England’s under-21 leagues are filled with players whose clubs see no future for them

<p>Contract award at 18 is a false dawn for many who are there to make up the numbers and get no benefit from it</p><ul><li><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/oct/18/premier-league-scramble-young-talent-overheated-failing-market">Search for talent has left market overheated and failing</a></p></li></ul><p>Cauley Woodrow, Benik Afobe, Emmanuel Frimpong, Nathan Aké, Matthew Pennington, Nathan Delfouneso, Saido Berahino, Dominic Ball, Connor Wickham, Jérémy Hélan and John Lundstram. What connects these 11 men? Answer: they were registered as under-21 players for Premier League teams at the start of the 2012-13 season. Indeed, they were part of an 836-strong group of under-21 players from the 20 clubs that year.</p><p>The 2012-13 season coincided with the end of my PhD study, a piece of research that included a sample of 303 players aged 16-18 from 21 clubs across England’s top four divisions. Over the next decade or so, I have been researching the career trajectories of professional football players, and it has led to profound insights.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/oct/19/englands-under-21-leagues-are-filled-with-players-whose-clubs-see-no-future-for-them">Continue reading...</a>