English Premiership: Where are the English youngsters?

[Ezekiel]

For the premiership teams still in Europe 48 hours ago the last two days have been landmarks for Arsenal and Middlesbrough. Both teams are into the last four for the first time in their European history, and it would be fair to argue that neither team would be there without the young players turning it on when it was required.

I’m not one to moan – as long as I enjoy the football I’m watching I don’t mind who is playing, but after seeing both teams play across both their respective legs I don’t think I could be exited to see Arsenal in the Champions League final. They may play in an English league but how many of their English players have been in the squad that played such attractive football against Real Madrid and Juventus?

If any, you could count the number on one finger.

You do have to take your hat off to Arsenal’s youth academy, it has produced some amazing talent over the past few years, but most of it has been imported. At present, Middlesbrough’s youth academy has eight members, seven of them are English, most of them are local kids and many of them represent England at under-21 level.

McClaren may be sketchy as a manager but I believe that he is right in his approach to the young players he is bringing through the ranks. He played seven academy players against Manchester City, and he has given all of them a run out in Europe before today – several actually made their first team debuts on foreign soil last season. It would be easy to sell them on to the big guns when they came knocking, but they were kept at the club for a reason:

They are there to play first team football on a regular basis and they are being given the experience required to be natural replacements for players like Boateng and Mendieta when they retire. The club aren’t going to need to splash out when their older players hang up their boots – they have young lads like Downing, Morrison and Cattermole to take over.

Premiership clubs need to stop going down the cheap route and importing their youngsters. Manchester United build their success on their academy, Middlesbrough are hoping to do the same, and it would be nice to see more English clubs building their futures with young English players…

… It is good to see, and it can only be good for the English game, both on a national and international level.

[losCHUNK]

bang on

[Don Carlos]

Cattermole is amazing. Really gonna enjoy watching him play in a few years!

And i agree with everything Zek!

[Chupacabra]

screw the bosman ruling. i dont like the present system at all.