Chelsea are set to appoint Newcastle scout Delroy Ebanks as their new head of academy recruitment in part of a serious overhaul of their current youth system.
Ebanks joined Newcastle just last year from West Ham as the Magpies’ Southern lead scout for emerging talent, but The Athletic’s David Ornstein now reports that he’s leaving for our ‘big six’ rivals at Stamford Bridge.
This leaves Paul Mitchell – who is currently reviewing our scouting system as a whole – on the lookout for another key member of staff within our academy after U21 boss Ben Dawson left for Leicester and U18 coach Graeme Carrick quit for Middlesbrough, with both swapping Academy roles for first-team opportunities.
Earlier this month, NUFC Blog exclusively revealed that Newcastle United were attempting to bring in academy experts Neil Bath and Jim Fraser following their departures from Chelsea. It remains to be seen if the club can convince either to join, but seems Chelsea are pushing ahead with their overhaul – at our expense – after seeing both leave.
Also making the move to Chelsea will be Arsenal’s Ayo Durojaiye, in what The Athletic says has been part of a long term plan of Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital to revolutionise the Blues’ approach to scouting, recruitment, play style and internal philosophy.
🚨 Newcastle scout Delroy Ebanks joining Chelsea as head of academy recruitment. #CFC also taking Ayo Durojaiye from Arsenal. Glenn Van der Kraan + Jack Francis in charge of new-look youth structure; overseen by Shields, Stewart & Winstanley @TheAthleticFC https://t.co/hNaP5TimYz
— David Ornstein (@David_Ornstein) July 30, 2024
He’s left for a better position who can blame him our whole scouting system is under review by Mitchell so will be tweaked and a few more recruited and released no doubt.
We should get the pair from Chelsea they released for our academy.
Porkpie(Quote)