IS ACADEMY STATUS COST EFFECTIVE ?

I say this as today, yet another of our Academy products ( Nat Jarvis ) has gone out on loan. I see that he joined the club at the age of 8 , so thats alot of time and effort spent on a player who would appear surplus to requirements.

Looking at Premier squads it also seems that this worrying trend is reciprocated, with academy starlets being pushed out in favour of expensive foreign imports and the like.

What are your thoughts ?

Nothin better than seeing an academy boy making the grade at first team level, read a while back that the academy had been neglected and underfunded in the jones/riddler era?

Nothin better than seeing an academy boy making the grade at first team level, read a while back that the academy had been neglected and underfunded in the jones/riddler era?

If we find the odd Ramsey, Gunter, Ginge, Jerome etc it'll be worth it.

Level 1 academy status would cost approx £2 million a year to run. We have reportedly received a bid of £2 million for Declan John today. Just one decent prospect a year covers running costs.

If we achieved level 1 status we would also attract a better quality of young prospects because the facilities and training standards would be far better than most other clubs.

A successful youth development programme will not only fund itself, but will also embed a playing style and culture that mirrors the first team, which makes it easy to progress youngsters straight into the senior squad.

If we find the odd Ramsey, Gunter, Ginge, Jerome etc it'll be worth it.

We signed Jerome from Middlesbrough.

But yes, I agree with what you're saying.

Its probably not cost effective really, but unless we have a top academy now and more prominently next year if we are in the prem, we cant compete for any youngsters from lower league clubs etc without being able to give them the view they are going to an "academy" and going to receive the best of the best.

If we find the odd Ramsey, Gunter, Ginge, Jerome etc it'll be worth it.

We signed Jerome from Middlesbrough.

But yes, I agree with what you're saying.

But did they get 3mil for him or did we?

If we find the odd Ramsey, Gunter, Ginge, Jerome etc it'll be worth it.

We signed Jerome from Middlesbrough.

But yes, I agree with what you're saying.

But did they get 3mil for him or did we?

I'm not doubting we developed him, but he did go almost straight into the starting 11 or on the bench.