The curious case of Chelsea's Carney Chukwuemeka

Carney Chukwuemeka became Aston Villa’s fourth-highest sale when he joined Chelsea for £20 million last summer, with the club’s chief executive Christian Purslow claiming his departure would help fund the academy for the next five years.

Villa’s highest-ever sale, of course, is another lad who progressed through the academy. Jack Grealish was 25 when he joined Manchester City for £100 million, which was seven years older than Chukwuemeka, who celebrated his 19th birthday last October, at the time of his big move.

That is not to say Villa had been at all eager to bank the cash for Chukwuemeka, having offered to make him the highest-paid teenager in the club’s history to sign a new contract. But the midfielder’s mind was made up long before Chelsea made what amounted to a staggering offer for a youngster with one year remaining on his contract.

Chukwuemeka, it was reported in November 2021, had decided that he could not see a pathway to the first-team at Villa, which made the decision to join Chelsea a curious one – albeit he revealed after signing that he was a boyhood fan of the club.

Grealish was not the first academy graduate to play his way into the England senior squad at Villa in the Premier League era. Gabriel Agbonlahor had done so before him and Jacob Ramsey, who this week captained the Under-21s, is on course to do so.

For all Chelsea have proved a willingness to offer chances to young players in recent years, such as Reece James and Mason Mount, the path to the first-team appeared to be far from uncluttered – and so it has proved.

Chukwuemeka made 14 appearances for Villa last season, two more than he has made for Chelsea ahead of the visit of his former club to Stamford Bridge on Saturday evening. With 11 games of the Premier League campaign to go and the the club still in the Champions League, he is confident of beating last season’s tally, which would have been his first goal.

Of those 14 appearances for Villa, three were starts and Chukwuemeka has still only started one game for Chelsea. His 240 minutes are some way short of the 416 minutes he played for the Midlands club, even though his contractual stand-off limited his playing time under former manager Steven Gerrard at the end of last season.

Chukwuemeka recently claimed he is close to playing more league minutes for Chelsea than he did for Villa last season, but he must still play more than another 100 minutes to do that and he is yet to make an appearance in Europe for the club.

Gareth Southgate highlighted his fears about the decreasing number of English players playing in the Premier League and Chukwuemeka is certainly a teenager the Three Lions have high hopes for.

Chukwuemeka starred for his country at the Under-19 European Championships last summer, which England won, and earned a place in the team of the tournament. The hope might have been that he would have progressed into the Under-21 squad in time for this summer’s Euros. Instead, he is a member of the Under-20s, who he has captained, and his international trajectory remains an upward one.

'The transition was tough but good'

There has been an understandable period of adjustment at Chelsea for Chukwuemeka, who joined Villa’s academy aged 15 from Northampton Town.

“It was quite difficult at the beginning. Villa was all I knew; I made my debut there. I have a lot to thank them for,” said Chukwuemeka in a Chelsea in-house interview. “I just had to get my head around (the fact) that I would be playing for the club I support. The transition was tough, but good at the same time.

“I felt I had to be patient at the start of the season. I trusted God’s plan for me and now I’ve almost surpassed the league minutes I got for the whole of last season. It’s a step forward in my career.

It is hard to argue with the fact that moving from Villa to Chelsea, a club that has won every domestic and European trophy in the modern era, is not a step forward in any player’s career. But whether or not he jumped too soon will become clear in the next couple of seasons.

Chukwuemeka is likely to be watching some of his former team-mates from the substitutes’ bench on Saturday, while Ramsey has a better chance of starting for Villa at Stamford Bridge.

Ramsey is almost two years older than Chukwuemeka, so it is interesting to note that, aged 19, the midfielder made 25 senior appearances for Villa and then added another 10 to that total last season.

Villa signed two midfielders last summer, Boubacar Kamara and Leander Dendoncker, and yet Ramsey will make his 28th club appearance of the season if he plays at Stamford Bridge and could well beat his career best of 35 by the end of the campaign.

Less than six months after he moved to Stamford Bridge, Chukwuemeka saw Chelsea break the British record transfer fee to sign another midfielder, Enzo Fernandez, and there is every chance they will add to the position again this summer.

But Jorginho was the first of a planned host of exits, which could also include Mateo Kovacic in the summer, and it is not inconceivable that Chukwuemeka will find himself further up the Chelsea pecking order a year on from his curious move.