Southampton boss Nathan Jones insists they'll move on from losing Jimmy-Jay Morgan.
The 17-year-old forward had pre-agreed a first professional contract at St Mary's, expected to run to 2026, before choosing to instead reject it by the time he was old enough to sign.
With 18 months left on his scholarship, Morgan opted to move clubs and netted Saints a large compensation fee as part of a move to Chelsea.
sked about the departure of one of the club's top young starlets, Jones responded: Football is categorically different to when I came through, but the world has changed and people are in different places so it is wrong for me to comment on motivations of young players or whoever it is.
All I can say is that Jimmy was a great lad when he was here, when he trained with us you could see that he wasn't ready for our first team yet so whatever decision they make around that is fine. I don't think we should be making a big deal of it, we've got a fantastic academy and will produce players.
There is a lot of young players here that need that development. Romeo Lavia, Samuel Edozie, Charly Alcaraz, Gavin Bazunu, these are all young players so we have got enough that we need to develop and get up to speed on a week-to-week basis," the Welshman added.
It's difficult to comment because we've got a lot of young players in our first team and coming through the academy. We're sad to lose someone of his ability but it got to a point where we couldn't keep him for whatever reason that is and I'm sure the club will be well compensated so we can go again and invest in someone else.
All I can reiterate is that there is a pathway here for players, and if they want to buy into that then they will be given an opportunity. Right now, we have to come through a sticky spell and make sure we're still a Premier League club and then we can be a bit more elaborate in our plans."
Jones also said: Jimmy was a young, really talented player for us. We'd like to keep all of our talented players but it got to a point where we weren't able to do that. He goes with our blessing.
It's not something we want to happen, but something that does happen in today's world. Jimmy has been excellent for us as a young lad in terms of everything and he goes with our blessing, that's all I can say.
He's not my player, he was an academy player. But there's a pathway here for all academy players to get into the first team. We would have liked to have done it a lot earlier but with the results and the position we're in, we have to make sure that we do things correctly. It's one of those things and part parcel of football."