Sheffield United owner might just have made a key admission about the club's academy

Despite being regarded as one of the most productive talent factories in English football, with England’s Kyle Walker, Harry Maguire and Dominic Calvert-Lewin among those to begin their careers at Bramall Lane, United’s youth programme does not possess an elite level grading; something manager Paul Heckingbottom has warned makes it difficult to retain the services of its best students.

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Speaking during an interview with United’s media department, designed to review last season’s promotion from the Championship, Prince Abdullah stated that could be about to change.

However, as well as refusing to put an exact timeframe on when that might happen, the Saudi Arabian failed to declare if his reference to “the academy” referred to United’s development structure or the Randox Health Academy (RHA), where Heckingbottom’s first team squad also prepare for matches, as a whole. If it was the former then, given the criteria United would have to be able to demonstrate in order to secure category one status, it would almost certainly require them to change location or run two different bases in close proximity to one another - something officials are known to have considered in the past.

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Together with his most recent predecessors Chris Wilder and Slavisa Jokanovic, Heckingbottom has stressed the need for conditions at the RHA to be improved with work recently being completed on one of its playing surfaces and a rest and recreation area being installed.

“We are now close to upgrading the academy,” Prince Abdullah said. “That is going in the right direction now. We have to make sure that next season will be a great season and that the future of the club will be great.”

Prince Abdullah also used his one to one, which was published on United’s social media platforms, to express his confidence that Heckingbottom will have enough at his disposal to prevent them from making an immediate return to the second tier despite being handed what, by PL terms, is a limited recruitment budget.