Because I’m not your academy: Why a lack of ‘homegrown’ players doesn’t mean indigenous players are bottlenecked

By Tom Simmonds. The Soccerex Transfer Review 2015 was published ahead of the Soccerex conference in Manchester last week. The Offside Rule’s Lynsey Hooper observed that three Premier League clubs, Hull, Sunderland and QPR, did not have a single homegrown player in their squads. Furthermore, the survey also revealed another eight of the top 20 clubs in England only had one or two of their own youth products on their books. While superficially alarming, these statistics are not as gloomy as you might think.

The three clubs without ‘one of their own’ are in situations where it is easy to rationalise why. Hull and QPR, recently promoted, have had to buy their way to a certain level in order to give themselves a shot at securing short-term security. QPR’s attempts to do this in 2012/13 were calamitous, but Hull’s acquisition of the likes of James Chester, Jake Livermore and Tom Huddlestone represent a good news story in that all three are examples of English players staying and prospering at the top level of the game.

Sunderland, while more established in the Premier League, have had a tumultuous time of late, with Gus Poyet deeming it necessary to remove most of the traces of Martin O’Neill and Paolo Di Canio’s star-crossed reigns. Even a major overhaul like this contains good news for British players. Poyet has signed both Liam Bridcutt and Will Buckley, a Chelsea discard and a winger whose early career was shaped by Rochdale and Watford, from his former club Brighton. Adam Johnson’s rejuvenation under Poyet should probably have seen him go to the World Cup. Connor Wickham also thrived after the Uruguayan arrived on Wearside. Hull and Sunderland are not, therefore, acting to the detriment of indigenous players with their strategies, as they employ plenty of them.

A bigger issue is the stockpiling of youth players by big clubs. The top four clubs in last season’s Premier league have 46 players out on loan between them in 2014-15, a staggering 26 of these belong to Chelsea. While a good number of these players, Josh McEachran and Nathaniel Chalobah among them, are academy products others, such as Ryan Bertrand (Gillingham) and Patrick Bamford (Nottingham Forest), were taken from other clubs as partially-developed young players.  Of Liverpool’s 11 loanees, Andre Wisdom and Jordon Ibe, were bought out of Bradford and Wycombe at the ages of 14 and 16.

While there are multifarious advantages for youngsters signing for an elite club, like use of the best facilities, coaching and daily exposure to top class players, the survey shows very few of these players are getting through to the first teams. While the likes of Wisdom and Ibe are making good progress they, like Raheem Sterling, who Liverpool took from QPR at 15 in 2010, are rare examples of transplanted young players successfully climbing the greasy pole. Conversely, Chelsea, FA Youth Cup winners three seasons out of the last five, have three homegrown players (one of whom is John Terry) in their squad.

The big clubs need to have an honest conversation at their highest levels and ask if their hoovering up of the best young talent is either necessary or in the best interests of these youngsters, development wise. Whether today’s youth players are over-rewarded too early, thus ruining their hunger before they have achieved anything, or whether the current levels of British players at the top level is just an example of footballing Darwinism in action, the survey’s figures mask a deliciously irony. In providing ways back to the top level for the likes of Bridcutt and Chester, while Sunderland and Hull are currently without a home grown player, they are actually doing some young players who have worked hard at staying in the game once the cord of youth football has been cut a great service.