amolbhatia50k
Sneaky bum time - Vaccination status: dozed off
What is this? Since when has it become fashionable to write 10/12 years as 20?Fletcher, O'Shea and Brown were very good players. At their best, they were good enough to start, while when they weren't at their best, they were still useful. Of course, that came with the cost of SAF giving Fletcher a few years while he was absolute dross.
I would put Welbeck, Evans a level below them, while Cleverley a level below Welbeck. So, 5-6 players produced from the academy which contributed for United since the class of '92 (Da Silvas, Januzaj and Pereira aren't exactly from the academy) with neither of them being a world class player (or near it).
It is really a shocking record! We should either improve on it, or really do like Chelsea and not care at all. We have given a lot of appearances to young players, but they have been poor. I would certainly prefer if we invest on it, because if we continue like this (5-6 okay/good players in 20 years) there is no point on that.
We've had a couple of batches of waves of academy products over the last 10-12 years. The first gave us Fletcher, Brown, Oshea etc. and they played an important role in some of our best years. The latest wave of Welbeck, Cleverley, Evans etc. didn't work out as well but also had to, unlike the previous wave, face the difficult transition from SAF to post-SAF. And prior to that, we had waves which dominated English football. All of which most definitely doesn't point to "doing a Chelsea".