In the early 2000s you always saw young players develop at a team. It wasn’t just youth academy, it was guys like Ronaldo for example who developed at man united. Barcelona was full of youth academy guys. Arsenal used to build up young players. Now teams never build guys up they just buy them.
If you’re going to claim this, you should come up with some definitions and some numbers. What teams are we talking about, and how many youth players are they playing now, compared to earlier?
Almost all of the big teams have at least one or two homegrown talents in their squads. In the Prem alone, you’ve got Rico Lewis and Phil Foden at City, Reece James, Conor Gallagher, and Trevoh Chalobah at Chelsea, Rashford and Garnacho at United, Trent and Curtis Jones at Liverpool, and Saka at Arsenal. And that’s just the Prem. I’m sure I’ve missed some names already.
That’s just wrong though
Arsenal is building up Saliba, Martinelli, Saka. Barcelona has Balde, Gavi, Yamal and others in the roster. Man Utd has Garnacho.
Plus you mention now they buy them, but Ronaldo was bought by Man Utd (like some I mentioned).