Tammy Abraham (centre) and Kasey Palmer celebrate their win over Paris Saint-Germain in the 2016 UEFA Youth League final

Charlie Colkett lifts the UEFA Youth League trophy in Nyon, Switzerland last April

All that the academy needed was time. Oddly, a good comparison is Leeds in 1988. Like Chelsea, they reformulated their development structure, and like Chelsea, it took a decade-plus for the real value to be seen.

Leeds won the FA Youth Cup five years later, which, like Chelsea's four wins in the last five seasons, was heralded as a sign. But few of the players from that crop went on to have an extended impact on the first-team.

Manager Howard Wilkinson, who instigated the changes as part of a 10-year plan, told Leeds magazine The Square Ball: 'I knew that we were only a couple of years away from having some good youngsters coming through like (Harry) Kewell, (Jonathan) Woodgate, (Alan) Smith, (Paul) Robinson, (Ian) Harte.'

Smith, Robinson and Woodgate all made their first-team debuts in 1998. Kewell established himself in the 1997-98 season. They were part of the side that reached the Champions League semi-finals. Wilkinson's 10-year plan had worked.

Chelsea were at a low ebb at youth level when Roman Abramovich took over. Yes, John Terry was brought through a few years prior, but there was no trend surrounding his emergence. No one else of the same standard came through.

For many years, John Terry had been the only academy graduate to crack the first team

Jake Clarke-Salter captained Chelsea to victory in the FA Youth Cup last season

The Blues also lifted the Youth Cup in 2015, beating Manchester City in the final

They have dominated the competition since 2010, when they defeated Aston Villa

The Blues had to plow money into youth recruitment, coaching and all the other necessary tools. They might have been able to spot talent, but they would need the right staff. Those coaches could not prosper without the players.

And just over 10 years on from that point, like at Leeds, it seems to be coming together. Time - a resource not afforded to most in football - is incredibly important.

Chalobah first appeared on a Chelsea bench in 2012, spent four seasons on loan and then remained at the club this summer after an impressive pre-season. He finally made his debut in October.

But it is not just Chalobah. Ake, Aina and Loftus-Cheek are also involved. This is no Terry situation - Chelsea are bringing through multiple talents at once. That foursome may also just be the start.

In the Football League, 11 per cent of clubs had been loaned a Chelsea youngster by the start of the campaign. That figure has since risen. Clubs know the standard of player they will receive from Chelsea.

Tammy Abraham has scored 18 goals for Bristol City this season during his loan from Chelsea

Izzy Brown on the ball for Huddersfield Town, with whom he's having an excellent season

Andreas Christensen has impressed at Borussia Monchengladbach and is expected to return to Chelsea this summer and take a place in the first team

Tammy Abraham has set the Championship alight with 18 goals. Huddersfield, third in the second-tier, also have two highly regarded young players bolstering their promotion push.

As James Thornton of Huddersfield fan site Thrice Champions told Sportsmail: 'I don't remember other kids coming in as first-team ready as Kasey Palmer and Izzy Brown, Brown in particular. He is built like a man and slotted in seamlessly'.

Another loanee - Andreas Christensen - has developed into one of the most hotly-coveted young defenders in Europe while on loan at Borussia Monchengladbach.

When he returns in the summer, it is understood he will become part of the first-team squad. He would cost tens of millions to sign in the open market.

Wilkinson spoke of the absence of opportunity in the modern game, especially with such an onus placed on success at the elite level, but Chelsea have found a solution.

The club turned to youth coach Joe Edwards in April 2016 to oversee the development of players out on loan and establish a firmer link between them and the first-team.

Josh McEachran (right) is a Chelsea academy graduate making a career away from the club

One of his first jobs was to brief Conte on what he might expect from his youth ranks. Edwards has clearly done that well.

In the Premier League, the average age of a first team debut is now 22. That provides an opportunity for extended development.

The much maligned system that sees 37 players out on loan has grown into an opportunity for Chelsea's prospects to sink or swim, without potentially bringing the Titanic down with them.

As Edwards himself put it when appointed to his new role: 'There's so much pressure on and it's difficult to prove that you can handle that pressure unless you get given an opportunity, so when boys go out on loan that's as close as they'll get to showing it.'

And in Conte, a manager who will have credit after a phenomenal first season that enjoys developing youth, and a generation of emerging talents that, courtesy of the long-term structure, are first-team ready, Chelsea may have found their perfect storm.

Forget what you already know. Even in football, success can take a decade or longer. Chelsea's strategy could be paying off.