Jose Mourinho: Chelsea is not the right place for youngsters to develop

Jose Mourinho has said that Chelsea is not the right place for youngsters to be developed because of the huge pressure that is placed on the club to succeed.

His comments are likely to be disheartening for the Blues' under-18s players who reached their four consecutiveFA Youth Cup final after they beat Tottenham 5-4 on aggregate at Stamford Bridge.

Youth team manager Adi Viveash has also guided the under-19s to the semi-final of the UEFA Youth League where they will meet Roma next month for a place in the final.

But Mourinho has insisted that the majority of those youngsters are nowhere near being ready to play for first team.

"If they're good enough and they're ready then yes," he said. "It's important, but this club is a very demanding club. It's a club where it's not easy to play football. The level people demand is high, the pressure is big.

"It's not the same to play in a club where people just accept a so-so performance, or people accept a so-so result. Or accept that you finish 5th, 6th, 7th or 8th.

"This is not the best habitat for a young player to be developed. For a player to play in the Chelsea first team the player must be ready. There is no space with this level of demand, responsibility and pressure. There is no space to play a player who is not ready."

17-year-old striker Dominic Solanke is one of Chelsea's hottest prospects. He scored twice in the 5-4 win on Wednesday and has already played for the first team in the Champions League.

But the Portuguese manager admitted that there is a big difference between coming on in a dead rubber European game and playing in the Premier League.

He added: "I played Solanke winning 5-0 against Maribor, in a competition where we qualified easily in the group phase,' Mourinho said. 'I cannot play Solanke against Southampton with 30 minutes left at 1-1, I can't."