Bladesman
The Great Grumbleduke
He's told them to upgrade the academy. Coming from Southampton and seeing how many years one big sale would fund the academy for, makes it a no brainer. Its a viability question for the current setup, as it threatens to undermine whether the best young players will reach maturity (professional contracts) with us. Some will of course still choose to stay with the blades, but we'd have no legal recourse if we complete 99% of their development and only receive a token payment at the end of it because a hawk has offered some pieces of silver. If it was financed, it would ensure that the club benefited from the talent it had nurtured but would also, importantly, put us in a smaller elite group of clubs when attracting talent - especially in the north of England. A no brainer, especially when the majority/if not all of the facilities to meet the specifications have already been paid for. We've already lost three kids, which indicates that the medium term viability of the system is being threatened. They were all taken by Category One academies. Youth football is very murky, and bribes and material things being promised to parents isn't uncommon.
As discussed the other week on here, the benefits of the academy are there if used to its full potential. I don't think any previous manager has made the most of it academy.
It's just annoying the way big clubs collect the youngsters with no real long term vision for their future. In Chelsea's case it's buy and sell on unless the player is something really special.