Ben Burgess became a fan favourite at Griffin Park during the 2001/02 campaign, netting 18 goals in 51 appearances while on loan from Blackburn Rovers. In total, Ben led the line for 10 clubs during a 14-year career.

Now a teacher in Lancashire, Ben still keeps a close eye on the Bees and will be providing his thoughts ahead of each game this season.

It’s that heartbreaking time of the season when footballers, up and down the country, either receive the great news of a new contract or the devastating realisation that their dreams are shattered.

It isn’t just the hardened professionals that are dealing with this situation, it’s children as young as seven and eight years old.

I think with many of the recent documentaries about academy football on TV, people have a slightly better awareness of the cutthroat nature of the business.

Football clubs' treatment of young players has always been a contentious topic.

There are horrendous stories about players committing suicide or spiralling into depression, and financial trouble after the trauma of being released from the club/sport they’ve known all of their life.

There are obviously two very different perspectives on the situation. The first is that of the clubs.

They offer children the opportunity to achieve their dreams. Players are provided with excellent coaching, the latest training kit, and exciting trips abroad. It is in the football clubs' interest to nurture these young players in the hope that at least one from every age group will break into the first team or, alternatively, be sold for millions of pounds.

The alternative view was echoed on Liverpool defender Trent Alexander-Arnold's recent YouTube video The After Academy.

His guests included Steven Gerrard and Steve Sidwell, as well as two players who were released from academies, Liam MacDevitt and Tash Jordan.

Alexander-Arnold talks of the commitment it took for him to make it through Liverpool’s academy and how he had to sacrifice everything else in his life to succeed, but so did 15 other lads in his team that ended up being released and had nothing to show for 10 years of dedication.

MacDevitt and Jordan both spoke eloquently on the mental health problems they both suffered post-rejection.

Everyone on the panel agreed that more needs to be done to help players transition away from football, but we’ve said this before many times. It is very hard to shatter someone's dreams softly.

Where I feel the work needs to be done is all the way through the academy journey. Even from a young age, players could be exposed to people who perform different roles within football and how they came to do those jobs. They could have talks and opportunities to experience jobs from outside of the football industry and not just when they are released.

From listening to the panel, they all commented on how their young lives were inextricably linked to football and they would be referred to as 'Trent who plays for Liverpool', or 'Steve from Arsenal'. This gave them real identity issues and they felt lost when they were no longer the ‘footballer’.

The answer to this lies in the education of the players and the understanding that they are good at other things, that they see other options as realistic, and that they have had therapy and are in a balanced position to deal with good or bad news.

I personally feel that academies have progressed and improved vastly over the years. Nowadays there are psychologists, nutritionists, welfare officers, safeguarding teams and many other members of staff that players can utilise in their battle with their feelings.

However, the onus is often on the player to seek out this help and we still know that football is sometimes still entrenched in the ‘tough guy’ image, where some don’t discuss their feelings or want to show any weakness.

Things have to continue improving, and conversations like the one Alexander-Arnold hosted will help keep the issues high profile.