Quote Originally Posted by Hometown Unicorn! View Post
Although during the Dave Jones / Peter Risdale era we brought in a lot of old pros, at the end of their career (on big money), we did see a lot of youngsters come through too.

We had Cameron Jerome, Ledley, Gunter, Blake, Ramsey, Matthews...and previously to that Gabbs, Earnie, Collins...

There was a bit of a purple patch for a brief period and some of the transfer fees enabled us to keep the taxman at bay.

It's worrying that we have not been able to produce a young player of note in recent times, or maybe we have but they have not been given the opportunities.

The risk of blooding youngsters, who might make mistakes, is too high for clubs these days with the amount of money on the line. That attitude has to change though, for clubs like us we are going to need to be able to produce talent we can sell on at some stage to survive.
some clubs seem to manage it still, at every level. I don't think the players born in those areas are likely to be any more talented than any other areas.
last season Middlesbrough fielded 7 or 8 former academy players in one game, and they still have several in the side now.
this season players who first went to Reading's academy have played for at least half of the club's in the division.
whenever we have put players in they've done ok.