nottsblue wrote:Surely the purpose of the academy in the main is to churn out a number of players who in reality are "squad filler". The likes of Rodwell, Sinclair, Sagna, Kolarov, Navas and Fernando even wouldn't need to be signed with a steady stream from the academy. This in turn will save hugely on costs which will go towards the "crack players". The likes of Leigh may or may not be that type of player for us. But we'll get £500/750k for him, along with four or five others on a yearly basis. That would pay for a good chunk of the academy expenses. Also the other four or five will form part of our squad. Kind of like Brown, Fletcher, o'Shea, Neville (P) did for the rags. Shelvey at the dippers. The sort of guys who aren't good enough for the biggest games but slot nicely in to the games where the squad is rotated.
If the academy once in a while produces a genuine world class talent, then fantastic. That's the dream, but that might happen only one or twice a decade. Absolutely nothing wrong in churning out good to half decent players that are squad fillers, it saves money and allows us to focus better on other transfer targets. Out of the current twenty or twenty five guys that we regularly hear about, realistically how many will be genuine world class and save us a fortune? One? Two? How many are likely to be as competent as a lot of our squad? 8/9 from the sounds of it
Depends on how they get through the next phase.
I would say we have about ten players amongst City's youngsters who are probably as good in their positions, as our current best players were at the same age, or to put it more accurately from personal experience; as good as Ryan Wilson or Scholes were when I saw them & better than Neville. Miles better than Danny Wellbeck & infinitely better than Johnny Evans.
But it was more than just ability that got the most successful of those players through. I don't know much about the personaities of these lads. I know they work hard though, & Brandon Barker is as good as Giggs was, at playing football. Whether he has the same drive; no idea.
It's possible all will fail or all will make it.
Perhaps some will drop a level, & end up as squad players, but we also have a few lesser lights who look good enough to be potential squad players imo.
