Youth given ‘Pro’ deals

The interactions between his dad and TCA twitter.

 

I remember Man United being fined by the FA when they fielded a weakened side against Port Vale in the FA cup.

That side’s of weaker players include Beckham, Butt, Scholes and one of the Neville brothers fresh out of the academy side

 

Simply because with the exception of McBurnie none of the guys who have previously come through here and had this sort of article written about them have done a thing.

You might view it as sarcasm but in 99% of cases it will most likely be their career path.

Good luck to them and all that but I'm not holding out a lot of hope.

 

Stack up all the young players we've had on loan

Then stack up all the players who have come all the way through our youth system.

I reckon I know which list will contain more footballers.

 

Why would we assume that?

Many of them went on loan to lower league or even non-league teams and failed to shine.

After being released all of the previous guys had an opportunity to go elsewhere and didn't.

How much more opportunity can they have?

Am I right in thinking that in the whole football league there are only 2 players who have come all the way through our academy, got their first contract here and are actually playing?

Basically, none of our previous youth have proved to be league 2 standard so why should these?

 

I have a feeling these new lads we've signed from youth will do us proud next season.

Maybe they'll be the ones to help us win the league?

COME ON CITY!!!!

 

As the Bradford City researcher in FM - I rated him as second most promising behind Staunton, but the potentials have some randomness so it is possible for Goldthorp to generate with a higher potential than Staunton. However, the star ratings are your coach's judge of potential so could be wrong. He got rated that highly because he was getting very occasional games for the first team under Hopkin, so I'm surprised he got released.

Not sure why I rated Francis so high though.

 

We don't produce prototypes or robots.

 

No. Nor footballers based on past experience.

 

Call me cynical but I predict they’ll have zero to minimal impact on the first team. Cheap squad fillers that give good PR but little else, usually. Last player to come through and have a serious impact on the first team - Luke O’Brien maybe? Not counting Devine, he had a fairly decent 10 games at the start of McCall’s second reign.

 

McBurnie? Didn't really make a spot his own because he was very young but the financials behind it were massive for us.

 

I know he was young and in a Parkinson team of direct football but he looked totally out of his depth, and had zero impact on the first team playing wise, that’s why I didn’t include him. He’s done amazingly well, but he was shoved in far too early for us. He might have helped the club financially but we’ve nothing to show for it.

 

I agree he wasn't ready, but it's proof the youth have paid off us recently. George Green you could probably throw in that bracket too!

 

Cant argue with that mate. My thinking was more a youth player whose come into the first team and nailed down a first team place, kept it and looked good. Suppose with the bigger clubs hoovering up any half decent youth player before they reach the first team it makes it harder too.

 

Doesn't mean we should stop trying. No point having an academy otherwise.

Your disdain is baffling.

 

I haven't said we should stop trying though. I will say that the academy was more valuable when you could get proper cash for the players before they got to the age where a pro contract was viable.

Given the results from players who have been generated by our youth system and have managed to get all the way through without being picked off by a bigger club I would say that a healthy dose of scepticism, or even disdain as you put it, is completely justified.