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It goes without saying that south London is a real hotbed of talented young footballers.
The amount of exceptional footballers to emerge from south of the river is staggering:
– Jadon Sancho
– Joe Gomez
– Ryan Sessegnon
– Callum Hudson-Odoi
– Tammy Abraham
– Ademola Lookman
– Emile Smith-Rowe
– Reiss Nelson
You know, to name a few.
I could go on – south London just seems to have a conveyor belt churning out pure gold year on year.
Clubs such as Borussia Dortmund, Chelsea, RB Leipzig, Hoffenheim and Liverpool have been the beneficiaries of this vast pool of talent, but one side who are, geographically speaking, perfectly placed to benefit seem to have failed to attract prospects of the highest calibre.
The side in question is Crystal Palace.
The Eagles, located in SE25, have continually overlook the goldmine that is south London talent since their promotion to the Premier League back in 2013.
Before that playoff success over Watford at Wembley, Palace had taken full advantage of the talent on their doorstep, scouting the likes of Nathaniel Clyne, Ben Watson, Wayne Routledge, Wilfried Zaha, Victor Moses and Jonny Williams, and developing them from academy players into first-team stars.
Since promotion, however, just one face has emerged from the academy in Palace’s seven consecutive seasons as a Premier League club – Aaron Wan-Bissaka. Even his emergence came courtesy of an injury crisis at right-back.
Whether that is because Steve Parish and co. have been more preoccupied with their endeavour to secure lucrative Premier League survival year-on-year with a fairly short-sighted approach is up for debate. But one thing that cannot be argued is the fact that ignoring south London talent has been a huge oversight by the Eagles.
Neglecting the homegrown talent on their own doorstep has robbed Palace of having a rich academy filled with promising players who could have been handpicked for the first-team.
Selling Wan-Bissaka to Manchester United this summer for £50m netted Palace 100% pure profit, which can now be put towards their stadium plans or improving the first-team squad.
Having said that, just imagine the opportunities before them had they been the ones to scout Gomez, Sancho, Hudson-Odoi and many more.
To put into context how lucrative that could have been for Palace, Sancho finds himself fifth on the CIES Football Observatory rankings valued at €159.4m (£143m), whilst Gomez is in 78th place valued at €67.8m (£60.8m).
It is borderline criminal for a club like Palace to be twiddling their thumbs doing nothing considering their proximity to the where these potentially world-class talents grew up.
Palace scouts should be sat on seats (or stood on muddy touchlines) in Sunday League matches all over south London at every given opportunity.
For a club of Palace’s stature, who don’t often make too much money in the form of player sales – Wan-Bissaka’s exit was the first significant fee they have received since selling Yannick Bolasie to Everton back in 2016 – it is narrow-minded and neglectful to ignore the opportunities that are situated on their doorstep.
The proof is in the pudding. It is there. It is right before their eyes.
Unfortunately, the Eagles’ eyes have been blinded for years by the lure of securing lucrative Premier League survival.
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