Another year comes to a close and it has been another very successful one for the Academy here at Chelsea. Only narrowly missing out of massive success at the last hurdles but it has still been one full of young players and huge prospects. This will be the first of a 4 part season review of the academy and the first is covering the U18's league.
It's more or less certain now that Jose Mourinho will make a dramatic return to Stamford Bridge this summer. Personally, I cannot wait for that to happen. We look at our Chelsea team and see the fantastic quality we have. The current squad has won the Champions League and Europa League but has failed in the Premier League and we find ourselves a long way off challenging for the title.
Mark Worrall and the Gate 17 boys have kindly put together some videos for YOU the Chelsea fans all over the world to watch and feel the atmosphere in the ground last Wednesday in Amsterdam.
Chelsea are Champions of Europe again - Are you watching White Hart Lane!
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Super Frankie Lampard received a Special Recognition Award at the Annual Player of the Year awards last night and it's also worth mentioning that he was on the shortlist of four players for the main award of the evening.
Just days after Lampard broke Bobby Tambling's all time Chelsea goal record, Tambling himself presented Lampard with the award.
Oscar's second goal against Juventus at Stamford Bridge was voted Goal of the Season by Chelsea Supporters around the world and he received his award at the Player of the Year Awards last night.
Here's a quick reminder of why Oscar won the Award!
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Juan Mata last night was named Chelsea Player of the Year by the Chelsea Supporters all over the world for the second season running and in addition, was also voted Players, Player of the Year for the first time.
Speaking of being voted once again by the Supporters and now the players, Mata said:
'I feel so happy, It's my second season here and winning the trophy two years in a row is amazing for me.
It wasn't a classic and to be honest apart from a Frank Lampard belter, Chelsea weren't at the races in the first half! Chelsea turned the screw up a notch second half, got plenty of attacking possession and finally created decent chances. Thanks to Fernando Torres, Branislav Ivanovic and Gary Cahill, Chelsea lifted the Europa League and became the first club in history to hold both trophies at the same time!
Tomorrow night Chelsea take on Benfica in Amsterdam in the THIRD major European final in SIX years. After having injury doubts over Eden Hazard and John Terry, both have travelled today and a decision will be taken by Rafa Benitez after our training session tonight.
Hopefully both will make it through and will be available to bolster Rafa's options but ahead of the session tonight, I wanted to ask the Chelsea faithful their thoughts on who should start the game?
How many of you watched the Porto-Benfica battle which would effectively decide the champion of the Portuguese league on Saturday? If you didn't, I genuinely feel bad for you. It was an absolute cracking match. As they had the advantage, and a win or draw would essentially see them winning the league, I expected Benfica to sit back, try to snag a goal, and park the bus.
Tonight will see the end of what has been another impressive season at the Chelsea FC Academy. Not only have they made it to this final tonight but they had also made it to the final of the NextGen Series which was a U19's Champions League style competition with Europes elite clubs at the first time of asking.
It's time to look back at Benitez's time at Chelsea and decide once and for all whether he has been a success. Let's put all the hate, tactical moves and all the Benayoun substitutions aside and think about this rationally. To being with, I'm not interested in whether you like him or agree with his tactics because that is not what determines whether or not he has been a success story.
As the season draws to a close the voting opens to decide who the club's player and player's player of the year is, as well as who scored the goal of the season. These are official awards presented by Chelsea, but what I'm interested in today is who our (unofficial) most improved player is.
I'm going to put forward 5 nominations and let you make you choice between them.
Frank Lampard scored his 202nd and 203rd goal of an incredible Chelsea career to surpass the great Bobby Tambling's long standing record and virtually secured the Blues a top four finish.
It didn't go according to plan to start with for Rafa Benitez's side however, the hosts were 1-0 up after just 14 minutes.
In the following, I'm going to do my best to round up some of the bigger transfer rumours involving Chelsea circulating the internet, TV, and pubs alike. Now, I'm not saying that I'm giving 100% credence to all of them, but I'm going to try and list some of the more prominent ones and see what the ChelseaDaft community thinks about them, and what the varying degrees of truth may be.
Frank Lampard is in REAL danger of missing out on Bobby Tambling's record at Chelsea with just three games to go in our season. I personally believe that he WILL start against Aston Villa tomorrow but it could be his last start in a Chelsea shirt unless we get his contract situation sorted out.
