Sports Babble - sports forum

Ive been very critical of Chelsea

Like so many other people Man Citeh V Chelsea is just fantasy football with the fan of old not recognizing any young lad who came through the ranks-Joe Hart/James Milner and Gary Cahill/John Terry being the only real obvious starters for either side.

Chelsea for years have had an impressive academy and thankfully Jose acknowledged this

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/footbal...ademy.html

They still have far too many Foreign players at Chelski, my problem even more is the 17 or so out on loan so they arent even in the squad

Big spending on foreign players isnt going to last forever always prepare for the day it dosent, I`m very glad my club Man Utd continues to bring through players like Wilson, Mcnair, Blackett, Keane etc and hope the likes of man Citeh, Chelsea and the other clubs follow suit.

I agree with that but I would add one thing. Both of these teams are where they are due to having a mega-rich owner who has pumped money into them to get them to the top, and I have no problem bar jealousy with that. Once at the top the money keeps perpetuating itself as long as you stay in the Champions League, so the goal of the owners has been achieved in both cases. Now there needs to be a drive to make the clubs self sustaining, and certainly City are striving for that and I am sure Chelsea are as well. This is the position that MU have been in for a couple of decades now, so its not new to them and they have not needed the injection of money to get them there as they were already there, much the same as Arsenal. The next step for both of these teams is to fully develop and maximize the effect of the academy, as MU have over the years, so that they do not need to keep adding huge transfers to the team. They will always require big signings, just not as many!!

But for me the two clubs who really stand out as regards their academies and the success they have had from it are Everton and Southampton. Both these clubs are not full of money like the top 4 are but have over the year brought through very good youngsters from their academy and then cashed in on them to sustain the club season on season!! Everton will do this with Barkely in the next 12 months!!