Arsenal seem to see Saints as an extension of their academy lately as they seem to want to just walk in at will and sign our youngsters.

Arsenal are being linked with Saints 16 yearold midfielder Callum Slattery and if some media reports are to be believed they will have competition from Bayern Munich.

But Slattery would do well to look at the other players that have left Saints at an early age for so called bigger clubs (and Spurs) and how their development has failed to perhaps match their promise.

Gareth Bale is perhaps the best known of Saints youth production line in recent years , but his career at Spurs did not take off for several years after leaving Saints and at one time Harry Redknapp was trying to offload him to Championship side Nottingham Forest.

Theo Walcott was a year ahead of Bale in leaving St Mary's and with that move came a lot of hype, what didnt come though was plenty of first team chances and almost a decade since leaving the South Coast, Walcott has still only started 131 Premier League matches for the Gunners plus another 71 as sub, barely half of the games he could have played in, OK he has had injury problems, but he is hardly considered a regular for either club or country and the question has to be asked whether moving to Arsenal at such a young age helped him or would he have been better getting more experience before he left.

Alex Oxlade Chamberlain is another case in a little over a year he started 27 games(9 as sub) in a little over a year between his debut and leaving the club, in his three years at the Emirates he has only started 40 Premier League games(37) again another who has suffered injury problems but the fact remains he has yet to get anywhere near fulfilling his potential and his 6 league goals for the club is sill short of the 9 he got for Saints, like Walcott he has shown glimpses of his class, but Arsene Wenger's policy of rotation is not beneficial to youth

The third player now at Arsenal, Calum Chambers has started 17 of Arsenal's Premier league games this season but he like his fellow ex Saints is far from being a regular and is in and out of the side.

So the message to Callum Slattery is clear, from a footballing point of view you would be far better at St Mary's, you will stand a far better chance of getting into the first team here and getting invaluable grounding that will stand you in good stead in the future, Premier league squads are littered with former golden boys who made early big money moves and have failed to live up to expectation, sometimes if you chase money you never catch it, chase success however and the money will come.

Money is the key word here, clubs like Arsenal are willing to pour multi millions into buying in players who develop early, they have very little interest in developing their own talent, they pay lip service to a youth set up however it produces little and they prefer to buy in youngsters when they have made an early impact, take a look at the squads of Chelsea, Man City, Arsenal, Man Utd they have few players anymore who have genuinely come right through the ranks since schoolboy.

Photo: Action Images

mgprobert added 09:46 - Mar 24 Allegedly. But even if we find this rumour is true its the way of the modern game isn't it? ...money talks. Clubs like Arsenal and Liverpool will find it easier just to buy in young players (especially our English ones) rather than go to the bother of finding their own - and our players will go there because a) they are bigger clubs at the moment, b) they will earn loads more money, and c) they'd rather earn loads of money and sit on the bench at a big club than play lots of games and earn relatively less at Saints. Its just how it is - just ask Burnley, Celtic, Crystal Palace etc who we have bought from in recent years as a bigger EPL club

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Jesus_02 added 09:55 - Mar 24 With Greg Dyke imminently announcing new foreign player rules and the FA's insistence that player play in the Champions League if they want to play for England rumours like this will start to increase. The question is what money we would get for Slatery… and what is it worth if we can only spend it on youth players that have less potential.
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bstokesaint added 13:01 - Mar 24 Can you get any money for a 16 year old footballer? I suspect we'd get nothing for his development if he left now. I accept that football teams effectively follow the food chain when it comes to who takes from who, but a line has to be drawn when it comes to academy players. It's wrong on all levels. A 16 year old (or younger in some instances) generally has no idea of what is best for them career or life-wise. Dangling a whole load of money in front of them will ultimately be the biggest draw and GCSE’s and any other part of mid teenage life will pale into insignificance. The club who developed the player through will likely get nothing, other than money from a tribunal, which is ridiculous. I know we did this with Clyne from Palace and I felt sorry for them. That's also why I have no issue with him leaving us, as we'll only profit. Lastly, going back to academy players what's the point in promoting youth development as the future of the game if these players never get to even make a senior appearance for their club?

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SaintGeorge added 20:12 - Mar 24 More Callumny
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redkraft added 06:28 - Mar 27 If I read the rules correctly (See here for wikipedia summary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_Player_Performance_Plan ), if he signed with Arsenal this summer we would get 209K pounds plus an addition payment for each 10 premier league games he played for Arsenal up to 100. We would also get some small percentage of a transfer fee if Arsenal sold him later on.
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