Homegrown Premier League players: which clubs don’t use them and who uses them the most?

There are no better feelings as a football fan than seeing a player, developed by your club’s youth coaches, make his debut and establish himself in the first team.

On October 30, Manchester United marked the 87th anniversary of having a local player in every matchday squad with their 5–2 Carabao Cup victory over Leicester City. From Tom Manley and Jackie Wassall in 1937 to the current generation of talent at United’s Carrington training ground, the development of young players is a fundamental tenet of who they are.

Since Class 92 – United’s most successful academy, which included David Beckham, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes among others – formed the core of Sir Alex Ferguson’s three-decade dynasty, the outlook on the Player development in English football has changed significantly.

While graduates of local academies hold a special place in the hearts of supporters, local players – those who have spent three years at the club between their 15th and 21st birthday, according to the CIES Football Observatory – can be recruited anywhere in the world.

It’s not just in the transfer market that the richest clubs can flex their muscles; they also attract talent at youth level. Liverpool, who rank second in terms of percentage of minutes played by homegrown players in the Premier League this season, are not only excellent at developing their academy graduates – they have also managed to recruit young talent in d other clubs.

Harvey Elliott is one of the shining examples of why clubs like Liverpool ‘poach’ talent from other clubs. Just months after Elliott became the youngest Premier League player (at the time) with Fulham in 2019, Liverpool signed the childhood fan for a fee, settled in 2021 by a court, of around £4 million pounds ($5.1 million).

Liverpool have extended this approach with Conor Bradley, Ben Doak (signed from Celtic and now on loan to Middlesbrough) and Bobby Clark (now at Red Bull Salzburg), who spent time at Birmingham City and Newcastle before joining Liverpool for 1.5 million pounds sterling in 2021, among others. So it’s no surprise that, combined with academy graduates like Trent Alexander-Arnold, Curtis Jones and Jarell Quansah, Liverpool rate so highly for minutes played by homegrown players.

Like Liverpool, who signed Bradley from Northern Ireland’s Dungannon Swifts in 2019, Brighton – who are in the top three for percentage of minutes played by club-developed players this season – are adept at scouting for young talent on more obscure markets. Irish international Evan Ferguson joined the academy after signing with Irish outfit Bohemians and therefore counts in these figures, but Julio Enciso, Simon Adingra or Moises Caicedo (left for Chelsea in 2023 for a British record fee of 115 million pounds sterling) did not do so because they had not spent enough time in Brighton between their 15th and 21st birthdays.

Due to clubs looking for young talent in different markets, such as South America, the overall share of minutes given to local players in the Premier League is declining. These players are often required to spend a period on loan at another European club or become senior internationals before earning enough points to obtain a work permit.

As football becomes more global, the definition of “local” is evolving. Manchester United, who have led the league in terms of using local players for consecutive seasons, have long been adept at recruiting foreign players at academy level.

In 2020, Alejandro Garnacho signed from La Liga side Atletico Madrid through United’s academy and has since made over 100 club appearances and become a full Argentina international. Jonny Evans, 36, who played at United’s center of excellence in Belfast before officially joining the club’s academy in 2004, is considered a homegrown player. Most recently, they poached promising young Danish international Chido Obi-Martin, 16, from Arsenal, who will count in these statistics if he breaks through.

These investments make sense on and off the field. Due to PSR, academy graduates (or players recruited for a small fee as youngsters from other clubs) are often the club’s most valuable players, as they can be sold for large or outright profit . There are several clubs whose sales of academy graduates since 2022-23 have seen their percentage of minutes for homegrown players drop significantly this year.

Harry Kane, who left Tottenham Hotspur to join Bayern Munich in 2023, is the highest-profile local departure in recent seasons, but Spurs have also sold first teammates Oliver Skipp and Japhet Tanganga. As a result, their percentage of minutes played by homegrown players dropped from 13.5 percent in 2022-23 to just 0.8 percent this season.

This trend is reflected at Wolverhampton Wanderers, who have loaned their academy products Hugo Bueno and Nathan Fraser to Feyenoord and Zulte Waregem respectively for the season. Like Wolves, West Ham are yet to field a local player this season, a year after the sale of Declan Rice to Arsenal.

Perhaps clubs like Wolves, currently 19th in the Premier League, are less likely to take risks on an academy product. The three teams outside the bottom three – Leicester City, Everton and Ipswich Town – are also among the clubs who have used homegrown players the least.

In a relegation battle, coaches may be more likely to refer to their proven top-level talents to keep them out of danger rather than an academy youngster, as evidenced by the sharing of minutes for homegrown players at Luton Town and Burnley last. season.

On the surface, Southampton and Crystal Palace may seem anomalous in this regard, but their homegrown players are among the most experienced. Adam Lallana, 36, counts as one, graduating from Southampton’s academy in 2006, but he has since made nearly 300 Premier League appearances and played 34 times for England.

The same can be said for Crystal Palace full-back Nathaniel Clyne, 33, who broke through at the south London club in 2008 before spending time at several other top teams and winning 14 caps for England. Even Tyrick Mitchell, 25, is an established top player with 142 league appearances for Palace and two caps for the Three Lions.

However, Brentford and Fulham are closer to the race for the top four than the bottom three, proving that homegrown players are not essential to success. Brentford disbanded their academy in 2016 and until their reinstatement in 2022, they did not have a traditional route to developing players within the club’s ranks. Technically, they haven’t used a homegrown player since their promotion to the Premier League in 2021.

During this period, they have run a ‘B’ team, which did not compete in a league format until the start of this season, preferring to organize matches independently. Therefore, current first team player Ryan Trevitt, who was developed in the B system before moving to the seniors, is not taken into account in these statistics.

Fulham have built their promising start to the season on players developed elsewhere. In their final league match, a 2–0 away win over Crystal Palace, Ryan Sessegnon was the only player in the matchday squad to have graduated from the club’s west London academy.

Alongside Elliott, Sessegnon was considered one of the most promising players in Fulham’s academy, winning the 2017–18 Championship Player of the Year award at the age of just 17. Injuries have since curtailed his career and he joined Fulham in the summer after being released. by Tottenham. He has yet to make an appearance in the league.

Fulham owes part of its good start to Arsenal’s academy, which has provided Alex Iwobi (28), Reiss Nelson (24) and Emile Smith Rowe (24), who have all become important players under the direction of Marco Silva.

Had Nelson and Smith Rowe not left for Craven Cottage in the summer, Arsenal’s injury problems and indifferent start to the season could have opened the door to more minutes at the Emirates Stadium. As it turned out, local youngsters Ethan Nwaneri (17) and Myles Lewis-Skelly (18) were the main beneficiaries, making a combined 14 first-team appearances this season.

Given Arteta’s reluctance to give youngsters minutes in recent seasons (Arsenal only used two players under the age of 21 last season), Smith Rowe would likely have been ahead of Nwaneri in the pecking order and therefore played a more important role this season.

At Manchester United, Kobbie Mainoo may have broken through at one point last season, given his impressive pre-season performances, but an injury crisis in United’s midfield over the congested Christmas period has helped to accelerate it. Local opportunities are born more often out of necessity than anything else – which is reflected in the overall lower share of local minutes in the league at the start of this season.

As has been proven in recent seasons, all it takes is one injury. At the expense of an established first teamer, the emergence of your team’s next hometown hero may be imminent.

(Top image: Illustration by Eamonn Dalton; photos by Getty Images)