Chelsea are showing themselves to be masters of the transfer window, having sold striker Patrick Bamford to Premier League rivals Middlesbrough. Aitor Karanka has parted with £6m of his January transfer budget to bring the Englishman to The Riverside after some largely unsuccessful Premier League loans with Crystal Palace, Norwich and, most recently, Burnley.

The Blues signed Bamford from Nottingham Forest in 2012 for a fee of £1.5m and have sold him on for a profit of £4.5m, without handing him a single first team appearance.

Whilst transfer fees have swelled dramatically over the years that Bamford’s wages came from west London, it is still an impressive deal for all considered at Stamford Bridge.

There are similar cases throughout the records of Chelsea’s transfer dealings in the years since they began to enjoy success, with their youth sides rising to the top of their class at all age rungs, the Blues are making a healthy profit from their dealings away from the first team.

The likes of Ryan Bertrand, Papy Djilobodji, Josh McEachran, Oriol Romeu and André Schürrle have all made their former club a lot of money without having a real, long-term, impact in the first team.

Whilst this is all very good news from a perspective of those who handle the money at the Bridge, should there be concerns about the development of their first team going forward?

Any young players who could seemingly step up and make their mark in the first team at Chelsea are more often than not shipped out on loan early in the season to ensure more game time and, ultimately, a higher selling price.

Quite often the club hierarchy will know full-well that these players don’t stand a chance of having a meaningful career at Chelsea and are more than happy to send them to clubs such as Vitesse Arnhem for long-term loan deals.

Take, for example, midfielder Lewis Baker. A well-established England U21 international, however, aged 21, Baker has spent nearly two seasons on loan with Vitesse and has made just one senior appearance for the Blues, he is undoubtedly another on the list to be making profit in the coming years.

Last season’s slump at Stamford Bridge may have appeared as a one-off. However, had there been a succession of hungry youngsters coming through the ranks in the years prior, it may well have been a much less damaging season.

Whilst those coming through the ranks would have been far from the talents of their first team peers, the lack of desire shown last term would not have been an issue.

With a youth squad as revered as Chelsea’s, they should have no trouble with suppling their first team with top notch, cheap, talent for years to come, thus avoiding lows such as last term.

The likes of Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Bertrand Traore being given proper runs in the first team would have lit fires under the first team regulars who never had their spots challenged whilst underperforming last season.

Chelsea’s policy of running a secondary market alongside the big money deals in the first team has, and will continue to, make them a lot of money, but could it cost them another soul destroying season in the near future? The question everyone is asking now is will the Blues bring in another striker in this winter transfer window and is the Diego Costa affair in the past? Only time will tell but for the moment sitting in first place with a lead of 7 points over Spurs and Liverpool all is good in West London.