Isaiah Brown is the second-youngest player to make an appearance in a Barclays Premier League match. A West Bromwich Albion academy product, Brown, sixteen years old at the time, controversially joined Chelsea in July of 2013. The Baggie’s chairman expressed his irritation that the club had lost a top prospect for a small, unfair fee that certainly wouldn’t help the club cover the costs of running their youth academy as a whole.
Brown was voted West Brom Academy Player of the Year for the 2012/2013 season, however he did not notch a single goal and had just one assist in sixteen appearances. Impressively, those sixteen appearances were for Albion’s U-21 team. Isaiah was just fifteen-years-old at the start of the season, but turned sixteen in January. He also played for the England U-16s and U-17s as a fifteen/sixteen-year-old while a member of the Baggies, scoring one goal in four appearances. It was on the 4th of May 2013 when Brown made his historical first appearance in England’s top flight, coming on as a late substitute for Youssouf Mulumbu in a match against Wigan.
Isaiah joined a Chelsea youth academy that was arguably the best in England the following summer. Full of promise, Izzy played his first season in Chelsea blue as a member of the U-21 squad. He accumulated eight goals and four assists in seventeen U-21 Premier League appearances, on route to the title which the Blues academy won. Brown also contributed to the Blues capture of the FA Youth Cup with a goal. During the 13/14 season, he also played for the England U-17 squad and notched a goal and two assists in only three games in the U-17 UEFA Euro Qualifiers. While starting all four matches in the tournament itself, Brown didn’t tally any goals or assists, but England came away victorious in the end. He also scored three goals and assisted in three international friendlies. Isaiah Brown had an extremely successful first season with Chelsea, winning two trophies with the U-21s and the U-17 UEFA Euro with his country.
Izzy’s fine form has carried into the current season as well. So far, the young English lad has collectively bagged five goals and six assists in the U-21 Premier League and the UEFA Youth League. This season Brown has also flirted with the Chelsea first team, making the bench on two separate occasions: away at Shrewsbury Town in the League Cup and at Stamford Bridge for the clash with Manchester City. As of February 3rd, Isaiah and fellow academy product Ruben Loftus-Cheek have been promoted to full-time members of Jose Mourinho’s first team squad. The Chelsea boss has previously stated that he should be blamed if Brown were not to become a senior England international under his management. On another front, the seventeen-year-old has represented England at the U-19 level this season, so far scoring twice and assisting in a friendly versus Italy and getting a start in a U-19 UEFA Euro Qualifier match.
Since joining Chelsea from West Bromwich Albion a little over a year and a half ago, Isaiah Brown has gone nowhere but up. As expected, he’s been extremely productive and successful on the pitch, winning two trophies in his first season domestically and one internationally with England. Brown is a player that not only Chelsea fans, but fans of English football will most certainly have an eye on. The youngster is constantly developing and evolving. It will be interesting to see whether or not he makes it at Chelsea and what he will turn into within the next five years and beyond.
