While watching ex-City keeper Simon Moore playing for Sheffield United in the Premier League on Sunday, I wondered how many other former Cardiff players are currently plying their trade in the top flight, so I had a quick check this morning.

As far as I can establish, there are only two players who have ever been at City on a permanent basis and are currently playing in the Premier League. They are both goalkeepers - Tom Heaton (Aston Villa) and Simon Moore.

There are four more players currently on the books of Premier League clubs who have spent some time on loan at Cardiff in the past - Victor Camarasa (Crystal Palace), Danny Drinkwater (Burnley), Ravel Morrison (Sheffield United) and Wilfred Zaha (Crystal Palace).

Six more ex-Bluebirds who played for City during the last ten years are currently operating in one of the other top European leagues - Fabio de Silva (Nantes, French Ligue 1), Bruno Manga (Dijon, French Ligue 1), Guido Burgstaller (Schalke 04, German Bundesliga), Marko Grujic (Hertha Berlin, German Bundesliga), Gary Medel (Bologna, Italian Serie A) and the much-maligned Andreas Cornelius (Parma, Italian Serie A).

For a club that has been in either the top half of the Championship or the Premier League for almost all of the last ten years, I think the above is a damning indictment of the way in which City have recruited and developed players. Not only has the club failed to produce any top-class players of its own through its youth system during the last decade, but very few of the players it has signed from other clubs have developed into top-flight regulars either.

With all due respect to the current crop of City players, I can't see any of them developing into Premier League performers, so the trend looks set to continue for a while yet.