re: Man United - Shinji Kagawa

It depends on what you mean by homegrown. Smalling came from Fulham, but to be fair we bought him from some non-league club (for like a case of cheap beer). Smalling isn't homegrown IMO, whatever that means, he made first team appearances for Fulham and was brought in to be a first-team player, if not a regular starter.

Not that I'm that interested in getting into this argument about who's "doing it right."

Even with kids, a lot of teams buy them from other smaller clubs and put them in their academy. Is that homegrown? I don't know.

Cleverly and Wellbeck may have started in United's academy. For all the talk about City's spending, they have a decent-ish academy. Richards came up, so did Sturridge, although they sold him to Chelsea.