With the story of Arsenal luring teen prodigy Jon Toral away from Barcelona for a fee of only £300,000 breaking in this morning’s papers, you have to question where it leaves a multitude of other clubs who have talented youngsters on their books.
If what is arguably the greatest club side in memory, with a rich history and a 98,000 seater stadium which is regularly packed to the rafters cannot convince a 16-year-old that they are the best place for him to learn his trade then the rest of us may as well pack up and go home.
The Arsenal perspective will play on the fact that his mother hails from England and that they represent a better place for him to progress, but it all just seems a little bit uncomfortable to me.
I do have very raw feelings about this type of story due to the departure of a certain John Bostock from my own club for the bright lights of Spurs almost three years ago now.
Mr Bostock was always known as a temperamental little chap, declaring after failing to impress in an FA Cup game away at Watford that he needed to play at a higher standard for his "true potential" to be realised. After only making five appearances for the Palace first team he was gone, and a long and drawn out tribunal case between the two clubs resulted in Simon Jordan's first apparent feelings of disenchantment with the world of football.
I had various reactions from fellow football fans aimed at me when I asked them for their take, some sympathised by agreeing that he should have stayed with us for a little while longer to help his progress, whilst others told me to accept that, although it was hard to take, it was the reality of modern football.
Nearly three years on, and he has found himself sitting on Hull City's bench for much of the current campaign, struggling for regular appearances and probably wishing he was somewhere that was at least offering him consistent first team football, something we would definitely have given him. Thus allowing him to move on when he was genuinely ready and allowing him a realistic chance of harnessing all that "true potential" he appeared so worried about back in 2008.
When you put this into the Arsenal v Barcelona context you realise that modern football has taken another set of giant strides towards the erosion of club loyalty and youth policy in the last year or so. The lack of restrictions on young players movements meaning that big clubs are given a free reign over who they want to pick up for miniscule compensation sums from clubs whose financial standing is the only yard stick as to whether they are deemed acceptable to the teenager (and inevitably agent) who have £ signs spinning around their heads.
Thankfully, the Bostock incident appears to have had a positive impact on our youth policy and players, for the time being at least. With his example having fallen so flat it gives the coaches and representatives of Crystal Palace a way of demonstrating how not to do it.
Other clubs may not be so lucky, and today's news only hammers another nail into the coffin of hope for clubs such as ours, there is no doubt in my mind that something must be done to redress the balance.
Having seen us go down 1 - 0 to Pompey on Tuesday we welcome Reading to Selhurst Park on Saturday in the hope that we can grind out another vital win and keep up fantastic home clean sheet record in the process.
We are now 61 minutes away from reaching a club record for the longest period at home without conceding, something which, if you had mentioned it six months ago I would have laughed off without a moment’s thought, but there you go, football is a strange animal and all we can do is keep our fingers crossed that it is kind to us again this weekend.
Our away form is a massive concern, but for the time being I am putting it to the back of my mind and focusing solely on Reading getting a 3 - 0 pasting from us, preferably with goals from Sean Scannell, Wilfried Zaha and Nathaniel Clyne, just so that we can take extra comfort in knowing that our youth academy is alive and kicking when so many others are struggling to remain successful.
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