Football academies

I am amongst many on here who are critical of our Academy and wonder if the costs are worth it.

Some really interesting data being made available which just show how the system, especially the elite system is failing so many of the young lads on it.

Taken from the data:

97% of the former 4109 elite Academy players from the Premier league clubs, now aged between 21 and 26 failed to make a single appearance in the Premier league.
70% of them were not even offered a full time professional contract

Full review to be undertaken by the PL now that the elite system has been going for 10 years! This is such a disgrace and behind everyone of them is a young life.

I read an article a while back that stated that our academy costs £2m a year. With that in mind we probably have to produce just one good talent in 2 years to make it worth our while. This year we've had TGH, year before (or a bit beyond) it was O'Shea....before that it has been very few that have come close to making it.

To add to that we've sold a couple of lads who didn't make it. I think Harper and Field combined was around £2m and Fergusons £900k (pfft!) so that nearly funds a year and a half on it's own. So I think we're getting better, excluding some monumental contractual mistakes.

I don't envy those in big London catchment areas fighting against up to 10 clubs for players which is why Brentford have pulled away from having an academy.

Well, we've just sacked a manager who was prepared to use the academy players. You cant have everything, a manager who is "hoping" to turn things around won't go out on a limb with untried players unless the board has specifically said don't worry about results just use the academy, give them some experience. Academies are not feeders for your own club any more. The quality of player has to be huge and consistent to get regular first team football.