Chelsea Academy: The money and pressure in the game has turned the Academy into a money making machine.

It's been a subject for debate for good knows how many seasons but it's becoming clear that Chelsea's Academy players are becoming more valuable for differing reasons.

The sale of Nathan Ake has for me re-iterated just how much the game has changed in this country. As more and more money is ploughed into our game, expectations increase and with that comes pressure to succeed in the Premier League.  For clubs such as Chelsea who are expected to challenge for every domestic and European honour in the game season in, season out, they simply cannot afford to fall behind their challengers and continue to invest big money in new players who come in and replace those we currently have or ones previously brought in to then be sold.

Just look at the staggering amount of money that Chelsea have made from player sales since 2014 to the current day - A whopping £400 million!. It's fair to say that the majority of those players were squad members or players who had fallen out of favour with the current Manager at the time.

The list of those players is as follows:

Kevin De Bruyne - £16.5m - Wolfsburg
Juan Mata - £37.1m - Man United
George Saville - £1m - Wolves
Romelu Lukaku - £28m - Everton
Patrick Van Aanholt - £1.5m - Sunderland
Demba Ba - £4.7m - Besiktas
David Luiz - £50m - PSG
Ryan Bertrand - £10m - Southampton
Andre Schurrle - £22m - Wolfsburg
Oriol Romeu - £5m - Southampton
Felipe Luis - £11.1m - Atletico Madrid
Josh McEachran - £750,000 - Brentford
Petr Cech - £10m - Arsenal
Gael Kakuta - £2.5m - Seville
Thorgan Hazard - £5.85m - Borussia Moenchengladbach
Ramires - £25m - Jiangsu Suning
Marko Marin - £3m - Olympiakos
Papy Djilododji - £8m - Sunderland
Mohamed Salah - £14.5m - Roma
Stipe Perica - £3.4m - Udinese
John Obi Mikel - £9.3m - Tianjin Teda
Patrick Bamford - £6m - Middlesborough
Oscar - £60m - Shanghai SIPG
Bertrand Traore - £8.8m - Lyon
Christian Atsu - £6.2m - Newcastle
Juan Cuadrado - £17.3m - Juventus
Dominic Solanke - £3m (tribunal to confirm) - Liverpool
Asmir Begovic - £10m - Bournemouth
Nathan Ake - £20m - Bournemouth

The players from our Academy are highlighted in bold. The figure of sales of just those players is £69 Million (which could rise if an independent tribunal deems that Liverpool have to pay Chelsea more than the £3m quoted), it also does not take into account Izzy Brown's impending move to Huddersfield for a possible £8m either!

People moan and groan about our loan system with Chelsea's insistence that our young players get a feel for competitive football in and around the loan leagues. Those that have impressed in the realms of League One and the Championship are also then given the chance to prove what they can do in the Premier League.

However, to this day it's only really been Nathan Ake who came through our Academy that had made an impact playing regular first team football on loan in the Premier League with others such as Patrick Bamford being unable to prove himself at that level.

That's the problem here. These players are not given enough chances at their parent clubs with Chelsea being a prime example. That's because of the demands of the Premier League, the massive and quite simply ridiculous monies on offer for avoiding relegation let alone to qualify in the top four. Each Premier League manager up and down the county knows exactly what is required from their board of directors, owners and most importantly the fans. They cannot afford to play a younger player week in, week out because if it doesn't work out and they lose games it could prove to be detrimental to their goals for the season which could then have a knock on effect.

It's such a frustrating situation at Chelsea because just look at how good our youth teams are. We have some real proven quality within our youth ranks but they have to be nurtured away from the club plying their trade elsewhere! OK, Chelsea has a dedicated team of people that work with each of our loan players throughout the season but that's not the point.

If you look at the flip side of things and see the potential player values of our Academy players such as Ryan Bertrand and Nathan Ake then you will see that the whole situation has changed. Just think that all those Academy player sales since 2014 will have more or less paid for the signatures of Tiemoue Bakayoko and Antonio Rudiger will Willy Caballero thrown in! It's crazy!

Unless the rule makers in the Premier League step in and implement salary caps, limit the number of foreign players in squad/subsequent match day eleven and ensure that at least one player from the Academy is implemented into a squad every year playing a minimum of ten games, things will never change!

As I said, the money in the game now and the pressures of expectation has changed our game forever. Academy players are now seen as potential moneymakers rather than future first team players with only the exceptional ones given a possible chance.