Our youth players..

[not3bad]

Derrick Williams has signed for Bristol City.

[eastie]

Derrick Williams has signed for Bristol City.

Nice piece about him on the transfer thread.

[pauliewalnuts]

We actually got Ridgewell from West Ham and Guzan from Chivas in MLS. So that's 7 at most which is crap really.

Do you think 7 premiership quality players in 8 years is crap?  Of course the quality could be better but I wouldn't call it crap.

I do. Especially when you consider from that list only Gabby and Cahill are proven quality at that level. Weimann has only done it for one full year. All the others are remarkably average or with some the jury is still out as to whether they will actually make it.

It isn't crap, though.

I think there's a disconnect between what fans think is good for home grown players and what clubs do, almost as if they measure everything against Man United's "golden generation" of the mid 1990s.

I saw something about academies recently, and ours were saying that if they produce a player every year or so who carries on to become a regular PL footballer, they consider it a success. Don't forget, they don't need to do that for us, necessarily, as there is value in them when we sell them on.

Taking two of them from recent years. Craig Gardner, for example, unspectacular player, but we sold him for 3.5m. Gary Cahill we sold for 5.5m. In the transfer world that's "only" 9m, but that is for two players who cost nothing, who we developed as kids, and who played for our first team.  £9m goes a very long way indeed in running an academy.

Then there's the fact that the academy also produced our record PL goalscorer who has played for us 250 times and scored over 60 goals.

Ignoring all the other products of recent years, that alone is a very good return, and that's before even looking at the fact that last season alone, Clark, Baker, Bannan, Herd, Weimann and Lichaj from the Academy all played for the first team.

I genuinely think that, compared to other PL clubs, our Academy does exceptionally well.

[Toronto Villa]

I disagree. I think we produce and introduce players more out need than merit and for the most part they go on to be distinctly average. Irrespective of how much we get from their sale, and good for us as a club for getting that money, how many of them go on to be excellent players that given how good our academy is, you'd think we would have a lot more? I don't need to compare to Man U to make my case. How about Southampton as an example who have had a string of top young players come through. West Ham for a while produced a number of players that have really excelled in the game. Who of all the players we have produced have gone on to be real stars in the game, whether with us or anyone else? Practically none. They go on to have average or decent careers, and the odd one or two have very good careers. I think that can be said for the majority of clubs. Given how excellent our academy is or is meant to be we should have a better return at the top end in my opinion.

We need to get to the point where the first team is strong and the kids coming through need to be exceptional to break through. That they have been on loan, proved their worth and been introduced into our squad that much better and ready to make the jump to PL level.

[ozzjim]

I disagree. I think we produce and introduce players more out need than merit and for the most part they go on to be distinctly average. Irrespective of how much we get from their sale, and good for us as a club for getting that money, how many of them go on to be excellent players that given how good our academy is, you'd think we would have a lot more? I don't need to compare to Man U to make my case. How about Southampton as an example who have had a string of top young players come through. West Ham for a while produced a number of players that have really excelled in the game. Who of all the players we have produced have gone on to be real stars in the game, whether with us or anyone else. Practically none. They go on to have average or decent careers, and the odd one or two have very good careers.

We need to get to the point where the first team is strong and the kids coming through need to be exception to break through. That they have been on loan, proved their worth and been introduced into our squad that much better and ready to make the jump to PL level.

Really harsh TV in my opinion. We have produced 2 England internationals, 1 who has won a champions league and a UEFA cup in the last 13 months, the other who is out top league scorer. Cahill is now pretty much first choice for England too. Not bad really. Add in Weimann who is an international footballer now and you have 3. Ridgewell, Moore, Cahill and Gardner bought in nearly 16 million to the clubs coffers. There are countless players through our academy still in the game. Just because a huge star has not come through, it is not underperforming. It is in part down to huge luck of capturing that natural talent. Who knows, the Cowley lad that has buggered off to Arsenal may become the next Wilshire, but who will get the credit for him?

Southampton have had Bale, Chaimberlain, Walcott and now Shaw I give you. But is that not more luck and geography than brilliant coaching?

Who have West Ham produced of late? Indeed, who have United since the mid 90's that has been a star?

[Toronto Villa]

I think for the players that we have just names that have gone on to do good things if we looked hard enough most clubs could say similar things. As for Cahill, I think him being a regular in the England team says more about the dearth of talent in England than about the player. Weimann has to do it for more than a season, and playing for Austria will help his cause to play more internationals than a bigger nation. Of the players that we have sold, it is more about the over inflated nature of the British transfer system that we got that much for any of those players. Cahill aside because what he has gone on to achieve, f we had signed those other players players for 11m (Cahill was about 5m) we'd be rather annoyed at the waste.

I don't know how Southampton have done it, but would a top young kid really be inclined to be on the south coast than anywhere else in the UK? As for West Ham it is a policy that worked well for them and they moved away from. But undeniably Cole, Lampard, Ferdinand have had excellent careers.

I don't want to come out and bash the academy that we have because they have done a super job at that level. But we've bigged up so many of our kids who have been outstanding over the years to the point where more of them should have been real stars with us let alone anyone else.

[Dante Lavelli]

Toronto, I don't agree with your opinion but you've defended your stance well.

One point regarding the inflated transfer fees you mentioned above.  We would need to be paying those fees if we were not lucky/good enough to be producing a steady number of players through our youth system. 

I'll agree that we're yet to unearth our Rooney/Bale but the benefit of a youth system is not only to produce one star player (which can arguably be fluke), but to regularly produce good players.  This means the money saved can be collected together to sign better players.  Hopefully now there is less turmoil in the club we can start to see better transfer policy and use of the youth players.

[pauliewalnuts]

I don't want to come out and bash the academy that we have because they have done a super job at that level. But we've bigged up so many of our kids who have been outstanding over the years to the point where more of them should have been real stars with us let alone anyone else.

I think there are two seperate points here.

One is that we exaggerate how many of our kids are going to "make it", and I definitely agree on that. There is no wave of them which will come into the first team in one go, because that just never happens. There is not always some automatic, ready to roll replacement within the academy for any first team player, either.

The other point is that, by the standards of other academies, we do very well, in that we produce a regular flow of PL or similar level professional footballers. It is fair comment to raise how well Southampton and West Ham do, but that's because they have top class academies as well.

re Cahill, you can criticise his ability and suggest that he wouldn't be where he is if there were more English CBs around, but that doesn't change the fact he's a regular starter for both England and Chelsea. In that sense he's every bit as valid a suggestion of a successful product of our academy as Oxlade Chamberlain or Walcott are for Southampton's.

[pauliewalnuts]

I'll agree that we're yet to unearth our Rooney/Bale but the benefit of a youth system is not only to produce one star player (which can arguably be fluke), but to regularly produce good players. 

This is absolutely spot on, I think.

[OCD]

Let's not forget that Chelsea have the funds to buy anyone or almost anyone. Cahill's been one of their first choice centre backs so that says a lot about him and where he learnt his trade. I don't think he's a good example when trying to disprove the quality of individual talents coming through the ranks.

[paul_e]

The other key point is that we only started really pushing the academy system fairly recently, I've said before, you're really looking 8-10years into the future when you do that, the first group that will have come all the way through are going to be around Crowley's age, so the current academy structure can't be judged for a few more years yet.

[ozzjim]

I see, with none of our next gen, or indeed the FA youth cup winning side in the squad I read in a paper the other day the U20 side have gone the same way as the England U21 side. Maybe our kids are alright for their age.

[paul_e]

The bit I find really backwards is that the players who seem to have higher expectations are usually the ones who've come through the academy.  Imagine is Bannan put in performances as abject as some we've seen from nzogbia, and yet nzogbia still gets a lot of credit with some fans.

Hate the idea of quoting myself but I thought this one was worthy of adding here as well, I wonder if part of the reason our kids haven't done as well as expected is that the weight of those expectations have been far too much.  Gabby was always in the shadow of Luke Moore, and has come through far better.  Carry it on Clark and Baker, Herd and Bannan, Fonz and Weimann (to an varying degrees more was expected of the first in all of those cases).

[PeterWithesShin]

I'm genuinely curious which top flight clubs have produced more players than us in the last 10 years who are currently earning their living in the professional game. It can't be many.