Under 23s League

Plus detrimental affect on the national squads. Spain and Germany seem to have it right

 

Prior to the involvement in the Under 23 league - Jazz Richards, Ben Davies and Joe Allen came through and played regularly or as dependable backups.
Fulton & Kingsley had been involved in the academy but both had played around 100 senior games in Scotland.
Would Roberts and McBurnie have played at any other time in our EPL sojourn? Highly questionable.

 

I like Academies, ours exists soley to facilitate the footballing education of its students and that's it.

Premier league Academies, imo, don't exist for teams to discover, train and wait for the next Mesi or Ronaldo to develop. Why would they do that when, under the right owners, all earn enough money to go out and buy ready made professionals, maybe even a Mesi, without having to wait years for academy development.

What Premier league Academies do is ensure the richest clubs, the ones creaming all the money out of the game, actually 'put something back' into the game by carrying the cost of training and education of the next generation of players. They all hope some develope and become good enough and loyal enough to play for their clubs but few, none in the top six I beleive, end up playing for their club.

Lower league academies are very different as players are specifically brought in to be developed as first team players. Even so there is an enormous churn of academy players even at league 2 level but this evens out when you factor in the 'drop down' effect where players from higher divsion academies become available to play for lower league first teams.

Academies are vital to football and without them I doubt that many lower league clubs would be competative or even exist at all.

 

We need to use the Academy a lot more than we are......Our academies are the only bright thing we have ATM with any pride to boast about....

 

Interesting point
“Young players suffer as clubs prioritise money over game time”
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2f35c474-fc3b-11e7-a64e-221285d37bf1