Need any convincing about the importance of Plymouth Argyle's new permanent academy home, Foulston Park, which is scheduled to open next year?

The evidence was clear to see when the Pilgrims took on Championship leaders Sheffield United at Bramall Lane on Saturday. Argyle's best player, certainly during a first half in which Blades' boss Chris Wilder admitted the visitors had been the better team, was academy graduate Adam Randell.

Now aged 24, Randell was able to get on the ball a lot from his deep midfield role in a 4-1-4-1 formation and dictate the play, while also providing protection for the Pilgrims' defence.

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Given the quality of the opposition it was an excellent performance from Randell, but he was not the only Argyle academy graduate to make his mark at Bramall Lane. Lining up between the posts for United was former Pilgrims' goalkeeper, and two-time player-of-the-year, Michael Cooper, who progressed through the club's youth ranks at a similar time to Randell.

Cooper made one magnificent reaction save to keep out a flicked Ryan Hardie header during the second half, which had it gone in would have drawn the away side level at 1-1. It was the type of stop from Cooper that the Green Army have seen countless times in the past, but this time they wished he had not made it.

Remarkably, Cooper has now kept clean sheets in all nine of his games for the Blades at Bramall Lane - all of them coming in victories - since his £2 million transfer from Argyle in August.

That £2m fee still rankles with a lot of the Green Army, who felt Cooper should have commanded a heftier pricetag given his obvious ability. However, given the keeper's recent injury issues, including a torn anterior cruciate ligament in one of his knees, and the fact his contract had less than 12 months remaining, Argyle were not in a particularly strong bargaining position.

Cooper had his heart set on a move to United, too, seeing them as a club with the clear potential to take him into the Premier League and, at the moment, there seems to be a very good prospect of it turning out like that.

If the Blades are promoted, then my understanding is that will result in a further £1m payment to Argyle for Cooper, and there is also a clause in the deal which took him to Bramall Lane which includes additional money if he goes on to play for England. Given his fine form for his new club, and their possible return to the top flight of English football, that is far from being a fanciful idea.

So there you have it, a goalkeeper in Cooper who has earned Argyle a considerable transfer fee and probably still more to come and a midfielder in Randell who has been one of their best players in the Championship this season and is undoubtedly future captain material. Both them home grown.

If the Pilgrims can produce such players given the extremely limited facilities the club have had for their young, up-and-coming prospects over recent years, including not having one pitch to call their own, imagine what they could do with a proper set-up?

That is where the newly-named Foulston Park - the £21m redevelopment of the Brickfields site in Devonport, comes in. That is why Argyle owner and chairman Simon Hallett, and the Argyle Green minority owners led by Nick Giannotti, have been prepared to invest £11m into the project.

There are fans who would much rather that sort of money have been spent on the current first team squad, especially given the struggles Wayne Rooney's Pilgrims have been having in the Championship, but Hallett and Argyle Green see it as an investment in the club's future.

The more Michael Coopers and Adam Randells that Argyle can produce the better. Up the A38, Exeter City have made it work for them, both in terms of players progressing into their senior side and with the emotional attachment that brings but also selling some of them for very significant sums of money.

With Foulston Park on the horizon, there is no reason why Argyle cannot do the same. Indeed, given the commitment, both financially and in terms of the time and effort that has gone into the planning, it would be very disappointing if that was not the case.

Of course, this will not happen overnight. Youth development takes time, but there will be no excuses when the new academy is up and running. With luck, the Green Army will be able to proudly sing 'He's one of our own' on a regular basis in the years to come, just as they did when they showed their appreciation to Cooper after the game at Bramall Lane.

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