On Thursday, Football League clubs voted in favour of proposals that could result in the Premier League picking up their best young talent for a fraction of what they currently pay.
There were 46 votes in favour, 22 against, three no-shows and one abstention.

I'm told it was a reluctant "yes" from many of the clubs, who felt they had no choice.

If they voted "no", the Premier League threatened to withdraw over £5m of funding that they give to lower league clubs each year for youth development.

It is all tied in with the Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP), which will radically modernise youth development in England, introducing a four-tier academy system.

The new deal will see every club receive an increase in their funding for a guaranteed four-year period, with the amount determined by their academy status.

Against a background of a reduced television deal and an uncertain economic climate, most Football League clubs are understood to have welcomed the increase in funding - but Peterborough director of football Barry Fry told me the Premier League's threat felt like blackmail.

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At St Andrew's

Birmingham and Leicester both radically overhauled their squads in the summer - and on the evidence at St Andrew's on Sunday it is the club which acted out of financial necessity that is starting to look in better shape.

Blues defeated the Foxes 2-0 to win their third straight fixture in all competitions and deserved their three points after a second-half performance during which they rattled opponents who had not conceded in 412 minutes of Championship action coming into the contest.

It was a second-half display that added to a growing feeling around the club that, within the playing squad at least, an unsettling and uncertain summer belongs firmly in the past.

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In September 2008 Plymouth Argyle, then a Championship side, signalled their ambition of pushing towards the Premier League by signing Belgium international striker Emile Mpenza following his release from Manchester City.

While City, bankrolled by their Abu Dhabi owners, have gone on to assemble one of the most expensive squads in history, crippling off-the-field problems at Home Park have left Argyle with a small squad of old heads and willing youngsters scrapping for the club's Football League survival.

"When I think about how we fought and worked so hard to get the club from League Two into the Championship and to see how quickly we have gone right back down, it is very difficult," said French goalkeeper Romain Larrieu, who has been at the club since 2000 and is their longest-serving player at Home Park.

"Considering the size of the hole that apparently exists in our finances, I do not even think that we got to live the dream. I have been through it all and I do not know what happened. Funnily enough, nobody has admitted to me that they made mistakes."

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