In recent times there has been a confected outrage directed at the transfer policies being exhibited at certain clubs.
I’ve found it faintly ridiculous listening to people mortally offended whenever a club sells one of its homegrown players.
A theme of this transfer window has been Scott McTominay, Conor Gallagher and other graduates heading for the exit. To those complaining, I get the whiff of double-standards.
If owners built a side predominantly made up of academy players because that was their want, they’d be considered as not having a lot of ambition.
If they sell their academy players instead, it’s a club that has no soul and destroying the future of these bright young things. Sending them somewhere else to play rather than the place they supposedly love because they’d been there so long. I’ve heard it all now!
A theme of this transfer window has been Scott McTominay (left), Conor Gallagher (right) and other academy graduates heading for the exit
Chelsea sold their academy graduate Gallagher to Atletico Madrid for £34million
Clubs understand what the financial rules are so if they choose to spend at the top end, in order to deliver on the almost instantaneous gratification, football requires they are perhaps going to have to pay for it a bit further down the food chain.
At this moment, the current vogue is to shout and scream about people wanting to spend huge amounts of money on players which, let’s face it, is what I thought was the preferred requirement of the ideal owner.
At the same time, academies and their young talent are held up, like the NHS, as a protected species and selling these players rather than plonking them in the first team is a major transgression.
We’ve also got this myth that all academy players are dying to play for the team where they were developed so being “one of our own” is a right of passage.
Don’t get me wrong, youth development is an important part of the football business and my academy was my sanity at Palace.
In an ideal world it’s lovely to see. In the real world it is quite rare such are the rigours and demands of modern football.
Even so, those who are good enough will get the opportunity at their boyhood clubs.
I haven’t seen Manchester City cashing in on Phil Foden or Arsenal with Bukayo Saka.
McTominay is obviously not considered to be good enough. At what point do we cease to view him as a United academy graduate and…