What’s Saints Academy’s secret?

Gareth Bale, Theo Walcott, Adam Lallana…What’s the secret to the success of Southampton’s Academy? Aidan Magee finds out and speaks to two of the latest players to break into the first team; Harrison Reed and Sam McQueen…

English football’s academy system has attracted its fair share of criticism in recent years as the volume of home-grown talent has declined steadily since the formation of the Premier League.

Sky Sports’ Jamie Carragher was among those critics last summer when he suggested many graduates of what he labelled the ‘Academy Generation’ were “too soft”, pointing to England’s failure at Euro 2016 as a case in point.

Southampton, however, appear to be extracting more from theirs than most. In fact, since 2001 it has produced more than 20 players who have gone on to earn international recognition, while spawning some of the biggest names in football today.

Bale, Walcott, Lallana, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Calum Chambers, Luke Shaw and Wayne Bridge are the standout names from a system which aims to make-up around 50 per cent of the club’s first team squad at any given time.

Sky Sports News HQ was granted exclusive access this week to the recently revamped Southampton Academy, in the leafy Hampshire village of Marchwood.

We were …

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