• Champions League

Loftus-Cheek handed call-up as Mourinho banks on youth

Jose Mourinho has called-up 18-year-old Ruben Loftus-Cheek for Chelsea's clash with Sporting © Getty Images

Enlarge

Jose Mourinho believes Chelsea must produce homegrown players, otherwise they may as well shut their £8 million-a-year academy and spend the money on transfers.

Defender John Terry, the 34-year-old captain, was the last Chelsea-nurtured prospect to make an impact on the first team.

With Terry, Eden Hazard and Willian rested for Wednesday night's Champions League clash with Sporting Lisbon, Mourinho has called up 18-year-old midfielder Ruben Loftus-Cheek, who has been with Chelsea since the age of 8.

In July, ahead of the second season of his second spell at Stamford Bridge, Mourinho insisted it would be his fault if academy prospects Lewis Baker, Izzy Brown and Dominic Solanke were not soon first-team stars.

Loftus-Cheek is another hot prospect who has been fast-tracked to the first team for a match Chelsea do not need to win.

"You need to prove the academy works well and is worth it," Mourinho said. "If the kids are not good enough or the work is not good enough - and year after year you don't bring kids to the first team - it's better to close the door and use the money that you spend on the academy to buy players."

Mourinho believes stability is imperative for the teenagers to realise their ambitions at Chelsea.

"It's only possible if the first-team manager stays for a long time, which in this club in the last 10 years, was not possible," added Mourinho, who is 18 months into a four-year contract. "Imagine next week if there's a different first-team manager with different ideas. Some product, almost an end product, becomes an empty product and you have to start everything again.

"The relationship between the first-team and the academy is changing based on this stability that, at this moment, we are having.

"The people in the academy feel they are working for something, which is why tomorrow is not Ruben's day but 'academy day.'

"To be here since he was 8 and to have the chance to play for Chelsea's first team is every kid's dream. English player, 18, completely made in Chelsea. If he does it, if he succeeds, it's good.

"It's a clear message that the first-team is sending to them: work, work and the right moment, the right talent always arrives."

Loftus-Cheek said he's thrilled to have the opportunity to make his senior debut.

"It's great, it's amazing for me," he said. "I've been here for quite a while now - since I was 8 - so to be involved, even just training with the first team, means a lot to me.

"To play tomorrow night would be amazing. Since I was a young kid I've been watching Chelsea on the TV and thinking maybe one day I'll be playing at Stamford Bridge.

"If the opportunity comes then great but if it doesn't then I'll keep working hard, do my best every day and see what happens."

Loftus-Cheek also said he's not the only player at the Chelsea academy who could join the senior side in the future.

"We've got some good talent coming through. You have to think you can do it and be positive," he said. "All we can do is do our best and when we get the opportunity to train with the first team we've got to show that we want to play, show that talent and the rest is up to the management staff."

Mourinho spent enormous sums on transfers during a hugely successful first spell at the club from June 2004 to September 2007 when upcoming talent was in short supply.

"Every manager in the world wants to bring young people up," he said. "It depends on the talent you have. Sometimes you have it. Sometimes you don't. I can, for example, compare my first spell here and now - and now the quality of the young players is better. It's clearly better. I have conditions to do it."

Chelsea lost for the first time in 24 games this season at Newcastle last Saturday.

Despite already advancing to the last 16 as group winners and affording key personnel rest, the side are determined to respond.

"By the mental point of view the defeat to Newcastle doesn't have an effect on us," Mourinho said. "We have nothing to change and be worried with, but when you lose a game, the next game you want to win."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd