Is there any point to our Academy?

[LCFCCKEANO]

This whole what’s the point of the academy argument all does just feel a bit like we are throwing our toys out of the pram, it’s probably the only really good aspect of the club atm, the absolute least of our worries

[davieG]

1 hour ago, STEVIE B said:

I suppose the big clubs, generally, use their Academies to potentially help player's rise through age groups etc & go onto the 1st team squad. 

The rest see it as a way of making money on their better youngsters. 

Obviously that's a very simplified way of seeing it. 

generally, use their Academies to potentially help player's rise through age groups etc to sell, they're just like any other team and do not have the luxury to wait for too many players to develop with so much pressure on them to maintain a top 4/6 place. The big difference is they can command bigger fees and sell to teams that aren't challenging them so strongly

[Foxdiamond]

Is the consensus here that Braybrooke, Alves, and Page will all be featured this coming season assuming not sold.

[South Shire Fox]

KDH, Barnes, Chilwell, Mcateer, have made us over 120M. Yes there is a point. The player recruitment is where the waste is going 

Edited Saturday at 12:05 by South Shire Fox

[Foxin_Mad]

The big clubs generally just mop up all the talent, their academies try to build them up, very few make it to first teams, many end up on loan and eventually transferred to lower leagues. The model is bad for English football as young players would better playing competitively at lower levels. I’m not sure on Monga, he generally needs a better attitude Imo, I don’t see him amounting to much but time will tell. 
 

The academy is working bringing through good players we can sell. As above the problem is we spunk the money on dross like Mavididi, Skipp etc and don’t offer a pathway for younger players who are probably better than these senior’ pros to get in the squad

Edited Saturday at 12:10 by Foxin_Mad

[Claudio Fannieri]

As others have said the academy is absolutely critical to us and I think it will become more and more important in the coming years. What will be interesting is if we can start getting more players out on loan and then like Cartwright selling the ones that we don’t think will make it with us rather than let their contracts expire and release. If we could sell 4 or 5 fringe academy players and make £1m + per season it makes sense especially if we include sell ons and add ons, it will generate much needed revenue, particularly with SCR in mind. 

[J.Lisemore]

I’d understand it more if our training ground didn’t cost so much, at the moment it seems relatively pointless as any transfer fees are just paying for the upkeep of it. 

[Chrysalis]

Players want to progress, but its gone too far.

 

To me if decent players come through the academy they should be staying with that club for at least until early to mid 20s minimum, then they progress after that.

Instead its like 1 year in first team barely playing games as they still raw and boom they gone.  If thats all the academy is then get rid.

[Blueman1967]

Need to sell the older players, not the younger ones.

[davieG]

37 minutes ago, Chrysalis said:

Players want to progress, but its gone too far.

 

To me if decent players come through the academy they should be staying with that club for at least until early to mid 20s minimum, then they progress after that.

Instead its like 1 year in first team barely playing games as they still raw and boom they gone.  If thats all the academy is then get rid.

It's up to clubs to make it attractive and career building to stay, Maybe Monga would stay longer if we were still in the PL and he was getting chances.

[Stadt]

We do such a bad job of selling our B and C tier prospects generally. We absolutely could have sold Maswanhise, Iversen, Cartwright and co for a fee or greater fee if we’d managed them better. 

[hackneyfox]

14 hours ago, smudgerfox said:

Monga gone. Cartwright gone. No doubt more to follow.

 

A generational talent in Monga sold for a fee that will pay a quarter of the annual cost of Seagrave..

 

All after years and years of investment in their footballing development....

Does is really cost £40m per annum to run Seagrave?

Where does this figure come from? 
 

[smudgerfox]

Chsrlie Methven estimated it at £40m on Where's the Money Gone podcast. But even if he's completely wrong and it's £10m - that means Monga has paid for Seagrave for one year.And that assumes we see all of that £10m straight away without strings.

And what do we do next year if we have no red hot generational talent to sell for £10m?
I'm struggling to see how it amounts to a viable business model..

[Dan]

There's a general problem with the sport now incentivising you to sell academy players. It hits someone like us even harder because it becomes our way out of the mess.

 

It'd be good to sell players as like a passive income, like in theory what Cartwright going to Bradford should be. But we've put ourselves in a position where that might actually be an error.

 

Monga, again, I'll wish him well because he could've easily got out of here a year before he did and earned us no money for it. But he didn't and got us a decent fee - albeit one that could be multiple times bigger if we weren't in the shit.

[Gamble92]

2 hours ago, smudgerfox said:

Chsrlie Methven estimated it at £40m on Where's the Money Gone podcast. But even if he's completely wrong and it's £10m - that means Monga has paid for Seagrave for one year.And that assumes we see all of that £10m straight away without strings.

And what do we do next year if we have no red hot generational talent to sell for £10m?
I'm struggling to see how it amounts to a viable business model..

I wouldn't believe everything that posh toff says to be honest 

[ACF]

The Academy, and Seagrave, are an incredible asset to the club, It’s the people that are running the club that’s the issue. The facilities and coaching are producing a generation of players that other clubs would be envious of. 

We’re always going to lose talent, but it’s the way we lose them that’s the issue. We’ve bought in struggling ‘senior pros’, then failed to loan players out to give them a red hot crack before coming back to us. They’ve been stuck playing U21, why wouldn’t they leave to a bigger team? 
 

We could’ve had Nyoni & Noubisse making us a profit, if we’d given them a clearer pathway to senior football earlier. 
 

Getting the academy lads to a good standard reduces the amount of players we bring in, meaning we can afford to bring in a higher calibre of ‘star’ players. 

[Winchesterfox]

If we didn’t have an academy we would be buying even more overpriced duffers. 

[LCFCCKEANO]

Wouldn’t listen to Charlie Methven for advice about Charlie Methven, guys a moron 

[Gamble92]

16 minutes ago, LCFCCKEANO said:

Wouldn’t listen to Charlie Methven for advice about Charlie Methven, guys a moron 

Some of what he said on BSLB held some weight but a lot was whataboutery. 

 

Although Sunderland got back to where they are and they did well, there's something very 'stay in your lane' about his vision for football and everything that we should fight against. And have fought against. 

 

It was all very you have 28,000 fans so should be championship kind of outlook. Football has never worked like that. 

Edited 18 hours ago by Gamble92

[Jacnah]

On 04/07/2026 at 08:22, smudgerfox said:

Monga gone. Cartwright gone. No doubt more to follow.

 

A generational talent in Monga sold for a fee that will pay a quarter of the annual cost of Seagrave..

 

All after years and years of investment in their footballing development....

Ive seen nothing that makes me think hes a generational talent. Hes technically gifted and very young so he may come good...but its a punt for the buyer and the price needs to reflect that. Hes done nothing yet, but I wish him all success in the future

[smudgerfox]

10 minutes ago, Jacnah said:

Ive seen nothing that makes me think hes a generational talent. Hes technically gifted and very young so he may come good...but its a punt for the buyer and the price needs to reflect that. Hes done nothing yet, but I wish him all success in the future

Whether or not he IS  a generational  talent is neither here nor there.

 

The fact is Monga is believed to be a generational talent which is why we got £10m for him.

 

My point is, by definition, you are not going  to have a generational talent to sell every year. And even when you do, £10m  isn't very much in footballing terms. So how viable is this business model? 

[dorsetboy]

On 04/07/2026 at 08:45, AjcW said:

We'd be in even deeper shit than we are now without our academy  

 

Both went for less than they should have, but imagine our PSR mess without Barnes and Chilwell sales?

 

Monga sale will keep us afloat this season and allow us to get some free's/loans in

 

Be happy that we got to see the three of them play, in Barnes and Chilwell cases we got to see a lot of them! 

 

Most times the big teams raid an academy, fans will never have seen the player kick a ball!

 

As far as this season goes we're likely to see an awful lot of Page, Alves, Braybrooke, Aluko, Gray etc. If our academy hadn't produced those we'd have a first team squad of about 10 right now  

Also if these have a great couple of seasons we could have another chilwell or barnes with greater sell on value.

[smudgerfox]

11 minutes ago, dorsetboy said:

Also if these have a great couple of seasons we could have another chilwell or barnes with greater sell on value.

You think a "tear it up" season by a 19/20 yo in League One is going to raise Chilwell/Barnes type of money? 

[BKLFox]

Is it just our academy this is aimed at or ALL academies?

I ask because haven’t Man C, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Man U all spent in the region of £1bn on transfers in the past 2 windows alone, could throw Villa, Spurs in also as they have/are spending huge sums,  so also not filling squads full of 17yrs old straight out their factories.

 

Then look at the other 13 teams in the premier how many of them regularly bring a young lad through and how many, 1, 2, 3 a season, 1 or 2 every other season 🤷‍♂️ 

 

They have loads out on loan but how many actually make it at the parent club & at the ages we seem to want to fast track them in?

[FoxinNotts]

We've got a pretty fvcking good academy tbf.

Hopefully, when we need it most, it'll come to the fore this season