How can we stop the current trend for young English footballers, unhappy with their Premier League playing time, fleeing to Germany? Jadon Sancho, 18, led the charge last summer, swapping Man City's reserves for Dortmund's first team, but he's not the only success story, with Arsenal's 19-year-old striker Reiss Nelson having scored six goals since joining Hoffenheim. The biggest deal didn't come off, as Chelsea rebuffed Bayern Munich's £35 million bid for Chelsea's 18-year-old winger Callum Hudson-Odoi, but it's likely he will move in the summer.
The FA has tried to stem the problem with the "Home Grown Player" rule, which states that in a full 25-player squad, at least eight must have been part of the team for three years or more before the age of 21. But this has been ineffective. Perhaps Fifa's proposals to curb the number of players a club can send out on loan at any one time will make more of a difference when the regulations come into effect in 2020. This will prevent clubs stockpiling players they never intend to use, simply to sell them for a profit at a later date. If that is outlawed, players will have more of a chance of making the team rather than developing itchy feet.
Chelsea are particularly wasteful when it comes to youth; only two players aged 22 or under have played for them this season. Terrified of letting young talent go, they instead draft players into the "loan army" deployed at farm clubs where they languish. Meanwhile, Dortmund tops the Bundesliga table with the fourth-lowest average age of the Bundesliga's 18 clubs. From Hudson-Odoi's point of view, from the bench, it's no wonder the grass seems greener in Germany.
Andreas Christensen recently made his 50th appearance in a blue shirt, making him only Chelsea's second academy prospect to have done so in 20 years. Yet proof that it is worth investing in youth is easy to come by. The first was a young defender from the East End named John Terry.