Josh McEachran’s parents are feeling a little sad right now. The reality is starting to hit home that, as of next season, they will not need to drive to Chelsea’s training ground to see one of their boys in action.
It is a journey mother Julie and father Mark have taken for 22 years. The commute from Oxfordshire began when Josh joined the academy at the age of seven, and even though he left the club in 2015 younger brother George has maintained the family connection.
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But George, also a midfielder, is leaving Chelsea this summer when his contract runs out and that means the joys of seeing a son playing in blue is over.
“Mum told me she feels emotional about it — Chelsea has played a huge part in our lives,” Josh tells The Athletic. “Since I was seven, my mum and dad have been traveling up and down taking us to training and watching matches. She’s talking about the reality of not going to Cobham (Chelsea’s training base) again. It’s 22 years of the family’s life. That’s big.”
There is no one better than Josh to help George cope with the realities of leaving Stamford Bridge. While George has never had quite the same expectation on his shoulders as his brother, he was part of the England Under-17 squad containing Phil Foden, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Conor Gallagher, Marc Guehi and Emile Smith Rowe that won the World Cup five years ago. The 22-year-old, who started the 5-2 win over Spain in the final, had high hopes of making it at Chelsea too.
“I know what it’s like,” Josh says. “I’ve been through it. George’s confidence will be quite low and he’s probably unsure what’s going to happen. I need to give him that confidence now really, tell him to keep working hard. Something will fall into place and he just needs to snatch it.
“I need to be realistic with him too; it’s not going to be easy to leave Chelsea and walk into a League One side. It’s not the end of the world leaving Chelsea. It’s just a chapter of your career going forward. He’s a good player and just needs to find the right manager and team to play for.
“I’ve had to come through a lot of adversity from injuries, not being picked, leaving clubs… it can be done.”
No wonder Josh is sounding bullish. He has the chance of winning automatic promotion to the Championship with League One MK Dons today. But those who saw the midfielder excel as a youngster at Chelsea will always wonder why he is not shining in the Premier League.
Josh, 29, will never forget the day he knew his Chelsea career was finished. He reported for the first day of pre-season training as usual in 2015 but didn’t see his kit in the first team changing room.
He had spent the previous campaign at Vitesse Arnhem, his fifth loan, but was still hoping to impress manager Jose Mourinho that summer.
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“I remember thinking I’d be going back and joining the first team on the pre-season tour to the USA,” the former England Under-21 international says. “I walked in (to the first team dressing room) and couldn’t find my stuff.
“It was the kitman who informed me what was going on. He said, ‘Has no-one told you? You’re with the loan group’. I was like, ‘Brilliant’. I knew then it was over.
“Did Mourinho say anything to me about it? No. It would have been nice. But I understand he had a lot of expectations on him. He had his group of players and just wanted to concentrate on them.
“It was really tough. Even with the loan group, each day it was getting smaller as players secured a loan elsewhere and I was thinking ‘God, where am I going to go?’.”
He did not have too long to wait as Brentford signed the then 22-year-old for £750,000, but few would have expected his time at Chelsea to end so early.
Shortly after winning the double in 2010, Carlo Ancelotti took a group of reporters out to dinner at one of his favourite Italian restaurants near Stamford Bridge. Many subjects were covered on what was an informal occasion. At one point though he was asked what player from the academy he was most excited about that he felt could genuinely make it. “Josh McEachran,” he replied emphatically.
McEachran had been earmarked as an outstanding talent for some time. His first training session with the first team was at 15 under manager Luiz Felipe Scolari in 2008, going up against some of the best players in the club’s history who had lost the Champions League Final to Manchester United.
“Being so young you’re obviously nervous going over, but once training started there was no pressure,” he recalls. “I was only 15, so you’re not meant to be competing with players like that. I just tried to give a good account of myself, listen to everyone because they were all world-class players. Afterwards I thought to myself ‘I’ve actually done really well. I want more of that!’.
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“All the senior players were unbelievable — the English guys like John Terry and Frank Lampard, then there was Didier Drogba and Michael Essien too. Mikel John Obi played in my position and he was great with me. They said ‘Well done, keep it up’ and were asking how old I was. I don’t think they could believe I was 15 — I was a scrawny little kid.
“I was still in school and my mates couldn’t believe it. They were asking me ‘What are they like? What do they eat? What do they do?’. I was bombarded with questions.
“I didn’t think about it too much. Looking back, it was an unbelievable thing to do at that age.”
It was Ancelotti, along with assistant Ray Wilkins, who saw a place for McEachran at Chelsea. On 15 September 2010 McEachran replaced Yossi Benayoun with 11 minutes remaining in a Champions League match at Zilina to make his professional debut at 17. The shirt from that night is framed and hung on a wall in his house. Another 16 appearances, including four starts, followed in that campaign.
“He (Ancelotti) told me he liked my calmness and vision,” McEachran says. “I was an attacking midfielder but when I was working with him, he’d move me to a deeper role. He told me to watch videos of Andrea Pirlo, study the way he played, which I did.
“Ray took me under his wing a little bit too, helping me integrate. He was a real character and made me feel welcome. He’d work on specific things with me after training like passing through the lines, how I received the ball, scanning my shoulders, looking for what’s around me. The main thing was telling me to just enjoy it. I can’t speak highly enough about him.”
It is not a surprise Wilkins, who passed away in 2018, took a shine to McEachran. He came through the Chelsea ranks (during the 1970s), played as a creative midfielder and also made his debut at 17.
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Wilkins would have known about the intense scrutiny and hype that McEachran would have to deal with, but he didn’t have the chance to act as a mentor for long because Chelsea surprisingly sacked him in December 2010.
For years there had been a lot of questions about John Terry being the last academy player to make the breakthrough and, when McEachran was promoted, he found himself thrust into the limelight.
“It escalated quickly,” he admits. “I was a ball-playing midfielder who was playing for the England youth ranks too. People had seen Jack Wilshere come through at Arsenal and, all of a sudden, I was being compared with Jack, being talked about as the next England star, etc. As a 17-year-old playing for Chelsea and being compared to a player like that was unbelievable, but with the benefit of hindsight maybe it provided a pressure I could have done without.”
However, the real “what if” moment as far as McEachran is concerned was when Ancelotti was fired at the end of the 2010-11 season. The Italian paid the price for not winning a trophy. Andre Villas-Boas replaced him and things were never the same.
“I was gutted, devastated when Carlo went,” he says. “You couldn’t even say we’d had a bad season. But that’s Chelsea. If Carlo had been there the following season, I think I would have played a lot more games. As a young player at Chelsea, once you earn the trust of the manager, it’s huge.”
Chelsea’s decision did not stop him from signing a new five-year contract. What may surprise some is that he rejected a similar offer from Real Madrid, who were managed by Mourinho.
“It was crazy,” McEachran says. “They wanted to fly me and my family over there. There was a five-year contract — I was taken back by it, just thinking ‘Wow’.
“My mum got a bit excited at the thought of living in a nice place in Spain for a few minutes. But it didn’t really tempt me. I didn’t speak to anyone at Madrid to convince me. I didn’t even fly to Spain. I just said, ‘No, I want to stay at Chelsea’.
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“I was a Chelsea fan and starting to break through. With hindsight maybe I should have taken it!”
His commitment to Chelsea wasn’t rewarded. Villas-Boas gave him five appearances in as many months, three of which were in the EFL Cup. Fortune was not on his side in two of those fixtures as Chelsea had a man sent off and he was substituted shortly after.
“I knew I had to get that trust really quickly but it would be hard to do that because he would want to bring his own players in,” he says. “I knew as a 17-year-old I’d be up against more top players. There was already a lot of competition and then Juan Mata, Raul Meireles and Oriol Romeu arrived.
“Did he speak to me a lot? No, not really. It’s not like AVB made me feel unwanted — he had a job to do. I understood his position. We had a few chats but the only one I really remember was the last one (in January 2012). He told me I had two choices: I could stay but I wouldn’t be involved that much and have a (minor) squad role, or I could go out on loan.
“I didn’t really want to just sit around; I wanted to play. Looking back now, perhaps I should have waited (Villas-Boas was sacked two months later). Perhaps I was too keen to get out, especially when you think they went on to win the Champions League that season (under Roberto Di Matteo). That would have been nice!”
Instead of being around the club as they progressed to that final against Bayern Munich, McEachran had a disappointing spell at Swansea City.
He was given just 215 minutes of playing time (only two starts). What made the experience worse is their head coach was a man who knew the teenager well — former Chelsea reserve manager Brendan Rodgers.
“It was terrible,” he says. “He was ringing me a lot beforehand, convincing me to go there. I had other options, but he was very keen. It just didn’t work out.
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“Did he ever explain why? Not really. The team was doing well. The midfield at the time was good with Joe Allen, Gylfi Sigurdsson and Leon Britton. But for him to keep ringing me beforehand to say I will play and then sometimes I wasn’t even in the squad — it was a bit odd.
“It did give me a reality check early in football. I try to look at positives and negatives in every situation and I did learn a lot from that.”
He got back on track at Middlesbrough, playing 38 times and was named Young Player of the Year for 2012-13. But spells at Watford and Wigan Athletic during 2013-14 did not work (19 appearances between them) and despite feeling the benefits of playing abroad at Vitesse, Mourinho then sent that blunt message, via the kitman, that he was no longer wanted.
“The loans made me grow up a lot,” McEachran says. I wanted to play for Chelsea but it was good for me to get out of the bubble too. It’s a different world and it made me realise what it’s like out there. It turned me from a young boy into a man. In the early years you’d have opposition players wanting to put me in my place because I was seen (by others) as this Chelsea wonderkid and there was all this talk about me.”
There has been a lot of talk about other Chelsea youngsters in recent seasons who have made the grade. Mason Mount, Reece James, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Hudson-Odoi, to name just four, have played a lot under Maurizio Sarri, Frank Lampard and/or Thomas Tuchel.
A major factor in their development was the club being hit by a transfer ban from FIFA in 2019, plus Chelsea’s decision to appoint a former player and young English coach in Lampard that year.
“I’m delighted for them. The timing for them was good. But Frank’s gone and Tuchel is still playing them. They’re all international players and deserving of their place. I’m not thinking what might have been. I hope they go on to play for Chelsea for years because that’s what the fans want.”
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At Brentford he fractured his foot twice in the first season and other injury issues restricted him to making 101 appearances for the club in four seasons.
A free transfer to Birmingham City did not work out either (10 appearances), a major knee injury being the main reason on this occasion and he was released after 18 months. But then came a call from MK Dons to give him a new lease of life.
A glance at McEachran’s list of honours does not make impressive reading. There’s the FA Youth Cup and Premier Reserve League with Chelsea in 2010 and 2011 respectively. At international level, he claimed a European Under-17s Championship winners’ medal, in 2010. And that’s it.
This is another reason why he is so excited at the possibility of helping MK Dons secure automatic promotion. Due to their inferior goal difference, Liam Manning’s side will have to win away to Plymouth Argyle and hope Rotherham United drop points at relegation-threatened Gillingham to beat them to second place. There is a slim chance of finishing top if Wigan lose away to Shrewsbury and the gap in goal difference is overturned (Wigan are +35, MK Dons +29).
“It’s a massive day,” he says. “We lost to Sheffield Wednesday and Oxford recently, but we got a good result against Morecambe at the weekend. The lads are in good spirits. We have overachieved massively with the budget we have. We know we have a great squad, but no one would have tipped us to be where we are now after where we finished last season (13th).
“It would be the first promotion of my career and I’d be very proud.”
McEachran had every reason to fear there was a case of deja vu last summer though. The coach who signed him and believed in him, Russell Martin, left to join Swansea. However, Manning soon put his mind at ease.
He said: “Russell was a great coach and it was a shock to all of us when he left. But Liam has come in and done an unbelievable job. It’s his first senior managerial role in England and he’s gone from strength to strength.
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“Liam has a similar playing style to Russell’s. But he has his own way. It’s not as expansive. We’ve conceded fewer goals and chances. We have a bit less possession, but I’m really enjoying it.
“We haven’t changed formation. We still play with a box in midfield and I am one of the two midfielders in front of the defence. I like dictating the play, being in a ball-playing team. I’ve been doing it for years. It’s my favourite position.
“It’s mad to think I’m 29 now. Everyone says enjoy your football and they’re right when they say it goes so quick. It just feels like a few years ago when I made my debut for Chelsea at 17.
“It is hitting home, especially as I turn 30 for my next birthday. But it’s certainly a happier time than when I was getting lots of injuries or not playing at all. Promotions don’t come very often, so I’m in a good place.”
(Top photo: Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)
