Sunderland’s hot prospects Dan Neil, 18, and Benji Kimpioka, 21, signed new contracts with the club this week.
The former impressed during the preseason and is knocking on the door of the first team, whilst Kimpioka featured in the senior side last season.
Neil penned a three-year deal with his boyhood club, snubbing the advances of the top flight trio of Newcastle, Wolves and Leeds.
He is highly rated across the board so it is a huge benefit to the Club that he signed a new deal.
The news comes after a couple of abject years for the Sunderland academy - player sales and a downturn in results mean that the mood is flat, and both the club and fans are divided about the future of the club.
VAVEL are putting the Academy of Light under the microscope to see just what has gone wrong for Sunderland over the last few years.
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Few opportunities to impress
Whilst the above contract extensions are good news for Sunderland, it may be a while before the youngsters get a sustained opportunity to impress in the first team.
Phil Parkinson told BBC Look North this week that they will only get an opportunity: “when they deserve the chance to force a more senior player out of the side.”
Though Sunderland’s first team are failing to gain promotion from the third tier, academy talents are scarcely given opportunities.
Phil Parkinson usually adopts a similar system and lineup each week based around experienced players.
Compared to other club’s in their Under-23’s league - Premier League 2 Group 2 - Sunderland are giving out minutes to academy graduates at around the average rate.
Across the 13 teams, 64,951 minutes have been given to academy graduates since the start of the 2019/20 season.
Of those, Sunderland have given 5,224 minutes across four players - Lynden Gooch; Denver Hume; Elliot Embleton and Benji Kimpioka.
This chart shows that Sunderland are around the average number of minutes - Norwich lead the way on 11,887, with Middlesbrough and West Brom not far behind just under 8,000 - Wolves and Fulham gave the least minutes.
The frustrating variable for Sunderland is that they are playing in League One.
The academy players are facing opposition at Premier League and Championship clubs who are getting similar or more opportunities to play.
Sunderland would have hoped that their figure would be closer to Norwich’s with the talent that has blessed the Academy of Light over the last few years.
This season, Neil and Jack Diamond are pushing to feature in the first-team, but are yet to get a minute in the league so far.
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A mass exodus
The academy sides fortunes have been rather bleak over the last two seasons.
The Under-23 squad has recorded just one victory since January 2019, whilst the Under-18’s haven’t won a single game since August 2018.
Despite this horrific record, Sunderland remains a Category 1 academy and the setup at the Academy of Light is still revered as one of the best in the country.
The Club’s League One status means that other teams higher in the pyramid can offer more money and a higher standard of football, and this has led to a mass exodus of talent over the last few years.
Forwards Sam Greenwood and Joe Hugill both left aged 16, for Arsenal and Manchester United respectively.
Greenwood recently joined Leeds United for £3 million and scored a hattrick against Sunderland in a Premier League 2 match this week.
Meanwhile, Hugill, fresh off the back of his transfer, joins Manchester United Under 23’s and scored the winning penalty in an EFL Trophy tie with Rochdale this week.
Plenty of other players have left the club since 2018, mostly to elite clubs - Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal are consistently looking to take advantage of Sunderland’s recent plight to gut them of the young talent coming through.
The age of the players leaving dictates that Sunderland are paid a pittance of what they would get if they managed to play some first-team minutes.
An example that particularly frustrates Sunderland fans is the sale of Bali Mumba.
Back in 2018, Mumba became the club’s youngest ever captain in a 3-0 victory over Wolves.
However, upon relegation to League One, Mumba was sent back down to the youth sides and even shipped out on loan to the local Northern Premier League side, South Shields.
This summer, Mumba joined Norwich City for £350,000; Daniel Farke promoted him to the first-team as back up for Max Aarons.
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Earning a pittance
The last time Sunderland earnt a headline figure for an academy graduate was in 2017 when Everton signed Jordan Pickford for a sum that could reach £30 million.
Since then, the club has failed to sell players well, often being taken advantage of by elite clubs, scooping up talent.
As previously mentioned, Sam Greenwood left for Arsenal aged 16 in 2018 - the 'Elite Player Performance Programme' means that Arsenal owed Sunderland a fee for training Greenwood.
However, this fee was nominal - at around £250,000 and just two years later, Leeds paid £3 million for the forward who has never played a senior minute.
Similarly, Joe Hugill left for £300,000, who seems to be the replacement for Mason Greenwood in Manchester United’s Under-23’s.
Logan Pye also joined Manchester United for an extremely nominal fee this year.
Sunderland aren’t giving young players enough of a chance to shine in the under-23’s or the first team; therefore, clubs who recognise their talent can pay less than if they played senior minutes.
This next chart shows how many academy players Clubs in PL2G2 have sold and for what cumulative price since 2017.
Sunderland have sold just four academy graduates for £4.4million. The rest of their sales came from players who never reached the first team, with Josh Maja, Bali Mumba, Joel Asoro and George Honeyman all left for a combined £4.4million.
Compared to the rest of the league, Sunderland are way behind.
The pattern seems to show that the more minutes a club gives equates to the more money raised, however, in Sunderland’s case this isn’t true.
Fulham have sold the likes of Harvey Elliott and Ryan Sessegnon for big sums, whilst Crystal Palace managed to receive £50milllion for Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
If the point of an academy isn’t to build a stronger team for the future, then it is to sell on talent at a big price to raise revenue - as detailed in these charts, Sunderland failed on both accounts.
It is of course difficult for a young player to turn down an elite club such as Manchester United or Liverpool, yet Sunderland must do more to make them stay.
They should use the League One status to their advantage by laying out a clear pathway to the first team - at least the players may be sold on for a larger fee.
The hierarchy of the club have changed the management of the Academy this summer, so this could be a turning point for the club’s future.
Certainly, tying down Dan Neil rather than selling him to a Premier League counterpart is encouraging, it is now down to the football management to give him the opportunity to thrive.
Neil is taking the armband of the Under 23’s for the time being - but long term his vision must be the first team’s armband.
