According to a report by Switzerland’s CIES Football Observatory, Arsenal are currently ninth in the rankings of clubs that have trained the most footballers currently playing for big-five league teams across the globe.
The Gunners, with 22 players fitting the bill, fall well short of top three Barcelona (43), Manchester United (36) and Real Madrid (34) and are also behind French trio Lyon (33), Paris Saint Germain (27), Rennes (24) and Spanish pair Athletic Bilbao (24) and Real Sociedad (24).
Out of the 22 big-five league footballers trained at Arsenal, 7 remain on the books at the Emirates. To be considered club-trained, a player must have played for at least three seasons between the ages of 15 and 21 for his employer club.
The report also reveals that Barcelona are top of the table of clubs that have trained the most footballers playing for other big-five league teams (30), again ahead of Real Madrid and Manchester United.
In recent months the Arsenal hierarchy have emphasised the long-term importance of improving the club’s Academy putting their money where their mouth is with a number of personnel changes, including the hiring of new director Andries Jonker, and the upgrading of facilities at both Hale End and London Colney.
Last month Jonker outlined his vision in Dutch publication Voetbal International in the process tearing to shreds the lack of progress made in recent years.
“Arsenal want more talented players to come through, because that has been lacking. They want me to develop the players from the academy much better than it was done before.
“At this moment, considering the investments the club have made, players have hardly been developed properly. This is why they wanted me, a man who can guide the coaches and who can influence the other coaches.
“Ivan Gazidis wants Arsenal to be the best academy in the world. He realises that will cost money and will take time, but that is his ambition.”
Pressure of first comment… eh …..
Q: How do u confuse a chelsea fan?
A: Take him to London and then ask him for directions.
Never again…
Anyone surprised to see ChelSKI and Man Citeh so far down the list?
Lyon must have a very good academy.
Chelsea currently have 26 players out on loan. Originally the whole point of the loan system was to give your ACADEMY prospects a chance to gain 1st team experience at a smaller club. Chelsea have been ‘cornering the market’ for young talent (Courtois, Lukaku, De Bruyne, Hazard Jr., Bertrand, Moses, Atsu, Kakuta, Marin, Piazon, Romeu, Van Ginkel) in order to benefit from a rising market. To Roman Abramovich, the loan system is akin to a warehouse where you store your collection of fine art, while waiting for a few to appreciate in value. This is exactly the sort of abuse… Read more »
It also means Chelsea can keep their wage bill down by getting other clubs to pay a large chunk of it using Roman’s money.
“To Roman Abramovich, the loan system is akin to a warehouse where you store your collection of fine art, while waiting for a few to appreciate in value.”
mate that was excellently put, nailed it.
Chelsk$i were the first team I looked for on the table, and laughed when I saw that they are 50 three below Southampton, ha ha!
On the other hand, PSG are doing well to be so high up, even if only 5 still play for them.
we were not considerably higher than this a few years ago?
anyway – the current makeup of the team, jack, theo, aaron, gibbs, calum, danny, gnabry, ox and the talented few waiting to break through to the first team puts us in a very good position. Especially when you think United numbers are propped up with players like cleverly and rafael. And of course our own danny welbeck.
According to the same organisation we were higher than that just 9 months ago with 27 players, making us 5th in Europe and top in England: http://www.football-observatory.com/IMG/pdf/wp59_eng.pdf
Not sure how United acquired 11 club-trained players and we lost 5 just in the past year?
Only problem is, that the homegrown players of other teams like Bayern Munich are actually their top players whereas this is not the case with us… Sad
Yeah Wilshere and Gibbs have been really poor, right?
…
Aye, and when I think of their 5 best players, only Lahm comes to mind as (possibly) homegrown.
Aside from that, he’s spot on.
Muller, Kroos, Badstuber, Schweinsteiger, Hummels (moved from their youth team to dortmund)
Not poor (actually half of Jacks time on the pitch is poor so far) but definitely not setting the world alight. Stop overrating our current younger/homegrown players, they are solid but not world-beaters & tbh, time is running out to make that jump for someone like Gibbs
WTF are you smoking. Gibbs is a solid LB!!!
Bayern have 3 prominent first team players: Lahm, Schweinsteiger, Muller. We have 1: Wilshere. Maybe 2 if you include Gibbs. Hardly a huge difference.
But a huge gap in quality between lahm, schweinsteiger and Müller compared to gibbs and Wilshere though.all Three of the germans among the best in the world in their position.
But what do you want to say? Bayern Munich is a bigger better team then us. They also happen to be probably the best team in the world.
And their ages?
Jack & Gibbs have time to get better,
Lahm and Schweinstiger do not.
Bayern do have some very good youngsters in their squad but so do we.
Szcz is homegrown, right?, Walcott might qualify for both Southhampton and Arsenal, since he was bought young.
What about Southampton?
Bizarre that Southampton have produced as many (few) youth players as City and Chelsea
Not really if you think about it. City have a pretty good academy (that produced Sturridge, SWP, Richards, etc). Chelsea sign a lot of very talented young talents from abroad that qualify as youth players.
I guess quite a few Southampton players -Walcott, Bale, Chambo, for instance- are snapped up before they have had the chance to play three seasons within that age range. (Not sure that all of those three fall into that category, but reckon it must happen fairly often). But true, it is surprising. As is the very large number of Man U players- I knew their academy was decent, but not to the extent that it was better than the likes of Lyon and Bilbao.
If you want to build a proper team then you have to build it in an academy. If you can create a bond between these players and the club, get them to play well with one another and get them to play good football you’re set up to dominate the footballing landscape long term. The Barcelona team of a few years back was possibly the best ever and almost all those players came out of the academy, playing a brand of football that they understood perfectly because they’d been educated in it for years as they grew up. For me… Read more »
Well let’s hope our new experienced man Jonker is able to put that plan into fruition
Weird to see Ajax not having a single homegrown player in their first team. Dennis, what’s going on?
Ajax is not in a Top 5 League. (La Liga, Ligue 1, EPL, Serie A and German Bundesliga are the Top 5 leagues. Since the article did not consider the Eredivisie to be Top 5, number of homegrown players playing for Ajax was not tabulated).
Not bad for Arsenal. People regularly point out that nothing great has come out of the club’s system lately. Arsenal has consistently invested in talent, unlike a certain club ‘Chavs’. Hope the next crop of Zelalem, Gnabry etc. will do the club proud.
If you add the championship, Lg1 & 2 there are shedloads of former Arsenal youth players making a living from the game. Not quite where they thought they’d be playing when they gained the big egos with us, but still nice to know.
Jonker’s appointment smells like a succession plan to me. With the club taking a long term approach to everything, Jonker coming in and cleaning up the lower structures of the youth academy (ironic because his name in Dutch means younger) and the scouting system, seems like he’s a likely replacement for Wenger long term. I’d be pissed if I was project managing such a big portfolio and miss out on the top job. Apparently he was a maverick at Barca and Bayern whose youth academies are the flagship for almost every club and league in the world.
Let’s all laugh att City, Chelsa and Sp*rs
I would have thought we would be even further down. Surely Southampton should be higher up than us. Jack and Gibbs are really our only home grown players if you think about it.
Szczesny came to us at 15, so he must surely count as homegrown. But I agree that us lying above Southampton is a bit of a farce, especially since Ox and Theo both count as youth products of the Arsenal academy.
I’m not sure I understand this. In January this year the same organisation released the same stats and Arsenal were top in England, 5th in Europe, with 27 players (10 in the club). What happened in the intervening 9 months?
Stats for all European top divisions (ones quoted here only include those playing in England, Germany, Spain, Italy and France) have Arsenal at joint 3rd in Europe with 36: http://blogs.ft.com/ftdata/2014/01/21/european-football-the-retreat-of-the-club-trained-player/
It’s also hilarious how the Scousers are nowhere on this list
I would like to know the number of talents if we only count those educated at each club from an early age. Or the numbers if we say anyone bought away from the mother club in their teens still is credited to the mother club.
Meaning that Barcelona would get credit for Bellerin Even though we stole him away and vice versa. Because i dont think getting a player at 15-16 should count tbh.
Trying to work out who are the 3 club-trained players at Chelsea… There’s John Terry. Can’t see anyone else in their squad who would qualify under the standard definition.
They probably have Nathan Ake and Chalobah listed as in their first team squad.
Chalobah is in the loan-circus, they don’t seem to be counting those players. Mikel perhaps, he’s wasted his whole career there. Or Lewis Baker?
We can hate the Chavs, with good reason all we want…..but to say Mikel “wasted” his whole career there is just laughable. Was never going to be a “star” in another team, so he found a role with those twats over there & has ALL the accolades/medals bc of it. Did he play a “major” role? No, but he wasn’t exactly a bench warmer either
Perhaps I was a bit flippant, but he has arguably been played out of position for his whole career. He’s been immense for Nigeria at times (cue jokes about their underperformance)
This is for the first comment: well done! We all know ‘There’s only one team in London!’
Wow so we are doing a lot for Europe! If only this could be monetized some way… Hmm oh yes we sell them on when they don’t cut the grade for us. I kind of wish we could have get Alex Song back he has looked something like his sleepy stumbling crab running pass mastery best @ West Ham…
Ohh we must not forget that John Terry is still a cunt! 🙂
I like the new look Andrew! Mainly because the text is bigger “old bloke cough”
Arseblog,off topic i know,but if you can change the extra intro to sanchez from ramsey ,please change the 1st shout that sounds far to much like “adebayoooorrrrrrr” thanks
As the man said, for the amount of money invested in the Arsenal academy the return has been piss poor over the years. The Ox and Theo get credited to Southampton.
Must do better.
That’s pretty good for Arsenal considering. Only 4 other truly top teams in the Big five league ahead of us IMO – Barca, United , Madrid and PSG. The rest you expect to have a high quotient of home grown considering budget and overall quality of players. Dortmund not ahead of us (Currently lying in 14th) Southampton is a curious one which does reflect the variables inherent in the system adopted measuring ‘Home Grown’ here. More importantly, Arsenal have also increased in our number of British players (the core) with 7 players in – Walcott, Gibbs, Jack, Ramsey, Welbeck, Chambers… Read more »
PS : I like our new defenders, they look sprinkler proof.
As do I the New new arseblog format.
I would love to see a list of the folks that managers made.
Is there a list anywhere of all our playets featured pls