Saints aim to buck Premier League trend (From Daily Echo)
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Saints aim to buck Premier League trend
7:00am Thursday 5th July 2012 in Saints News
Saints youngster James Ward-Prowse
Saints will have to buck the Premier League trend if they are to meet their target of 50 per cent of the first team being produced from the club’s academy.
Though promotion to the top flight is a huge boost for supporters, as well as the finances of the club, the difficulty in getting academy players through to the first team has increased exponentially.
Statistics produced by the Daily Echo show that last season just 70 of the 522 players who figured for top flight clubs in league matches were produced via that side’s academy. That is an average of 3.5 players per club.
But even that statistic is somewhat misleading, with many of those players figuring in just minor roles, 11 signed by clubs when aged 14-16, and some sides, such as Manchester United, boasting a large percentage of the total.
United had ten of the 70 total themselves, including veterans such as Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs.
Promoted sides Norwich, Swansea and QPR had just two players each.
There is certainly much to be applauded in the ambition of Nigel Adkins, pictured, and others to get half of their team coming through via the academy and the club should continue to invest in their youth policy. However, once you reach the elite of top flight it becomes much harder to blood youngsters when you are competing against the world’s best players.
Saints do have the culture of having always produced youngsters through what was first known as a youth policy and more recently an academy system.
Going back to Matt Le Tissier, the Wallace brothers and Alan Shearer right through to Theo Walcott, Gareth Bale and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, there has rarely been a shortage.
They are backing that up their current ambitions by insisting they will not even entertain offers for sought after 16- year-old left back Luke Shaw.
A 50 per cent target, within a loose but not too distant timeframe, is a huge ask though.
Saints start with a base of having had just one first team regular figure last season who was produced via the club’s academy, and that was Adam Lallana who developed at St Mary’s after being signed from Bournemouth at the age of 12. Ben Reeves also made two appearances as a substitute in league matches.
Nigel Adkins did give a brief taste of first team action to Shaw, Jack Stephens and James Ward- Prowse in the cups.
Those three, along with Calum Chambers, will be part of the first team squad for next season.
Comments(12)
Rising_Son
says...
8:07am Thu 5 Jul 12
Of course, if we want to also fend off the the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea and ManCity for the cream of our crop, we'll probably need to be challenging them for places in Europe and even the prem title. Can't wait!
midlandsaint
says...
8:10am Thu 5 Jul 12
Throw in Blackstock and Surman and you have six.
If you then counted Baird, Best, Davies, McDonald, Sparv, Thomson, and Cranie - all of whom represented their country internationally at some level, and could have developed further under the NC-NA regime and you could have 13.
Whether all of those would make the cut for us today is of course debatable, but the fact remains we have and do produce players and I see no reason why we couldn't have at least half the first team home-grown through our academy.
St Retford
says...
8:17am Thu 5 Jul 12
City Saint
says...
9:05am Thu 5 Jul 12
long memory
says...
9:26am Thu 5 Jul 12
City Saint wrote:A fair point,but if a young player gets it in their head they want to move on to a supposed bigger club,what can NC or come to that Mr Lowe, all they can do is get the very best price.No good trying to keep players that don't want to play for you.
Worth pursuing the dream, I agree. We'll stand a much better chance of getting there if we stop selling quite so readily to Arsenal.
Alicesdad
says...
9:35am Thu 5 Jul 12
There are some other signs though that may be key in achieving that goal long term. Rahdi Jaidi has a role to establish links on the African continent. That is a very rich source of talent (the french clubs are already aware of this). We appear to have strong links with the Scandinavian countries as well. In recent times we also seem to have links with Italy and now also Japan. Will these extend to academy aged talent as well I wonder? Difficult to say.
I am not convinced international contacts will produce talent at a young enough level for the academy. But they might. We shall see. However if we think that our academy will produce 50% of the first team squad from british sources then I have doubts. Frankly if we reached a target of 30% from the academy after say three years that would be a major benefit to the club and would certainly repay the investment being made in it.
It's worth pursuing but I think 50% is unrealistic. The way the Premier runs at the moment we will need to be in the market frequently to buy in order to keep our squad at the level required to maintain a top half premier league position.
Norwegian Saint
says...
10:13am Thu 5 Jul 12
Everyday I hear Wet Spam, Reading, Norwich etc, all getting good news.
A top class keeper and backup defender needed very soon!
Koalee
says...
10:35am Thu 5 Jul 12
SaintinCanada
says...
10:38am Thu 5 Jul 12
Norwegian Saint wrote:Not me, Norway. These worries always come up during the transfer window since NA and NC have been pulling the strings. It's called "shrewdness".
On a side note... is anyone else worried about our lack of signings? Everyday I hear Wet Spam, Reading, Norwich etc, all getting good news. A top class keeper and backup defender needed very soon!
Relax - and be pleasantly surprised like the rest of us!
City Saint
says...
3:20pm Thu 5 Jul 12
long memory wrote:True enough. I guess I'm still smarting from how quickly oxo left us. He would have gone eventually, and I age with your logic (people won't come to the youth system if we lock them up against their will into the red and white). But I do wish he'd stayed a couple more years. Unrealistic, I know!
City Saint wrote: Worth pursuing the dream, I agree. We'll stand a much better chance of getting there if we stop selling quite so readily to Arsenal.A fair point,but if a young player gets it in their head they want to move on to a supposed bigger club,what can NC or come to that Mr Lowe, all they can do is get the very best price.No good trying to keep players that don't want to play for you.
dualsy
says...
8:01am Sat 14 Jul 12
good luck .
C.O.Y.R
St.Yorkie says...
7:50am Thu 5 Jul 12
Not going to happen though is it??
So let's get real in the next few years we may get some players good enough for the Premier League - and with time we should get half the team from our academy...by then Adam will be earning a pension!