Jake Sinclair

[Qwerty]

It's a shocking statistic about how many academy players drop out of football entirely. I think I once heard an academy director saying that if 1 in 10 players made a first team appearance and 3 in 10 had a career in football then you were doing exceptionally well. I think Saints have just about done that over the last 10 years.

But bear in mind the huge number of kids that pass through an academy, there will be well over 100 at Saints right now from 10 years olds up to the development squad. Plenty drop out as they get older and more get brought in from other academies or satellite sites etc. So getting 10 of them to play for the first team would be pretty amazing, and 30 in the top four divisions is even less likely.

Unrelated: I saw Ben Reeves yesterday. That is all.

 

[fatletiss]

It's why we teach them life skills and they do A Levels or equivalent while they're with us. Only a very small percentage of kids who want to be footballers actually make it. My mind boggles when teams like Chelsea shell out 7 figures for a young kid who has never played senior football.

Chelsea paid £50,000 to Northampton 18months-2 years ago for an 11 year old!!

 

[Itchen North Matt]

Chelsea paid £50,000 to Northampton 18months-2 years ago for an 11 year old!!

Don't we do pretty much the same thing? I recall a story about a 14 year old at MK Dons who was the subject of a bidding war between Chelsea and Liverpool. Can't remember which one he went to, but his fee was £1.5m. I struggle to work out how a team can justify spending that sort of money on a youth player. They do though and it's good revenue for smaller academies.

 

[Wisescummer]

I think they justify it by saying he might be the next Messi, so signing him for £1.5 million would then be good business. Heck, even if he's the next Jordan Henderson it still saves upwards of £18 million.