It feels like expectations around academy players still haven't been fully understood. The idea isn't to make every academy player a starter, no, but to instead plug holes in the squad with academy players.

That's the main purpose of academy, a superstar-tier talent is a bonus.

Instead of spending 35m on Drinkwater, we could've simply kept Chalobah. If we had added Drinkwater's wages and fees to Rudiger's, we would've gotten enough money to afford our first choice Van Dijk.

The same principle applies to say, Zappacosta and Ola Aina too.

The real value of a player to a team lies in the cost of his replacement. We paid 35m for Drinkwater to do the job Chalobah was doing for nothing. That is just one example, there are plenty more.

No, not all of them are world-class players. But not many in our squad are anyway.

You need to worry about Gallagher (for example) being brought into the team because we need them more than they need us.

It'll cost us 25m to buy a second-rate squad player from Italy to do the job Gallagher will do for us. Why not take the cheaper (and better) option?

Or let me put it this way, which one would you choose:

A. Spend 25m on a second-rate midfielder to be 4th choice + 70m on a striker who is not your first option.

(or)

B. Keep Gallagher for free + spend 100m on your absolute first-priority striker target.

Easy choice for me.

The perfect (idealistic) squad composition:

- A core of bonafide elite players, mostly bought from outside but perhaps one or two from the academy.
- A "second circle" of squad players from the academy.
- A few veterans who were once bought in as elite players/academy prospects.

You'll find crops of academy players like the class of '92 or Iniesta - Xavi - Messi - Busquets - Pedro very rarely, don't expect them to be the norm.

If it happens to us, great, but I'm not expecting it. It's better to be conservative in our estimations for the time being.