Our Academy is Failing

Here's this week's trivia question. Which is the worst team in the league at developing their own players? Chelsea would be a good guess as I think they have only produced John Terry since the inception of the Premier League. But Ipswich are currently running them pretty close.

Which given the contrast between Chelsea's Russian zillions and our recent penniless history is curious indeed. When Sheepshanks destroyed the clubs finances and took us into Admin, the academy was regarded as a crown jewel - and ring-fenced, despite eye-watering annual running costs, quoted at £1million plus per annum.

It seemed a glib lie at the time, because Burley's magnificently inept relegation team frequently had more products of the Norwich youth scheme (Andy Marshall) in it than Town's. But with Bent and Ambrose emerging, Westlake and Matt Richards looking promising, not to mention Dean Bowditch, it's easy to see how the hype could cover up reality - and so the myth of the young guns began.

Fast forward a few years and if you made the journey to Stoke and scanned the team sheet you might have noticed that the only home-grown player in the team was Bam Bam. And he was only there because Leicester blocked Magilton's move for one of his old Irish mates. With all the will in the world, it's stretching a point to call Naylor a young gun, because Bam Bam joined the club back in the days of John Lyall.

I only mention this because April will see the third anniversary of our FA Youth Cup triumph. So now is the time that golden generation should be forcing their way into the team and providing its spine for years to come. You might guess that Theo Walcott was in the Southampton team that April evening - but can you identify the trophy-winning pillars of our future? Here's the team that were much hyped as Town's glittering next generation. Supple, Krause, Collins, Casement, Synnott; Craig, Lordan (Hammond 82), Trotter (Upson 105), Moore, Haynes (Sheringham 71); Knights. Subs not used: Reynolds, Ainsley

Supple we know has been exiled to Falkirk of all places - and Haynes is sometimes given a game when Magilton is feeling rash. But otherwise the first team cupboard is bare. Even the hugely promising Garvan has now been squeezed out by Magilton's bulk midfield purchases in the transfer window.

Next on the horizon is a lad called Jordan Rhodes who has scored goals at every level he has played at. Not that it will do him much good however, because all the talk coming out of Portman Road is not the huge promise of the latest in our youth production line - it is David Nugent on loan. No matter - perhaps Rhodes can be loaned to Gretna.

Which to my mind is profoundly sad. Nugent may well be a fine player - and a useful goalscorer to have on board to try and sneak a play-off place. But what's the point? Why have a bloke who Portsmouth bough on a whim and now want to discard before they have to pay the latest instalment on his fee? Wouldn't it be better to give Jordan Rhodes a few games instead, if Pablo is firing blanks?

We are supposed to be a club that produces its own players - but the current manager appears to lack the faith to play them or the patience to let them learn and develop in the only real place they can learn - out on the pitch for us.

The current merry-go-round of surplus players is little short of a farce. Town have a perfectly adequate goalie in Supple - but loan him out and promptly loan not one, but two in. Ah - I hear you say... we can't afford to play young players because we need to get in the play-offs. And if you lack faith in your own players, that is an easy route to take. The trouble is, there will never be a good time to blood players. If we went up - well they wouldn't be ready for the Premier League would they.? Or they would get depressed by the relentless grind of losing week in, week out. And if we miss out this year - well we can't play them next year either - because we'll be going for promotion again (we hope).

Now admittedly I am glossing over a salient fact here. Because Town were skint they had to sell their prized assets. One even had to go to pay the administrator's hotel bill. But that was five years ago - something clearly isn't working. It may be that the Academy system is patently flawed as it is geared more to big city clubs rather than small market town in a rural area adjacent to the North Sea. It may be that managers are too cautious and fans too impatient. Everybody wants instant solutions.

Maybe young players are like London buses - you wait ages then a few come along together. But the fact remains - in no way is the academy justifying its huge running costs. If the administrators had closed the academy forthwith five years ago - Falkirk would have been short of two substitutes and so would we. That's hardly a ringing endorsement. We could probably have paid off the £8million debt with the money saved too. So far from being our future, you could argue that the Academy has in fact destroyed it.

If I was one of those three Marcus Evans lackies making a root and branch review of my boss's new toy I'd be thinking - why have an academy costing £1million a year if I can get players in on loan from other teams that don't want to play their academy players either?

It was ill-advised loans that destroyed the club's finances and reduced us to the lowest point in our history. In many ways, ill-advised loans are now threatening our future too.