Which Premier League club gives the most minutes to homegrown players?

Martin Macdonald

• 2 Apr 2026 07:30 CDT
• 3 min read

News

Football fans love it when an academy player shines as it's generally accepted that the youngster is "one of their own."

Some of the most beloved players in Premier League history are ones that have come through the ranks to evolve from a homegrown talent to a bona fide superstar. Think the 'Class of 92' with the likes of Paul Scholes, David Beckham, or Ryan Giggs, or even Michael Owen stunning English and world football with his early performances, or, more recently, the emergence of Max Dowman at Arsenal.

The 16-year-old made history in the middle of March when he became the youngest goalscorer in Premier League history at just 16 years and 73 days old.

Dowman's emergence is certainly exciting Arsenal fans as they know that, if he stays, they could enjoy his talents for many years.

When it comes to giving homegrown players a chance, which club stands above the rest in 2025/26?

The club that has given the most minutes to academy players this season is Chelsea, with homegrown talent tallying up 5,673 Premier League minutes so far.

Those minutes have been accumulated by Reece James, Josh Acheampong, Trevoh Chalobah and Tyrique George.

Manchester City have given appearances to the highest number of academy players this season, with six. They are Phil Foden, James Trafford, Max Alleyne, Nico O'Reilly, Rico Lewis and Oscar Bobb.

Rounding up the top five for the most minutes given to academy players is Brighton (3846 mins), Wolves (3243 mins) and Crystal Palace (3175 mins).

There are only two clubs in the Premier League that haven't give a single second of playing time to homegrown talent and they are Brentford and Burnley.

This season, Manchester United kept up a tradition of having an academy player in every Premier League or English First Division squad since 1937.

"Over the last few years, the academies have changed slightly," says James Vaughn, who held the record for the youngest Premier League scorer ever before the record was broken by Downman.

"You see a lot more players getting pushed a lot earlier through the system. I think that's down to clubs wanting to keep the players.

"Brexit has had a big impact. Players are becoming more valuable early on because clubs don't want to lose them, and with that comes an element of having to give players the belief they can make it into the first team. So they get fast-tracked."

Vaughn is now head of academy recruitment and player pathways at Everton.

PSR Rules

Due to Profit and Sustainability Rules, clubs are now more willing to sell academy players as they present an outright profit on their investment.

"Clubs have been able to just trade academy players between each other and that would automatically go into their accounts," BBC Sport's football issues correspondent Dale Johnson says.

"It would create profit when all they're doing is swapping players. So it was basically a way of getting around the regulations, increasing your limits and these academy players were being used as commodities.

"I think the game was uneasy with it. Some of these players might not have wanted to move, but in some respects, being told 'we need you to move to get round these financial rules'.

"As of 1 July, although it's an annual assessment, the cost of any player you sell is split over three years. So if you sell a player for £40m from then, you can only solve £13m of your financial problems straight away."

In recent years, we have seen numerous homegrown players sold for PSR reasons such as Anthony Gordon leaving Everton for Newcastle and Aston Villa having to cash in on Jacob Ramsey, who also joined Newcastle.

Former Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca said PSR was the reason that the Blues sold Conor Gallagher to Atletico Madrid.

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