Quote Originally Posted by J R Hartley View Post
There is that school of thought, but your recruitment needs to be a lot better than ours has been to make it viable. Brentford got rid of their academy and concentrated on recruitment but they had some of the best of recruitment and statisticians working for them with their rise up the leagues.

Also, our location probably doesnt help us in that respect. Brentford could cherry pick some of the best talent from those released by the bigger London clubs. Chris Mepham was with Chelsea as a youngster, got released and Brentford picked him up.

Eze got released by acadmeys of several clubs around the London area - Arsenal, Fulham, Reading, Milwall - before QPR signed him at 18 and sold to Palace for 17m 4 years later.

Im sure if it was that simple most club owners would be doing it rather than running an expensive academy.
Seems Brentford would have been breaking Premier League rules by continting not to have an Academy.

https://www.brentfordfc.com/en/news/...o-open-academy

Huddersfield closed their Academy a few years back and have restructured in a similar way to Brentford - I like the idea of using the calendar year, rather than the academic one, for categorising their age group teams.

https://www.htafc.com/academy/