The official Chelsea website has posted an interview with U21 team manager Dermot Drummy. It's worth your time to read it, as he touches on several aspects of the season past, including Chelsea's lackluster youth league performance(s) and overall loan policy.
While he's certainly not going to talk negatively about any of the players, he does single out several of the youngsters for extra praise, including Lucas Piazon, Patrick Bamford, Nathan Ake, Thorgan Hazard, Nathaniel Chalobah, Todd Kane, Lewis Baker ("probably the outstanding player of the season"), Islam Feruz, Jeremie Boga, Andreas Christensen, and both goalkeepers Blackman and Beeney.
As with any season wrap-up, there's bound to be some bad news. Last summer it was the end of the Chelsea road for striker Marko Mitrovic (now at Brescia of Serie B) and goalkeeper Rhys Taylor (now at Macclesfield of the Conference), while six others followed in the winter: James Ashton, Conor Clifford, Adam Coombes, Ali Gordon, Ben Gordon, and Rohan Ince. This summer it's Aziz Deen-Conteh and Archange Nkumu who will see their contracts not renewed.
They have been great for us and are very nice lads and we wish them well for the future.
They now have to be very tough mentally. Sometimes a player getting a 'no' from a professional club means they reassess themselves and see where they have to work and they can come out of it stronger.
Both Deen-Conteh and Nkumu have been at Chelsea for quite some time, arriving at ages 13 and 10, respectively. They both depart as FA Youth Cup winners, with the former winning it in 2010 and the latter matching that feat in 2012. Neither has made any senior appearances.
Deen-Conteh, a left back now fully declared for his birth nation Sierra Leone will be participating in some World Cup qualifiers this summer (Tunisia and Cape Verde up next on the schedule), while center back Nkumu will look to capitalize on the recent trial spells he's already had at Granada (Spain) and Norwich City.
Good luck to them both.
N.B.: ADC and Nkumu are not the only youth players with expiring contracts this summer. Amin Affane has gone as well already, yet so far there's been no concrete news of anything regarding Milan Lalkovic. Hope!