Suso [Sold to AC Milan]

[red g]

I think there is an issue here, it's not just the failure to produce special players, although that is the ideal situation, but the fall back should be selling players who aren't good enough for us to lower Premiership or Championship clubs for a few million quid to boost the transfer kitty. The scum sold the likes of Richardson, Rossi, Pique etc all of whom they deemed not good enough for £5m+. I can only think of Warnock, Wright and Guthrie who we've sold in the last 5 or so years for more than £1m.

sack parry

[Exiled_red]

sack parry

While I'm sure many of us would like to have put the blame for this one squarely with Parry, there was more to it. Hopefully this was sorted out over the summer with the academy/reserve team overhaul.

[RedReet]

Deleted.

[Exiled_red]

Hopefully a number of them will come through. Hopefully people will give them a chance when they do break into the first team as Insua and Darby have took a bit of stick, alot of which has been unjustified IMO

[DeeTheDog]

Michael Owen was 17 on his debut and played his first full season when he was 18.

Robbie Fowler was 18 when he scored 5 against Fulham in the League Cup.

Wayne Rooney was 17/18 in his first two years at Everton and signed by manure at 19

If there is a special talent among any of our reserves, they should be good enough at 18/19 years old.

Both Owen and Fowler were on the decline by their mid twenties, not really a ringing endorsement of playing players at a young age. Indeed many players who came through early into the first team also burnt outearliest

[anfieldanfield]

I wouldn't get too excited just yet, we seem to snap up alot of these 'top youngsters' but we haven't seen many of them come through to the first team yet!

Exactly.

There's no point whatsoever about getting excited about these youngsters.

Just wait and see.

[dom9]

Michael Owen was 17 on his debut and played his first full season when he was 18.

Robbie Fowler was 18 when he scored 5 against Fulham in the League Cup.

Wayne Rooney was 17/18 in his first two years at Everton and signed by manure at 19

If there is a special talent among any of our reserves, they should be good enough at 18/19 years old.

Were you one of those people that wanted us to sign the sprightly Beckford the other day?

[The Birdman]

Sounds a little like Duran, who incidentally seemed like a real big talent to me, but injuries seem to have completely ruined his career already

Yeah he has suffered 2 cruciates since joining us, was rated highly enough to warrent a mention from Rafa in that chat with Tomkins a while back, said Duran's injuries were one of his (Rafa's) biggest disappointments

[RoadEnd]

Were you one of those people that wanted us to sign the sprightly Beckford the other day?

No - if we had to resort to signing players like that - I'd be really worried.

[Redspin]

I think there is an issue here, it's not just the failure to produce special players, although that is the ideal situation, but the fall back should be selling players who aren't good enough for us to lower Premiership or Championship clubs for a few million quid to boost the transfer kitty. The scum sold the likes of Richardson, Rossi, Pique etc all of whom they deemed not good enough for £5m+. I can only think of Warnock, Wright and Guthrie who we've sold in the last 5 or so years for more than £1m.

It would help if you compared like with like. Man U did not produce Richardson through their youth system. They bought him from West Ham

[Exiled_red]

It would help if you compared like with like. Man U did not produce Richardson through their youth system. They bought him from West Ham

I don't think they produced any of them through their youth system from a very young age, Pique was pinched from Spain at 16. However all the players whether signed at ~16 or come through the academy as kids, there development occurs to a large part from the age of 16 onwards. And Man Utd are developing them to a higher standard which is reflected in the prices they receive. The players I mentioned were young players who were sold for the highest prices because they weren't considered good enough for the first team by the respective club. We have signed promising young players from other clubs and sold them on (Anderson, Hobbs etc) but haven't made anywhere near the same kind of money as Man Utd do. I didn't mention these before as I was giving the examples of the highest fees.

[dww]

The thing is that a large part has been due to two facts - one is reputation and the other is the ability to blood young players in a team largely capable of winning cup games or meaningless league games without them. For a long time (i.e. before Rafa came) we did not have the reputation for youth development and no players from the reserve setup made it through to even man the bench - hence I would imagine we were much less appealing to top quality young players who had a choice of destination - if United or Arsenal came in for them they would go there.

Building these things up is a long term proposition. United sell on lots of players that people don't notice for smallish fees and people like Shawcross only went for ~£1m because he went to Stoke and we presumable had the same issues with the likes of Anderson and Hobbs.

Also worth noting that we are now producing larger numbers of players that are being sold on for fees we are likely to hear about and have players like Insua and Ngog who we are buying at younger ages and bringing into the team.

[Joe King]

Suso Sudio

Wonder whether Gerrard will get his hands on him?

[javier_monsterano]

Yeah he has suffered 2 cruciates since joining us, was rated highly enough to warrent a mention from Rafa in that chat with Tomkins a while back, said Duran's injuries were one of his (Rafa's) biggest disappointments

Has he been sent to the horse doctor yet?

[Armchairkopite]

But most if not all of those are 18 or under? You're way early here. Maybe in four or five years your point might be valid, but now? WTF? They're all kids.

Michael Owen was 17 on his debut and played his first full season when he was 18.

Robbie Fowler was 18 when he scored 5 against Fulham in the League Cup.

Wayne Rooney was 17/18 in his first two years at Everton and signed by manure at 19

If there is a special talent among any of our reserves, they should be good enough at 18/19 years old.

You can't be depending on under-developed kids though at such a young age, not with how the premiership is now. The athleticism and strength needed is so much more insense than when those guys broke through.

The last thing we need a couple of years from now is a generation of crocked wonderkids.

Both Owen and Fowler were on the decline by their mid twenties, not really a ringing endorsement of playing players at a young age. Indeed many players who came through early into the first team also burnt outearliest

I would like to think that Rafa is being very careful with these youngsters, theres an endless list of players who started off great and declined in there mid twenties. Lets just hope that Rafa can get the first eleven playing something like football so hes around to oversee the development of these youngsters.

It also must be taken into consideration how meticulous Rafa is he will be monitoring the physical and mental development of these youngsters very, very closely imo.