Whenever Wilfried Zaha gets on the ball at his feet and drives forward, the Selhurst crowd are on their feet expectantly. The roar is instant, almost propelling him on. Every time Wan Bissaka chopped the ball away from a wingers feet, Palace fans rose in rapturous applause as if we’d scored a goal. The sparse crowd inside Selhurst Park erupted when Victor Moses chested the ball up with his back to goal and overhead kicked the ball into the bottom corner of the net against Barnsley on the quagmire pitch in the Championship almost a decade ago.
Some Crystal Palace academy players have had, or are developing, top level careers in English football. Palace have produced a selection of quality players with some going on to play for England and other international teams.
Our fans love seeing younger players come through the ranks and pull on the red and blue shirt. There is an affinity between Palace fans and the local players that come through the academy. There is also undoubted talent within the club’s youth setup, but these players rarely have the chance to play senior football for the club currently.
Since returning to the Premier League in 2014, Palace have only given a handful of appearances to academy players. If Zaha and Wan Bissaka are removed from the equation as regular starters, only 5 players who have come through the Palace academy (Jonny Williams, Hiram Boateng, Sullay Kaikai,Levi Lumeka, Luke Dreher) have made senior appearances. However, most of these have come from the bench as a second half substitutes.
Unfortunately, there is so much at stake for team’s like Palace to secure their Premier League status year after year now as the financial rewards are so high – Palace made £111 million last season for finishing 12th last season. The prospect of relegation could create a catalyst for financial loss and a fall through the divisions which teams like Sunderland, Coventry and Bolton have experienced within the past decade.
With this comes the need for proven players with experience to get the team through the season and to security. Although many youth players show promise, finding an opportunity to embed these players into the first team, let alone a starting position, is so difficult and comes with an element of risk. The only way this would be possible would be due to an injury crisis, which is how Wan-Bissaka was able to get his break during the 2017/18 season following Joel Ward’s injury.
It may be no surprise that players eventually move on permanently to clubs in the lower divisions to play regular football. Wan-Bissaka himself admitted that he’d requested a move in the quest to play first team football before getting his chance.
Before promotion, it was much easier for players like Nathaniel Clyne, Zaha and Moses to gain match experience in the Championship. Both Zaha and Clyne played over 100 matches each at this level before moving on while Moses made 58 appearances in the Championship before leaving for Wigan. There was more need to play these young players at the ages of 16, 17 and 18 as there was little money to bring in players to fill certain positions.
The risk of fielding teenagers in the Championship is also significantly lower and it is often a necessity for teams with poor finances. Would these players have had the opportunity to ply their trade if we were in the Premier League at the time? Possibly not!
There is no doubt that there is talent within the youth ranks at Palace. 19 year old James Daly was around the first team squad in pre-season and featured on the bench against Bournemouth at the end of the 17/18 season. Fans on Twitter have been calling for him to be in the first team squad on numerous occasions over the past two seasons so it’s a shame he hasn’t featured at all for the first team.
Likewise, Sam Woods is well rated and made his first team debut against Colchester this week. There could be further opportunities for him in the coming weeks if Joel Ward is sidelined with injury.
Then players like Luke Dreher, Tyrick Mitchell and Nikola Tavares have been around the first team at times or they have put in excellent performances in pre-season friendlies or for the under 23s so there is plenty of potential coming through at Palace.
We would all love to see at least two or three of these players break through into the first team and putting time and money into developing these players’ future could be a cost effective way to both balance the clubs excessive wage bill and to lower the average age of the squad.
But with so much money at stake in the Premier league, even finding an opening for these players in the first team is difficult and often leads to the players moving on to teams in League One, League Two or Non League.