New Millwall boss Joe Edwards admits it's difficult seeing former club Chelsea selling so many of their academy players.

Edwards spent almost 30 years as player and academy coach at Chelsea.

He recalled to the London Evening Standard: “Particularly in Frank's (Lampard) first spell, when Fikayo (Tomori), Mason (Mount), Tammy (Abraham), Reece (James) were playing regularly, I did think, 'Well, that's it then...a lot of them will just be the core of that team for years to come'.

“Some of them feel like younger brothers to me, we kind of grew up together.

“So sometimes it's sad, when I would love them to still be at Chelsea because that would have been the dream for everyone, but to see the stage that they're on and how well some of them are doing makes me incredibly proud.

“It's a huge plus when Chelsea can [transfer] list Mount, Abraham, Guehi and it's getting beyond £100million," he added. “It's credit to the way the club is working at academy level. If that's the chosen model, if people want to use those finances to recruit what they deem as the best from elsewhere, I guess that's each club's prerogative."