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I think you’re looking at it the wrong way.
Consider it an internship in a corporate environment. How many grads make it to partner or senior partner at a top 10 law firm?
These players get one of the best foundations to succeed as a professional player and many continue to do so. I doubt that the success of them starting in the first team has a huge bearing on this.
£35m for an unproven player is kind of preposterous but as as long as he insists on leaving than he’ll get his move.
jaw-
You could be right, but I thought the reason for having an academy was to produce players for that club. A happy byproduct of them "not" being good enough is that you sell them on, make a profit, keep the academy going and extend the timing of possibly unearthing a Kane, Pogba, Sterling, without having to shell out the transfer fee/wages.
cornelius_blackfoot
I'm kind of extrapolating from the Lookman/Sancho/possibly Hudson-Odoi, where the prospect of getting more run as a young/developing player overcomes the desire to break through into a team which keeps buying developed players in your position.
Also you can say it's worked as you have won trophies in the past, but what if you don't win trophies in the future? Isn't that what the academies are for, to provide a pipeline of talent to the first team, but @WornCleat why would you sign onto an academy, be loyal to an academy if you never get to play for them (first team) yeah you get the cachet of being on their books, but at the first sign of playing time elsewhere you go, no? And some other team gets the benefit of your talents.