Would you donate?

I did go through the first 6 clubs alphabetically listing all the English players in their first team and what club they came through but then chrome crashed and the forum hadn't autosaved. I'm not redoing it but guess what its nowhere near 90% (its 10-20% per club).

And I'm not saying that the depth of the pyramid is a bad thing, it is a strength but the EFL is still largely stuck in the 90's. They have dinosaurs as mangers, dinosaurs as coaches, chairmen who don't give those with fresh ideas if they get appointed time to implement them, facilities are so far out of date etc etc. There is just a massive disconnect between football at the EFL level (especially L1/L2) and the PL. Man Utd's loan manager advised against sending Chong and Gomes on load to the EFL as he felt technical players like them would gain very little and it would potentially stunt their development despite the fact the u23's isn't fit for purpose and they weren't ready for regular minutes in the first team. Sending such players out for a 6 month loan at least would have been the automatic thing to do in the past, they might even go on 2 such loans in a season to give them different experiences but we are moving further and further away from it being beneficial and the EFL needs to realise this and modernise the way it works. PL teams should be much more eager to send youth out to gain that experience but without both the decent quality coaches with modern mentalities, managers who aren't just going to play hoofball and passable facilities the benefits are getting fewer.

Should Premier League teams really be expected to pump even more money into the EFL's accounts when they are being so wasteful with what they have got and the PL teams and English football as a whole are seeing decreasing benefits. If the EFL clubs were being more forward-thinking even without the current situation you would say the PL should give more to the EFL but when the EFL clubs are being selfish by demanding money to help them stand still why shouldn't PL clubs take the selfish approach of not giving them more.

We need a situation wherein exchange for getting more money the EFL clubs need to stop just being concerned with keeping things the same and evolve for the benefit of English football as a whole

 

But they do nothing to help themselves. Take more of a modern approach to tactics, training, facilities and guess what these players hovered up by PL academies might very well find themselves being sent back on loan as they are seen as places where such players can actually grow not somewhere that sets them back 6-12months. Loan managers at clubs are wary about sending players to clubs with managers who are seen as stuck in the past, where training techniques are antiquated and where the chairman is likely to chop and change any manager who tries to be progressive and replace him with a dinosaur who is likely to freeze a more technical player out for a 2-dimensional player.

It's kind of like you giving someone pleading poverty £10,000 only for them to then go and blow that money on hookers, booze and blow

 

We'll all see whether the PL has to change its ways once the Brexit transition period has ended. After that, PL clubs won't be able to hoover up potential youngsters at European clubs since latest thinking suggests the UK will only grant work permits to EU players on the same basis currently as non-EU players. And that means in practice that the players allowed in have to be established players at the international level. Maybe then the PL will understand again the importance of the EFL pyramid as a potential source of future talent?

 

Maybe. The FA has previously said that players cannot be registered with a PL or EFL club without a valid HO work permit. And the player can't get a work permit without the FA confirming that the player meets their criteria of being an established international player. They're caught either way.

 

I'd like to see any constraint on PL clubs if it changed the way they take too many youngsters only to release them later. They have a virtual free rein at the moment to take on any youngster they want to under the EPPP rules, something which the EFLclubs, including our own, were daft to agree to in exchange for a few quid from the PL.

 

The same is true in Scotland, where the situation is, if anything, more extreme with Rangers and Celtic hoovering up virtually all the promising Scottish youth. I understand that often the kids are then not allowed to play for their school or a local club, which seems pretty poor to me.

 

Most PL clubs (and some Championship ones) apply the same rule about not playing for school teams and the like. My friend's grandson is on the academy books at a certain club in Manchester (who don't wear red) and as part of the arrangement has a scholarship place at a boarding school in the area. He can't play for the school football team nor the rugby team.

 

My nephew did the Scottish route. Exactly the same. It creates a divide. He ‘didn’t make the cut’ and has become very disillusioned with the game. Apart from a little 5 a side with close friends, he doesn’t play, nor does he go to watch football.
I think the fact that Scotland has fallen so far as a footballing nation, may in part be due to the dominance of the big two and their youth/academy policy.