Do you think Aaron Mooy was embarrassed being moved from the Australian league to getting a chance to play in the PL? Or Harrison who still is and is being pursued by other PL teams?
We produce some very fine footballers who may never be good enough to play for a team at the top of the PL, but you could say the same for dozens of experienced players already in PL first teams. There will be others we buy in as prospects from around the world and give a chance to in a European league. Some will make it, some won't and very occasionally one will be good enough for our first team, but they're the needle in the haystack.
I saw somewhere that only 1 in 10,000 kids who are ever in an academy become professionals - not PL, just a professional. If that stat is true, it's damning on the academy system as a whole, which hoovers up so many kids at such a young age to discard them later on. Any kid who makes it deserves what they've earned, but of that 1 in 10,000, what would be the ratio for making it to a City or Liverpool or even a rags? 1 in 100,000? 1 in 1,000,000?
I'd love to see 3 or 4 local lads playing in our first team every week,as would every fan of every club, but it's not realistic anymore. We don't have the restrictions on foreign players anymore and I can remember the complaints from rags at the time that Irish shouldn't be considered 'foreign'. Can't recall when that rule went, but just found an article that lists the 13 non-British or Irish players who played in the opening weekend of the PL in 1992. We had one - Vonk.