I really question the wisdom of a club like ours having an academy to be honest. We're putting at least 3m every single season into the academy, how much have we got in return these past 9 years? We can't offer these players anything. Arsenal would have better facilities, playing with better players, and bizarrely better opportunities - we are appalling at attempting to bring through academy players. Thorne in his natural position is not played ahead of Brunt who will never be a deep lying central midfielder, Wood despite being one of the leading lights in the championship wasn't given a chance to prove himself. It's far from someone like Southampton who can point to a proven track record of putting faith in academy players.
If someone is looking like having the potential to be a top player they get poached for a minimal fee that doesn't cover anything like the academy costs. So far in our short existence as an academy Hurst was poached, Sinclair was poached, and now it seems like Brown will also be poached. Basically anyone who looks like they might actually have potential to become first team.
For the sake of 3m a year we'd be better off buying a 1.5-2m player a year and probably see a greater return on investment from it based, maybe invest further in the scouting system. 3m a year doesn't sound a lot but it soon totals up, particularly given how little our transfer budget tends to be.
I agree with some of your points but disagree with your conclusion. Firstly a lot of the money that has been invested in the academy has been spent on catching up with the better clubs and now the club's facilities are a match for any in the division and it would seem crazy to stop at the point when that is starting to pay dividends.
I agree that we have not been brilliant at getting youngsters into the team but over the last 10 years the first team's progress has been such that it has outstripped the academy's ability to produce players. Had we slipped back into the championship over the course of the last couple of seasons the likes of Thorne, Wood, Berahino,Dawson, Allan, Downing, Hurst, and Manton would be in the first team squad.
It is true that we are vulnerable to poaching from bigger clubs up until the player signs professional terms after that point there is no need for us to sell our promising youngsters because unlike Southampton when they sold Walcott and Oxlade-Chamberlain we are financially sound.
The cost of the academy is one average premier league player and we already have 25 of those if we are to progress we need to supplement the work of the scouting network with a youngsters coming out of the academy. As ever the problem will be the Head Coach being under pressure for instant results will go with the experienced player even out of position rather than backing a youngster. The club of course can force the coaches hand a little by managing the fringe a little bit more ruthlessly and moving on senior pro's who are really only there as back up, Tamas and Jara-Reyes spring to mind however the youngsters have to be good enough and whilst much is expected of Daniel's for instance he probably isn't there just yet