Andy Goldie is the current Academy Director, having joined the club from
Swansea City in July 2023. His assistant, Duncan Fearnhead, is the Academy Manager, having previously held the same role at
Accrington Stanley. The current academy set up has teams at all age groups from Under 8s all the way through to the professional U21 team, employing large number of coaches and educational staff. Academy players from the age of 16 up until the age of 18 are often looked after by Host Families within the local area. The aim of the Southampton academy is to "...produce Premiership class players..." Southampton has regularly reached the latter stages of the
FA Youth Cup, as well as being successful in the
FA Premier Academy League championship. In the 2010–2011 season the U18s were only just "...Pipped to the Title..." by one point on the last day of the season of the Group A league. Southampton had to win and Fulham had to draw or lose for Southampton to come top. After winning 1–3 away to Coventry City the U18s were dismayed to discover Fulham had come back from being 0–3 down versus Leicester City to win 5–3. The academy has joined up with local college
Sparsholt College to try to give those footballers who have missed out on a scholarship the opportunity to remain in the game and train and play matches with the Southampton Academy. In May 2013,
Andre Villas-Boas, manager of
Tottenham Hotspur praised the Southampton Academy for its ability to produce star players, describing it as "a great school of development" and comparing it to the
Sporting Lisbon's youth academy in Portugal. In April 2015, a
Southampton U21 side won the
U21 Premier League Cup, defeating a
Blackburn Rovers U21 side in the two-legged final at
St Mary's Stadium in front of more than 12,000 fans. Goals from
Ryan Seager and
Sam Gallagher cancelled out a
Matt Targett own goal to give Southampton a 2–1 victory after extra time to win the second edition of the cup. In September 2020, Southampton revamped their Under-23s programme to 'enhance the pathway into the first team for its younger players.' A 'structure and philosophical overhaul' saw the Under-23s side become a B team. The new B team will mirror the training programmes, coaching and style of play of the first team. Training and fixtures, where possible, will also be organised so it does not clash with the first team so the first team manager and coaches can watch the side train or play and also take part in coaching sessions. The side will still continue to participate in the same competitions as before the revamp. Under new club Director of Football Matt Crocker, individual player coaches have been brought-in to try and improve players coming through the academy. Lee Skyrme was appointed B team individual player coach in 2021, while Mikey Harris was appointed in the same role for the U18s in the same year. Harris was replaced in 2022 by Pete Haynes, with Harris having been promoted to U18 head coach. ==Under-21s==