A glimpse into the future...but for whom?

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In three weeks' time Antonio Conte could be collecting a FA Cup winner's medal from whomever Prince William deputises to the task while he's busy delivering the best man's speech at his brother's wedding. If Chelsea do beat Manchester United at Wembley on May 19 it will be a welcome reversal from last year's abject display against Arsenal in the same contest (one for which - without any bitterness at all... - I bought a ticket for myself and my best mate for his 50th birthday...), in which Conte's then-Premier League title winners forgot to turn up. Or, at least, they turned up with Victor Moses, who forgot what occasion he was playing in.

Some say Chelsea are cup specialists. There are those, too, who maintain that no other club in the modern era has made the FA Cup Final quite their own. In this regard, they have a point: in the competition's modern history Chelsea have won the cup seven times out of a total of 12 appearances. They won the last final at the old Wembley in 2000 and won it in the first final of the new stadium in 2007, beating Manchester United by a single Didier Drogba goal. For those of us who were there, this was sweet revenge for the humiliating 4-0 defeat by United in 1994 (even if that experience - which led to a European Cup Winners Cup run - somewhat marked the 'return' of Chelsea to the big time, having spent the 1970s and 1980s in a dark, financially ruinous an largely anonymous, success-wise, place).

Indeed, it would be three years later when the team, under Ruud Gullit's management, captained by Dennis Wise and peppered with internationals like Gianfranco Zola, Frank Leboeuf, Gianluca Vialli and Roberto Di Matteo (who famously scored after just 42 seconds), would beat Middlesborough 2-0 and win their first 'grown-up' silverware for a quarter of a century.

"Chelsea are back!" we sang, and they were. I won't bore you with all the stats that have followed, save to say that the FA Cup has been an ever-constant in much of the Abramovich era, a period that, yes, has seen Chelsea win the Premier League five times, but has also seen them win the Cup four times in the last 11 years. That, however, isn't the point of this post. Nor is the cycle of management - you know the drill: Chelsea hires head coach, wins a trophy or two, parts company with head coach, hires head coach, wins a trophy or two, parts company with head coach, repeat ad nauseam. Nope. Not this. Even if, surely, Conte's appearance with Chelsea at Wembley later this month will be his last in charge.

No. Because when Roman Abramovich assumed ownership of Chelsea, apart from wanting to turn it into London's AC Milan, he also gave instruction to his minions to create a successful academy system that would generate future stars for the club. On paper, at least, that hasn't happened. John Terry is, arguably, the last youth product to have achieved first team regularity (although, this season, Andreas Christensen could be considered to have broken through, tentatively). Looked at from a broader, historic perspective, the Chelsea academy hasn't been without longer lasting successes: Jimmy Greaves, Bobby Tambling, Peter Bonetti, Terry Venables, Ron Harris, John Hollins, Peter Osgood and Ray Wilkins all came through its system, along with more recent graduates like Terry, Ryan Bertrand and Robert Huth. However, the absence of sustained careers at the parent club remains a key issue for the current era. Perhaps it's not even the academy's mission? Perhaps generating new talent, who glimmer with prospect for first team appearances before being sold or loaned out is merely the business model, nothing more than a form of husbandry and a secondary process to first team recruitment? For fans this isn't without its frustration. Chelsea loaned out academy product Ruben Loftus-Cheek and replaced him - for £40 million - with the profoundly disappointing Tiémoué Bakayoko. There are many more examples.

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Which brings me - six paragraphs later - to events last night at the Emirates Stadium and the point of this post. Chelsea won their fifth consecutive FA Youth Cup, an achievement you have to go back to the Busby Babes of the 1950s to match. Thrashing Arsenal 7-1 on aggregate recorded the Chelsea Under-18s their seventh FA Youth Cup trophy in all since 2010. The feeling amongst football writers is that it is unlikely to be their last, either, and that a fifth consecutive trophy could easily become a sixth, seventh or more.

Imagine a first team recording such persistent success. They'd be regarded with the same superlative as Manchester United's dominance under Sir Alex Ferguson, or the modern Barcelona, or Liverpool in the late '70s and early '80s. And yet, when you think about it, seven years of success for a youth side should mean, applying basic mathematics, that there has been a steady flow of graduates into the Chelsea first team. The truth is, there hasn't been. Amongst the current crop, Callum Hudson-Odoi (who scored twice last night) has had a few runouts this season under Conte, during which he has looked a very exciting prospect, with lightning pace and an exceptional turn of foot. Others, like Dujon Sterling and Ethan Ampadu have also enjoyed the odd taste of the big time as substitutes. The $64,000 question is - what next? Will that be it?

Another key question is about the future of Jody Morris, the Under-18s manager. A Chelsea academy graduate himself, once a combative midfielder who came through the ranks alongside Terry and made 124 midfield appearances between 1996 and 2003, he has quietly got on with playing a huge part in the youth team's remarkable run of success since being appointed four years ago. While it might be highly unlikely that he would be considered an immediate replacement for Conte, should he leave (and with a predictable list of European exotica being lined up), surely a record like his won't go unnoticed?

All of which begs the more existential question about what is Chelsea's strategy when it comes to players and managers alike? To win five consecutive trophies suggests that the club is sitting on a gold mine in Morris and his players. No one, though, would be so naive to suggest that any of their success would translate instantly into the first team: but, all the same, it would be a tragedy to see that talent just ebb away to other clubs. I might be ludicrously idealistic, but why not get some of these youngsters blooded in properly at the top level, and see what raw, precocious talent can do? Alan Hansen's infamous statement in 1995 that "You can’t win anything with kids" has often been proven right, even if it was immediately proven wrong by Fergie's youngsters (Gary Neville, 20; Paul Scholes, 20; Ryan Giggs, 21; Phil Neville, 18; Nicky Butt, 20; and David Beckham, 20) going on to win that season's Premier League. The trouble is, is any club willing to give it another go now?