CHARLTON will keep faith with their youth academy, despite a growing trend among rival Premier League clubs to dilute and divert resources.

Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger has expressed a preference for spending money on recruiting youngsters from overseas while Manchester United have just disbanded one of their reserve teams.

Manager Alan Curbishley has confessed that the amount of talent emerging from Charlton’s academy had been reduced to a trickle. "We’ve had a bit of what I would call a dry-up over the last two years," he admitted.

"People must realise that academies cost enormous amounts of money. What Sir Alex Ferguson said was that when United didn’t have an academy they brought more kids through.

"When his youngsters played in the A team, or when we had the South East Counties League, players were coming through. Since the advent of academies, he’s experienced a dry-up – and Charlton have for sure.

"Our last player to come through and establish himself in the first team was Scott Parker. Before him there was Paul Konchesky, Jonathan Fortune and Kevin Lisbie. I would like to think that we have a couple coming through now."

He added: "I think that Sir Alex is thinking that maybe there are better ways of investing the massive amounts spent on his academy.

"Across Manchester, City have developed Joey Barton and Stephen Jordan from their Academy. They played well against us a couple of weeks ago. So there are a few players coming through.

"But it’s like everything, sometimes you have to stand back and take a look at things. You have to ask is this producing?

"I want to emphasise that we are still committed to the Academy because they are the rules now. Academy structures are in place and you have to have the certificates.

"But I’m bound to say that when we had nothing and played in the old South East Counties League we were producing players. People like Anthony Barness and Lee Bowyer. We always brought some through.

"But as I said earlier, we’ve had a bit of dry-up over the last two to three years, though I hope that’s going to turn around now. So we’re committed to our Academy and that won’t change."