Chelsea outshine Man Utd, Liverpool and Premier League rivals as Roman Abramovich plan delivers

Chelsea's academy has been crowned the top producer of players for the 2024/25 season.

have reclaimed the number one spot in the PA news agency's annual study, overtaking Manchester United, while Liverpool awarded the largest proportion of their first-team minutes to homegrown talent.

Chelsea have

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Cobham, Chelsea's training ground, has certainly delivered.

Over the course of the season, twenty graduates from Chelsea's academy graced the top flight, clocking up a total of 28,524 minutes on the pitch.

This was two more players and over 5,000 minutes more than any other academy could boast. Manchester City came second in both categories, with 18 players racking up a combined 23,462 minutes, pushing United into third place.

Chelsea skipper Reece James, along with fellow defenders Levi Colwill and Trevoh Chalobah, played pivotal roles in securing their side's Champions League qualification. All three also earned spots in the latest England squad having come through the club's academy under previous owner Roman Abramovich.

However, Chelsea's academy didn't just produce stars for their own team.

Newcastle full-backs Tino Livramento and Lewis Hall, Nottingham Forest pair Ola Aina and Callum Hudson-Odoi, Crystal Palace captain Marc Guehi, Tottenham striker Dominic Solanke and Aston Villa's Ian Maatsen all clocked up over 1,000 minutes. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Cobham graduate Michael Golding featured for just 45 seconds as a substitute for Leicester against Southampton – the shortest playing time of any player in the Premier League this season.

United found themselves trailing their Manchester rivals after offloading Scott McTominay to Napoli, with Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho often sidelined.

Arsenal, ranking fourth, saw a significant boost from the rise of Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly, nearly doubling their total from 11,869 minutes to 21,894.

Liverpool secured the seventh spot, with the rest of the top 10 comprising clubs outside the Premier League – Ajax and Barcelona in fifth and sixth positions, with Championship sides Leeds and Hull flanking ninth-placed Anderlecht.

Brighton, Tottenham, Leicester, Everton and Crystal Palace also made it into the top 20, with Nottingham Forest just missing out. Brentford were the lowest-ranked Premier League club, coming in at 274th out of the 275 academies represented – only Rochdale ranked lower.

Both Brentford and Wolves were among the 185 academies that produced just one player each.

Liverpool's title triumph was largely fuelled by their own academy, with homegrown players contributing to 16.7 per cent of their playing time.

Trent Alexander-Arnold led the charge with 2,575 minutes, while Curtis Jones and Caoimhin Kelleher also clocked over 1,000 minutes, and Conor Bradley and Jarell Quansah played substantial roles.

Viteszlav Jaros and Jayden Danns also made appearances, but Liverpool's seven homegrown players were outdone by Manchester United's eight. Garnacho, Kobbie Mainoo, Rashford, Jonny Evans, Toby Collyer, Chido Obi, Tyler Fredricson and McTominay collectively clocked up 6,292 minutes for their boyhood club, accounting for 15.2 per cent of United's playing time.

Chelsea's third-placed tally of 6,150 minutes, or 14.7 per cent, was led by Colwill, Chalobah and James.

Six clubs allocated over 10 per cent of playing time to homegrown players, with Crystal Palace just shy of that figure. This included five of the traditional 'big six', with Tottenham being the only outlier.

Both Chelsea and Manchester City fielded six homegrown players each. Southampton had five – as did Spurs, although Mikey Moore, Brandon Austin, Dane Scarlett, Will Lankshear and Alfie Dorrington only managed a combined total of 602 minutes on the pitch.

Brentford's lone representative across the league was Ryan Trevitt, who became their first homegrown player in the history of the PA academy study when he played eight minutes against Spurs in September.

This left Wolves as the only team not to field a homegrown player, although they did have Luke Cundle, Wesley Okoduwa and Tom Edozie in matchday squads as unused substitutes.