The academy director has been lauded on several occasions by Blues boss Frank Lampard for the role he’s played in developing so many young stars

After Tammy Abraham and Mason Mount provided the goals in Chelsea’s first win of the season, manager Frank Lampard quipped, “We had a couple of pints with Neil Bath!”

Lampard has been frequently hailed for putting his faith in youth this season, after a host of managers, from Jose Mourinho to Maurizio Sarri, failed or refused to integrate academy stars into the first-team squad.

However, the former midfielder has made no secret of his gratitude to Bath for providing him with so many talented players to call upon at a time when Chelsea are prohibited from buying players.

Indeed, as Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp said ahead of his side’s trip to Stamford Bridge last weekend, there is arguably no club better equipped than Chelsea to deal with a transfer ban – and that is thanks in no small part to work done by academy director Bath and his colleagues.

Since 2014, Chelsea have won five FA Youth Cups, two Under-18s Premier League titles, an U21 Premier League title and two UEFA Youth Leagues.

This season, we have already seen senior debuts for Mount, Reece James, Billy Gilmour, Tino Anjorin and Ian Maatsen. There have also been loan recalls for Abraham and Fikayo Tomori, while Callum Hudson-Odoi and Ruben Loftus-Cheek will play prominent roles once fully fit.

Lampard is giving chances that others didn’t, but he doesn’t want to be considered ‘the saviour of the academy’. He feels that he is simply using the best players available to him and that it’s just a very happy coincidence that many of those players have come off Bath’s production line.

Lampard has been insistent that the likes Abraham, Mount and Tomori would have got their chances regardless of the transfer ban.

There’s also the fact that the Blues boss has been hiring coaching staff who have also been produced at the club. His assistant, Jody Morris, was an academy graduate who won an unprecedented quadruple managing the Under-18s before following Lampard to Derby County last season.

Joe Edwards has occupied almost every role in the academy building and is now working alongside Lampard, Morris and Chris Jones, who has gone from a fitness coach to a fully-fledged member of the backroom team.

Eddie Newton, meanwhile, has also moved from the loan programme to Lampard’s staff and often sits back, taking a more considered view of what is going on around the team.

Three more former Blues – Joe Cole, Petr Cech and Claude Makelele – have also been brought on board in a reshuffle masterminded by director Marina Granovskaia. The return of so many fan favourites has, unsurprisingly, gone down well with supporters frustrated by many turbulent seasons.

However, it is Bath’s diligent work over decades that is reaping rewards at the moment.

He joined the club as a part-time schoolboy coach in 1992 but he was promoted to assistant academy director in 2002 before taking full control in 2004.

In his notes in the FA Youth Cup-winning programme special last year, he detailed how Chelsea are producing so much talent.

“When discussing the trophy success we have achieved in the academy in recent seasons, I will always say it is a wider effort from everybody involved,” he wrote.

“There is a particular focus around scouting and coaching, and the coaches won’t succeed if the talent is not of the right level. That is why the likes of Jim Fraser, Darren Grace and their recruitment team deserve credit for bringing in such talented players from a very young age.

“That is a huge part of our development programme. On the other hand, you need the right coaches,” he continues before ending on: “Fundamentally, it is about having good staff in all areas who work as a team.”

Fraser is certainly a key figure for Chelsea, the man responsible for scouting the best young talent across England and beyond. He works perfectly in tandem with Bath, who acts as an overseer, while Fraser operates as a decision-maker on promising players.

They combine to regularly beat the likes of Arsenal, Tottenham and Crystal Palace in a hugely competitive battle for talented players in London and its surrounding areas.

For example, Mount turned down Portsmouth, the team he supported as a boy, because he was convinced that the standard of coaching and facilities at Chelsea was higher.

Nathan Baxter, meanwhile, is one of England’s brightest goalkeepers and the Ross County loanee was more than happy to travel from Kent to play for Chelsea as a teenager because he was so enamoured with the youth set-up.

“I loved growing up at Chelsea,” Baxter told Goal in 2018. “It is a wonderful academy. The support I received growing up through the age groups was absolutely unbelievable.

“The way they support me while I am on loan is great. They are in constant contact with the staff at Chelsea.

“Neil Bath, in particular, has been really supportive of all my loans. I am grateful to be at the club.”

Lampard is modest about his role in giving youth a chance but he has undeniably created a sense of harmony at Chelsea.

“I think it is important that the club is joined up,” Lampard said after the recent Premier League win at Norwich. “It doesn’t mean that young players are going to start every week, but there must be a connection.

“Given the academy coaches work for hours and hours with these young players, it is nice for them to see them play for the first team.”

‘Connection’ is the key word in all of this. By fielding a team full of Bath’s top talent, Lampard is showing there is now, at long last, a strong connection between the academy and the first team.

The atmosphere in the stands, meanwhile, proves that the connection between the fans and their club is also as strong as it has been for years.