Inside Chelsea's academy that took over the England squad, the Premier League and beyond

When Gareth Southgate announced his latest England squad on Tuesday, something immediately stood out - the sheer number of players that have been developed at Chelsea's Cobham facilities in Surrey. Marc Guehi, Mason Mount, Reece James, Fikayo Tomori, Conor Gallagher, Declan Rice and Tammy Abraham all came up through the ranks.

And in truth, there could have been many more - the likes of Trevoh Chalobah, Tariq Lamptey, Dominic Solanke, Eddie Nketiah and Ruben Loftus-Cheek might consider themselves unlucky for missing out - or at least harbour ambitions of reaching that goal. Callum Hudson-Odoi and Tino Livramento might have been looked at had they not been injured.

It might be no surprise to see the England squad dominated by Chelsea youth products considering the outrageous amount of talent that has come through their academy in recent years. But Southgate's most recent announcement shone a light on the sheer distance that has been made in recent years at Stamford Bridge.

You would not have to stretch too far back in time to see a Blues team that was completely put together with Roman Abramovich's millions. For many years, the only real success story to come out of the youth set-up was John Terry - who made his debut in 1998.

There had been top talents that had come close but, ultimately, the fire-hire methods under the Chelsea owner meant that there was no time to bed in youngsters and immediate success was prioritised. Now, it is a very different story.

Many might denote Frank Lampard as the instigator after promoting the likes of Mount, James and Abraham to the squad when he joined as manager in 2019. But the truth is, these players would have likely made the squad regardless of who was in charge - they were