We want to be the best academy in England confirms Chelsea youth chief Bath

Chelsea head of youth development Neil Bath admits the club has been working on creating the best academy in England.

The Blues have spent a lot of money on a scouting network and the facilities to attract the best young players from Europe and other parts of the world.

Now they have what they always wanted, a pipeline of talent going into the first team.

Bath has been with the club since before Roman Abramovich took over in 2004.

"The ultimate goal is always to get players to the first-team," Bath said at the launch of Chelsea's new training app Perfect Play, via Squawka.

"When we restructured the whole academy, we spoke about having this vision to have the best academy in the world and we were miles from it.

"But what we wanted to do was break that down, and therefore we started to set ourselves some targets, going 'OK, how do we get the best seven, eight, nine, 10-year-olds in London and the south east? How do we get the best coaches?'

"Because if we've got the best talent, and we've got the best coaches, we're going to make ground. If we win trophies along the way, that's great, but ultimately, it's about getting players into Frank's team."

On other clubs trying to emulate Chelsea, Bath added: I think we (England) have gone a long way in a short period," Bath continued.

"FA, Premier League, clubs and national teams are lot tighter than I can remember. It's a bit like our own academy, probably 12 to 15 years ago, we restructured and went off, and we knew we were on a journey.

"And in recent years, other clubs have gone 'oh hang on, wait a minute, Chelsea have gone like that', and all of a sudden I'm looking around to our competitors and they're catching up in staff structure and facilities.

"And that makes good competition for the national game."