It don't like to say it but it is worth comparing our academy to Brighton, they have 4 or 5 players out on loan to championship clubs and some across european leagues, it brings in money in loan fees and gives them experience at a high level. It does make me laugh from time to time that they tell me Percy or Tau Billy Arce are ripping up the Belgian league and will be £50m forward as they slowly descends from sight but they are probably ahead of us at the U23 level. They have had their cat 1 academy for 10 years now while we have had it for one season.
Might just be an odd coincedence but what is interesting is with exception of Ben White most of the players who have made to the first team from their academy haven't really gone out on loan much Sanchez, Connolly and Alcate of the premier league home grown. ALthough Connolly is now out on loan but really hasn't done much since breaking into the team.

Recent years the young players who have left seem to have disappeared quite quickly.

In previous years Collymore is definitely the biggest error - £150k to Southend and then £2.5m to Forest 6 months later.

Surely Gareth Southgate must also be up there - played over 50 times for England.

But there are others.

Leon Mckenzie was with us for years and did well on loan to Peterboro and sold for peanuts. Had a good spell in the prem with Norwich and i think moved to Coventry for c£1m.

Chris Powell - left back who ended up playing for England

Simon Osborn - lost his way a little at Palace. Went to Reading for £90k - a year later moved for £1m and played in the prem for Wolves.

A number of strikers have left and done well e.g. Marcus Bent (£3m to Ipswich) and Steve Claridge etc. Maybe George Ndah, David Whyte, Jamie Moralee and Steve Kabba (until injuries) did well and even Akinbadbuy went for £2m after we gave him a free.

To a lesser extent Vincent and Cox both sold to Bournemouth for small fees, both enjoyed good careers and big moves afterwards

JRB is a year OLDER than Marc Guehi and only a month younger than Tyrick.

We probably have a sell on clause but let's not pretend this guy was on the verge of PL football. If he was he'd have played long before now.

Arguably JRB's role was to get him in, get the U23s to a good standard ready for the promising U18 group to walk into really competitive football as they've been doing this year, and in return he gets a club which he was miles away from at Welling before we picked him up.

We'd have had to ship him at some point. It looks like a good move all round to have likely done so with a clause rather than it being on a free.

I agree to an extent , but people do progress at different rates.

Southgate was 21 before he kicked a ball for the 1st team (he says he had played 100 reserves games by that point), only become a regular at 22, was captain us to promotion at 23 and the youngest premier league captain the next year.
He then went on to play over 50 games for England.

Then you have the odd one who slips through the net - Ian Wright and Jamie Vardy etc

Years ago players slipped through the net. Trevor Peake a cracking centre half finally got picked up by Coventry at age 26 after playing at the giddy heights of Nuneaton and Lincoln City. He then played for 8 seasons at the top level hardly missing a match.

I agree, players being missed by the system will become more rare as scouting eyes are everywhere and they tend not to miss the decent kids and amateurs any more.