Not so long ago a senior executive at Chelsea said that there were only two scenarios under which he envisaged youth ever being given a chance at the club: relegation or a transfer ban.

Chelsea have been landed with the latter. The executive was only half-joking and it was clearly a sign of his frustration. When would Chelsea ever turn to their loan army, which currently stands at 41 players? Or even commit to the young players remaining at the club? When would they ever have the courage to develop for their first-team and not others?

Chelsea have always wanted to win. And win right now. It is their strength, their ruthlessness, but also their weakness. The executive is not the only one to express his frustration. Part of the pitch to Carlo Ancelotti when he became Chelsea manager back in 2009 was that, ironically, there was a crop of young players coming through and that he would work closely with the then sporting director Frank Arnesen to promote them.

It is partly why Arnesen, armed with videos of those players when he first met Ancelotti, pushed so hard to hire the Italian. Ancelotti was keen on the plan and when he won the Premier League and FA Cup in his first season it was felt the right moment to let the likes of Michael Ballack, Joe Cole and Ricardo Carvalho go and promote Patrick Van Aanholt, Josh McEachran, Jeffrey Bruma and Gael Kakuta.