It does look like the academy is a big ego thing. We got all these youngsters preening around like top players who clearly aren’t gonna cut it. We got to be way more ruthless at all levels. We don’t seem to get the whole system. We got loads of older players free to walk this summer. Take Benteke. Costs us £6m a year. Last 2 seasons hardly played. Now trying to unload him but in three months he can walk for free. So if West Brom want him the most we can hope for is £2m. Anymore and he can ear another £2 m from us then sell himself. We just don’t seem to get it. Player churn. Ruthless. Big Sam has just moved on 6 players at West Brom. We have got to wake up to this while we still can.

Same for all though. If we sold Benteke for £2m and picked up Demarai Gray for 1.8m and Ferguson on a tribunal fee with both salaries covered by Bentekes, some might say that’s decent business.

Kirby has been out on loan before to Blackpool looks like he did well from what I read at the time but no one has been back in for him so what does that say. If you look at the players over the last few years that have been closest to the first team they have hardly gone on to prove us wrong in our decision to get rid of them.
Levi Lumeka is at Troyes in the French second division, Jason Lokilo is at Doncaster, Sullay Kai Kai is at Blackpool but underperforming according to this from 2 weeks ago [Link] Hiram Boateng is at Cambridge and kicked around a few League 1 and 2 clubs, Gio MacGregor is a Dulwhich Hamlet along with Reece Allassani from a previous generation of future stars . Ryan Innis is at Charlton only played a few games but does seem to be doing ok , to be fair we persevered with him the longest. Even poor old Johnny Williams and he got more of chance then most.
That are not loads of players that we have released because they didn’t get a chance that are tearing up the championship, when Wan Bissaka and Mitchell were good enough they got their chance. Lewis Grabban is the last I can think of who we got shot of and had a good Championship/Career.
We have done well with younger players when we have had to chuck them in like Wan Bissaka or Mullins and Morrison and Clyne, Moses and Zaha who were all given their chances early because of administrations, so may be giving them games at an earlier age gives them the experience they need. Although to be fair Osborne, Rodgers Southgate and later Watson, Soares and Routledge all came through regardless in more settled periods and being skint and forcing us to play hardly helped Woozley and Wayne Carlisle.
So if we had to give Boateng a run of 20 matches would he now be the energetic box to box midfielder we need? Lets see what the academy does over next few years.