Exclusive: Chelsea set to change rule which has defined their squad and set them up for this year’s failure | OneFootball

Our writer Simon Phillips’ Substack has a couple of really nice juicy exclusives that have just dropped on this Thursday afternoon to keep us all interested.

One that jumps out at us is his report which cites two sources in informing him that the club have ended up their “U25 rule” which was dictating so much of our transfer policy.

The Blues have the youngest squad in the league, but Phillips expects this to be “balanced out” in the summer.

One of his sources actually reports that the U25 rule was only for the initial wave of signings, and actually hasn’t been in place since last summer – we just didn’t make any January signings.

It’s frustrating that it took this desperate season of failure for those at the top to realise what was evident to so many of us on the outside- that signing only kids would backfire.

“Many in Chelsea believe that they need a stronger spine with more leadership. This doesn’t mean signing 30-year-olds, but it does mean targeting a couple of players who are more proven and have leadership skills. The age will be more irrelevant,” Phillips writes.

A much needed departure

It’s funny to read this morning that Manchester United’s new sporting direction will be focused around signing young players. It’s an obvious direction to go in for many reasons, but Chelsea have very capably demonstrated the dangers of it this season.

You spend a lot on potential, but without the right environment, those players will never reach their potential. Sticking to a hard and fast “rule” was always silly. Imagine if we’d avoided signing players like Thiago Silva just because they didn’t fit a template?

As Phillips says, we still expect the club to focus on younger players as that is an overall sensible direction to take. But we we won’t be following it religiously, and in fact this summer seems like a prime moment to add some experience to try and help the callow youth filling the rest of the roster.