While there have been concerns about the number of loanees in the Southend side, up to five in most matches, no one can doubt the quality.
For lower division clubs this does seem to be the future and the managers that can manipulate the system best will be in charge of the clubs that bring home the silverware. In Blues boss Steve Tilson and his assistant Paul Brush we seem to have two of the best, if they can just improve the timing, that 93 day thing has proved annoying!
Successful Premiership sides can now afford to run youth academies that have players in them that would have been picked up by their home town clubs in time passed. Even ones that do are soon noticed by the army of scouts employed by the top clubs, look at Southend loaning out two youth players to Liverpool and Manchester United respectively so they can, 'take a look.' (Always a danger, 15-year old debutants or not, of our own being left behind, Milsom in, Moose out ect. Have to hope Herd keeps flying the flag.)
West Ham have always had a proud tradition of bringing on young talent which was in danger of drying up now it's easier to spend 12million on an unknown Bulgarian than bringing on a precocious schoolboy.
Their academy, whatever apathy the average Shrimper feels towards the Hammers, has seen from Booby Moore to Joe Cole a long line of exceptional footballers that have represented their country with pride.
Word is that they have a new generation of players going through the ranks that Junior Stanislas is one of the first to get a first team chance elsewhere. After his exciting two goal debut that saw off Luton in the cup Shrimpers may be wishing there are more out there that Tilly could take a look at.
Not that we want to become the Hamsters 'A' team but in these credit crunch days this may be the only way forward for clubs like Southend to be competitive, and being so close to the top tier London sides of Chelsea, Arsenal and West Ham, an area that Brushy admitted at the start of the season needed to improve and one that looks as if it has, Sawyer anyone, the Blues are in a great position to take advantage of it.
As well as Junior, the West Ham faithful are speaking off; Freddie Sears, Jordan Spence, James Tomkins, Marek Stech and Jack Collison as future Premiership material. Having already played for the first team Mark Noble is another name tipped for massive things.
The first mentioned above, Freddy Sears, has been called the next Tony Cottee, you can have your own opinion what that means but he knew how to poach a goal. The last, Jack Collison, of Michael Carrick, such an influence for England against Germany last month, in otherwords, a really good ball winning midfielder.
A mention of two brothers. Oliver Lee has looked, at 16, an absolutely brilliant player too. Big for his age and really composed on the ball, he looks like he'll at least be as good as, er, his Dad, ex-Hammer, Newcastle and England midfielder, Rob Lee. His younger brother Elliot is meant to be very good also. Unstoppable when in full flight, Oliver packs plenty of power in both feet, 'having as many tricks as Ronaldo', not him again, while in regular five-a-side game, no one has come close to matching Elliot's outstanding haul of 17 goals in one game a couple of months ago! He fancies himself as Wayne Rooney, possibly they signed to the wrong club!
Don't be surprised if negotiations break down or other clubs step in re the return to the South-East Essex of Sawyer, HRK, or anybody else who T&B have noticed on their travels, that one of the names above wear the blue of Southend for a month or two in the new year.
However, this isn't a Hamster talent spotting sight so what of the one we've got. Not a bad start.
Is Stan the new Man? (Well, not quite the Collymore debut of 16 years ago!)
Tilly said after the 3-1 cup win over Luton: "It was a great debut for him with two goals. He is an exciting player and there's more to come from him. We have been trying to get him for some time and in the end West Ham decided we could take him for six weeks. The biggest thing was they allowed him to play for us in the FA Cup and I'm grateful to them for that. I don't know why the linesman put his flag up in the run-up to the first goal as Kevin Betsy was not offside. But it was a great free-kick from Junior and in the end it was a comfortable win for us, although it should have been more comfortable as we should have been ahead by more goals when they equalised."
The 19 year old himself, talking to www.southendunited.co.uk said: "It really went well and I'm obviously pleased. It was great to get the goals and the rest of the boys played well too to help us get a good win which I felt we fully deserved."
Stan continued about his future: "I'm still quite young so this is all good for my development as a player. I've been playing in the reserves at West Ham and you do line up alongside some high profile names in them but often the games depend on how bothered they are about it all. It's different playing for a first team though. It's a more competitive and the crowd makes it better too so it's excellent. It's going to be a lot of good and hopefully Ican help Southend at the same time."
Finally, in an April youth game between West Ham and Arsenal that Junior was involved, as well as a couple of other Eastenders from above, Stanislas was reported as 'by far the best player on show for the Hammers all evening', that he 'forced a couple of good saves from, (Arsenal keeper), Mannone', however, 'wasted a good opportunity when he hit a free-kick wide from a decent position.'
Luckily for Blues and a certain money winning tie v Chelsea, that wasn't the case on Saturday.