Manchester United's youth system is the best in the Premier League

It is not a simple thing to determine which academy system is the best, so I've researched the backgrounds of all 233 players that qualify as homegrown, in the official Premier League senior squads, and my definition is simple:

Which club's academy produces the most players that are good enough to become senior players at any Premier League club.

It is clear that Manchester United's youth system is the best on this measure and the nearest contenders are Aston Villa, Manchester City, Middlesbrough and Sheffield United. To be clear I have not attempted to research players that progressed for Premier League academies to become regulars at foreign clubs - although apart from Scottish clubs I don't think there are more than a handful.

The Premier League's new homegrown quota came into operation yesterday, and despite what it says on the tin, it does not mean that every top flight club has to have eight homegrown players. What it means is that a maximum of 17 players schooled in foreign academies can be utilized by each Premier League side. Seventeen players flown in from all round the world seems plenty to me and I see a lot of merit for the proposal in encouraging teams to bring through talent - or buy players that are rooted in the English system.

The Premier League's identity requires players like Shearer, Giggs, Terry, Gascoigne, Le Tissier, Gerrard and so on to offer clubs something quintessentially British. Otherwise the 'Greed League' tag would properly stick.

As a bi-product the England team should benefit as more English players are given league games to play in as opposed to being loaned out to fatten thinner squads or consigned to a run in the domestic cups.

The other implication of the 17 non-homegrown player maximum is that any club that does not have 8 players schooled in England or Wales will have a smaller senior squad to draw on - and will probably have to turn to the unlimited number of under-21s that can supplement the senior squad.

So clubs either have employ senior homegrown players or utilize their current crop as soon as they need to move past the 17 non-homegrown players. This can only be good news for players going through the system now.

Of the teams squads that are in most of the papers today the recently promoted sides do have a lot of homegrown and English players, somewhat understandably as wage constraints and the need to consider the kind of squad that can get out of the Championship. But what the new regulations are implicitly trying to encourage is to push more homegrown players into the top teams, to give prospective England sides players with experience of European football in winning teams. This will also provide some hope for the youth systems that clubs won't always be able to bring in a foreign journeyman to 'do a job' every time there is an injury.

Manchester United really stands out as providing a route into top flight football - providing over 10% of the total number of homegrown senior players in the division and an even bigger proportion of British and Irish homegrown players.

Of the 233 players senior homegrown players registered by the twenty clubs yesterday, 24 went through the youth system at Manchester United. Suggesting that United are producing about two Premier League quality players every season - with more going on to thrive at Championship level.

Senior homegrown players from Manchester United

United have registered 13 homegrown players in their squad of 24 of which 9 went through the United youth system:
Wes Brown, Gary Neville, John O'Shea, Jonny Evans, Ritchie de Laet (debateable if he is also a product of Royal Antwerp or Stoke youth), Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Darren Fletcher and Darron Gibson.

Plus 15 former youth team products are senior homegrown players at 8 other clubs:

Craig Cathcart (Blackpool)
Paul Rachubka (Blackpool)
Phil Neville (Everton)
Johnathan Greening (Fulham)
Danny Simpson (Newcastle)
Danny Higginbotham (Stoke)
Ryan Shawcross (Stoke)
Danny Pugh (Stoke)
Phil Bardsley (Sunderland)
Kieran Richardson (Sunderland)
Frazier Campbell (Sunderland)
Jonathan Spector (West Ham)
Michael Pollitt (Wigan)
David Jones (Wolves)
Sylvan Ebanks-Blake (Wolves)

Beyond these 24, Danny Welbeck (on loan at Sunderland), Tom Cleverley (on loan at Wigan) and Federico Macheda (still at United) seem likely to maintain the level of United homegrown players at around 10% in the Premier League senior squads over the next couple of years. United have been producing good players for many years now and below the ones that make it through to the first team are three or four times that number who still make a good career in the Championship or at less successful Premier League clubs.

The challenge for clubs like Chelsea and Liverpool, who aren't alone in not bringing through players from their academies in recent years, is to balance the books whilst having to buy in homegrown players to flesh out the squad. This is before considering that Manchester United have recouped nearly £50m from the sales of youth team players in the last decade.

Investment in youth is now essential in the top flight, but it can also be profitable without necessarily reducing success. Hopefully the England team will reap the benefit of this new ruling with the players that will be available for the World Cups in 2018 and 2022.

* Is the United academy the strongest, is my definition the wrong one - or is my research flawed? Which clubs have academies that are set to set the world light? Let us know!

NEAREST CONTENDERS

When I started the research for this article I thought that there would be more homegrown players from Aston Villa than any other club. But after trawling through the backgrounds of the 233 players, it appears that that was a false impression. In fact I think that Manchester City may well exceed the Villa total of 11. Also Middlesbrough and, interestingly, Sheffield United also have around 10 players that graced their academies in the Premier League senior squads. But I'm not going back through the playing histories of 233 players again - so if you are interested in the precise numbers for different teams, I'll leave that to you dear reader.

Senior homegrown players from Aston Villa

Villa have registered 15 homegrown players in their 22 man senior squad, of which four came through the Villa youth system:

Eric Lichaj, Johnathan Hogg, Isaiah Osbourne and Gabriel Agbonlahor.

Plus 7 former youth team products are senior homegrown players at 4 other clubs:

Liam Ridgewell (Birmingham)
Keith Fahey (Birmingham)
Craig Gardner (Birmingham)
Rob Edwards (Blackpool)
Gary Cahill (Bolton)
Jlloyd Samuel (Bolton)
Gareth Barry (Manchester City)