East Midlands bottom of the league for producing top flight English footballers

An independent study was carried out by online sports website www.ticket-compare.com to analyse the hometown of every current Premier League footballer born in England.

Almost half of the total number of players were born in either Greater London or the North West which both account for 38 players each (21 per cent). Yorkshire was third as the birthplace of 24 current Premier League stars - equating to 13 per cent of the overall total.

But it's not such good news for the South West and East Midlands who fell short in the study; the former can boast of only eight English born players in the modern game and almost three times fewer than the South East.

Likewise, East Midlands (seven players) paled in comparison to its neighbouring region of West Midlands (18 players), finishing bottom of the study and the lowest performing area for producing English Premier League players.