I was reading this article and i agree with everything, the Champinship has improved in quality and allowed players more experience to develop with many players from the likes of Cardiff and Southampton making the step up. Do you agree that the Championship will be the key to the future of British footballers?
It will always be a stepping stone for young talent to filter through to the big teams. This is the structure in England and doubt if it will change. It is worth noting it happens from Premiership taking Championship players, Championship taking L1 players and so on. So in answer to the questions, indirectly they will be the key to English footballers (not interested in GB) but this said the Premiership will start to improve on their own youth set ups with the proposed changes to home grown players under a certain age. This will also then pose harder questions for lower league clubs investing in youth as they will find it harder to attract and also keep talent if the Premiership. This is why the way Saints is set up is so important and why we are pretty much the envy of clubs up and down the country and also some fans who know what's what.
'why the championship is becoming key to english developement' nothing new in that article that hasnt been happening in the past 20 years of football in this country probably. young players will always go out on loan and premiership sides will always look to poach gems from the championship if they can identify one
But the point is in recent years clubs have realised and are more confident and willing to spend such huge money on lower league players such as £8M for Wickham, £12M for Chamberlain etc. These aren't proven players but because of the improve in quality of the Championship and the success rate of youngsters making the step up, big money moves are happening more often.
The other reason some big money moves happen is because scouts from teams like Man U tell AF that he does not want young X playing against him, so he buys him to make sure it doesn't happen.
Seems the logical reason to have a tiered league system. As pointed out earlier, not much has changed over the last 20 years except more foreign players, even in the Championship.