Youth development is NOT relevant for us!

[amolbhatia50k]

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.

What is this? Since when has it become fashionable to write 10/12 years as 20?

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".

 

[Drainy]

Some threads are amazing. Champions League rules say hello.

Yeah true, even if you strip away the fact that a healthy academy is good for a club (you know, the fact that having strength in depth, competition, camaraderie and progression create a more positive situation for a club than buying 18 mercenaries). Champions League rules are a very pragmatic reason to support the academy.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

And I still don't see how it's a "shocking record". One wave of players didn't work out. That's pretty much all you're basing your "shocking record" over.

 

[Piratesoup]

@nick2004
Aren't you the guy that made that hilarious "We need to buy the new Messi"-thread? Because this is approaching that gem, especially your way of making the same (wrong) point again and again. You keep claiming that Barca's youth players are not important, Messi was "bought" and you simply refuse to answer counter points properly.
Keep up the good work.


Edit: For reference, here's a link to the masterpiece itself: https://www.redcafe.net/threads/we-must-buy-the-next-messi.401797/

 

[JPRouve]

And I still don't see how it's a "shocking record". One wave of players didn't work out. That's pretty much all you're basing your "shocking record" over.

It's not a shocking record, if people had the simple idea of evaluating the monetary value of those players, they'd realize how valuable they are.

 

[TrustInJanuzaj]

@nick2004
Aren't you the guy that made that hilarious "We need to buy the new Messi"-thread? Because this is approaching that gem, especially your way of making the same (wrong) point again and again. You keep claiming that Barca's youth players are not important, Messi was "bought" and you simply refuse to answer counter points properly.
Keep up the good work.


Edit: For reference, here's a link to the masterpiece itself: https://www.redcafe.net/threads/we-must-buy-the-next-messi.401797/

Haha bang on

 

[amolbhatia50k]

It's not a shocking record, if people had the simple idea of evaluating the monetary value of those players, they'd realize how valuable they are.

Indeed. It's a load of hyperbole really. Fair enough, the last lot didn't work out as well as we wanted it to, but let's not forget the ones before that. Some of Browns performances vs Barcelona were magnificent. Fletcher was a key midfield player for us for a period. Oshea served us in many positions for many years when we won big trophies. At least, stop pretending that lot was a failure too.

And even if we consider the last batch as a failure, Welbeck was a good squad player to have in your team. Evans was, at one point, one of the most promising young CB's around. Didn't fulfill their potential for us, but let's not act as if they didn't contribute.

 

[cyberman]

Players who are 15 years old are youth. 9 year olds are juniors.

So you disagree with him and agree with everyone else.

I wouldn't class Pogba and Pique as United youth players though. That's why when I read the scare stories of how City are signing up all the local youth and their u12 are spanking us 6-0 etc I don't really care, it's why I don't understand when people slate United for not bringing along youth because of this.
What other club have had 18 year olds the quality of Rooney / Ronaldo / Pique / Pogba / Shaw and Martial being 19, De Gea not being a lot older yet all people quote are the class of 92 like we only sign established internationals these days

 

[Piratesoup]

Apart from all the pointless arguments for the OP's idea: How hard can it really be in today's crazy market, with the EPL leading the money-throwing parade as supreme King Jester, to produce players at least good enough to recuperate the money a state of the art Youth Facility costs to maintain? Seems like any player able to dribble the length of the field without dying of old age by the time he gets to the other end is able to generate enough money for a club to keep an academy going for a year or two.

Keep developing players, sell those not quite good enough for the squad for as much money as you can, repeat the process. If you've got the right staff and facilities, great players are bound to come through the ranks time and time again.

 

[JPRouve]

I wouldn't class Pogba and Pique as United youth players though. That's why when I read the scare stories of how City are signing up all the local youth and their u12 are spanking us 6-0 etc I don't really care, it's why I don't understand when people slate United for not bringing along youth because of this.
What other club have had 18 year olds the quality of Rooney / Ronaldo / Pique / Pogba / Shaw and Martial being 19, De Gea not being a lot older yet all people quote are the class of 92 like we only sign established internationals these days

What you are describing is developping players, for FIFA or UEFA young players are between 16 and 21 included, when United buy Pogba, Martial, Shaw, Pique, Ronaldo or Rooney, they develop young players. And FIFA are right with the class age, it's not even disputable that's when players transition to professionalism.

 

[We need an rvn]

@nick2004

decent opening argument but i tend to agree with most on here.

Some top clubs are "buying" clubs who don't really have a history of bringing through youth into their first team, bar the odd "freak" player in their set up - i'm talking about Real (bar Iker and Raul, don't remember many top talents coming through), Chelsea (Terry and.....no one), City need to be in this bracket even though they're obviously looking to the future with their new academy, PSG

However their are some top clubs who have a history of bringing through youth into their first team and making this part of their set up. United are one of these clubs. We have a history and this needs to be maintained to keep our club identity. Barca have an obvious style / system and their academy has produced a ridiculous amount of top talent. Bayern too are one of these top clubs.

I like the fact United have this and there's nothing better than seeing a kid who's come through our ranks play and become a world class player. But I also agree we have the money to be getting the Neymars / Suarezes etc of this world.

A combination of the two and we're all laughing

 

[Elliott]

I'm torn. On one hand, the OP seems rather confused. On the other, all-caps and exclamation marks are pretty powerful.

 

[Piratesoup]

@nick2004


Some top clubs are "buying" clubs who don't really have a history of bringing through youth into their first team, bar the odd "freak" player in their set up - i'm talking about Real (bar Iker and Raul, don't remember many top talents coming through), Chelsea (Terry and.....no one), City need to be in this bracket even though they're obviously looking to the future with their new academy, PSG

Agree with your post in general, but there's more to Real's academy than meets the eye. Some current players developed at Real, in no particular order:

Juan Mata
Rodrigo (Valencia)
Alvaro Morata
Roberto Soldado
Esteban Cambiasso
Alvaro Arbeola
Dani Carvajal

Not world beaters, but all good players either able to provide solid quality for the starting XI, squad depth or transfer income. We should stop judging academies by the amount of Ballon d'Or contenders they produce.

 

[Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber]

dumbest Redcafe thread of all time


....

 

[Bury Red]

Indeed. It's a load of hyperbole really. Fair enough, the last lot didn't work out as well as we wanted it to, but let's not forget the ones before that. Some of Browns performances vs Barcelona were magnificent. Fletcher was a key midfield player for us for a period. Oshea served us in many positions for many years when we won big trophies. At least, stop pretending that lot was a failure too.

And even if we consider the last batch as a failure, Welbeck was a good squad player to have in your team. Evans was, at one point, one of the most promising young CB's around. Didn't fulfill their potential for us, but let's not act as if they didn't contribute.

Spot on. Welbeck, Evans, Fletcher, O'Shea, Brown all featured over 100 times for our first team, in fact all bar Welbeck played more games than Cantona. Their end product and legend status may not be Contonaesque but their contribution to the team cannot be denied and they were certainly not failures. Even the likes of Cleverley, Gibson, Richardson, Gillespie, Healy, Eagles, Chadwick, Macheda, Rossi, Bardsley, Shawcross etc made their contributions felt in the handful of chances they got and brought back that twinge of excitement you should get when a young home grown talent breaks through. Even the likes of Savage who never got the first team call up are important to United, you need the whole of the youth setup to give the teamwork and training opportunites to the handful who will make it particularly those who take a little longer to develop like Beckham and Scholes and to serve as backup to the first team at times when they are decimated by injuries as the likes of McNair, Blackett and Borthwick-Jackson have done this season.

 

[JPRouve]

@nick2004

decent opening argument but i tend to agree with most on here.

Some top clubs are "buying" clubs who don't really have a history of bringing through youth into their first team, bar the odd "freak" player in their set up - i'm talking about Real (bar Iker and Raul, don't remember many top talents coming through), Chelsea (Terry and.....no one), City need to be in this bracket even though they're obviously looking to the future with their new academy, PSG

However their are some top clubs who have a history of bringing through youth into their first team and making this part of their set up. United are one of these clubs. We have a history and this needs to be maintained to keep our club identity. Barca have an obvious style / system and their academy has produced a ridiculous amount of top talent. Bayern too are one of these top clubs.

I like the fact United have this and there's nothing better than seeing a kid who's come through our ranks play and become a world class player. But I also agree we have the money to be getting the Neymars / Suarezes etc of this world.

A combination of the two and we're all laughing

For Real Madrid, the legendary Quinta del buitre and after that Soldado, Nacho, Carvajal, Morata, Jesé, Guti, Raul, San Iker or Juanfran.

 

[Pyroblazer]

If we want to be Real, Chelsea or City, then yeah it's irrelevant. But I wound rather look at Barcelona or Bayern. We don't need to lineup with 11 youth players, but we should always look at our youth department and try to get the best out of it.

 

[JPRouve]

Agree with your post in general, but there's more to Real's academy than meets the eye. Some current players developed at Real, in no particular order:

Juan Mata
Rodrigo (Valencia)
Alvaro Morata
Roberto Soldado
Esteban Cambiasso
Alvaro Arbeola
Dani Carvajal

Not world beaters, but all good players either able to provide solid quality for the starting XI, squad depth or transfer income. We should stop judging academies by the amount of Ballon d'Or contenders they produce.

With my own list we have a good number of players.

 

[Joemo]

2nd day of the year and I'm ready to lock in my "worst poster of the year" award already.

 

[Damien]

Some threads are amazing. Champions League rules say hello.

and with the FA wanting to limit the number of overseas players in squads and have more home grown players, abandoning youth entirely is ridiculous.

We've produced some good squad players over the years who, though they didn't make it here have done decently for themselves - like Shawcross

 

[Robbie Boy]

Bringing through youth team players if they are good enough and will make a difference is brilliant. Bringing through youth players that aren't up to to it is a pointless exercise.

 

[khoazany]

The thing is people are looking at the number of the youth players in the squad when it's on its lowest of the cycle due to all the senior former youth players have gone and the "Class of 2011" (Pogba,Morrison,etc...) have fecked up due to various reasons while most of the next batch aren't ready.Between that 2011 batch and the 1987 batch of Evans,Pique,Rossi,... we produced very little after the departure of Eric Harrison and SAF dropped the bar of youth development.

 

[Joemo]

I've just realised this is the same spacker who said we need to sign the next Messi before he becomes a superstar ie. sign a youth player and is now saying youth signings and development is pointless

 

[bri2013]

@nick2004
Aren't you the guy that made that hilarious "We need to buy the new Messi"-thread? Because this is approaching that gem, especially your way of making the same (wrong) point again and again. You keep claiming that Barca's youth players are not important, Messi was "bought" and you simply refuse to answer counter points properly.
Keep up the good work.


Edit: For reference, here's a link to the masterpiece itself: https://www.redcafe.net/threads/we-must-buy-the-next-messi.401797/

Guys, it is not reasonable to have Barca buying Neymar for 100 million and we buy Herrera for 30 million... and somehow we expect that Herrera will play as well as Neymar. He may do once in a while, but not day in and day out.

If you want a front line as good as Barca's then we have to spend 100 for "anti-Naymar", 100 for "anti-Suarez" and 200 for "anti-Messi".

Yes, it's a lot of money. But that's the only way to do it. That's what Real Madrid did.

If there is some other way, please tell me what it is. Because I don't see any other way.

This was an hilarious post from that thread.

 

[Rory 7]

Jan 2nd and we already have found the dumbest thread of the year.

 

[R'hllor]

There are no words to describe this place recently...i mean . I blame FM tho,these days journos come out and throw some bs like " Xclub supporters having football knowledge like never before ..." or some nonsense,in reality football fans have never been more clueless.

 

[Revan]

What is this? Since when has it become fashionable to write 10/12 years as 20?

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".

Since the class of '92. You know 2016 - 1992 > 20.

 

[SqueakyWeasel]

Was told last year that I could enrol my godson in this coming summers' Manchester United Summer Soccer School programme.

However the front page of the official Manchester United Soccer School site, despite being laughably headed by a direct quote from LvG saying " blah, blah … few clubs are more devoted to youth development … blah … how important youth development is to the club, historically AND going forward, … blah, blah … AS A CLUB WE ARE COMMITTED TO PLAYING ATTACKING FOOTBALL … blah … we believe that young players should be given the freedom and opportunity to express themselves and enjoy football …" now contains a one line statement that says:

"As a result of an ongoing review of our programmes, it has been decided not to run our Residential Training Camps in 2016."

That should tell most people where we are regarding youth development!

 

[RoadTrip]

It is important because it's probably the biggest part of our identity as a club, more so than ideas of 'attacking football.'

If we abandon that, we abandon our very founding principles, and we stand for nothing.

And there aren't many more of our principles left to break sadly.

 

[Rory 7]

Was told last year that I could enrol my godson in this coming summers' Manchester United Summer Soccer School programme.

However the front page of the official Manchester United Soccer School site, despite being laughably headed by a direct quote from LvG saying " blah, blah … few clubs are more devoted to youth development … blah … how important youth development is to the club, historically AND going forward, … blah, blah … AS A CLUB WE ARE COMMITTED TO PLAYING ATTACKING FOOTBALL … blah … we believe that young players should be given the freedom and opportunity to express themselves and enjoy football …" now contains a one line statement that says:

"As a result of an ongoing review of our programmes, it has been decided not to run our Residential Training Camps in 2016."

That should tell most people where we are regarding youth development!

And that's the key point. Our eye has been totally off the ball at youth level for too long. The OP seems to think the academy is just there to develop players and 'sell them on' at a profit. It should be so much more than that but like everything since the Glazers took over the academy has been reduced down to nothing more than an item on our balance sheet; sadly it would seem there is a new breed of fan that thinks that way too.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Since the class of '92. You know 2016 - 1992 > 20.

Do you know when Scholes and Bekcham made their first team debuts?

Btw, I'm not sure how the youth products from 92 to 99 were supposed to displace Giggs, Scholes, Beckham and co. And it's fair if we prioritised the ones already successfully promoted highest as well.

Over the last 10 years our record is definitely not " shocking".

And in the decade before that the class of 92 dominated.

Not a bad couple of decades for our youth, eh?

 

[amolbhatia50k]

It's like claiming Barcelona fans complaining their youth system has failed them during the 2005-2015 decade. I'm not sure counting 92-02 as a failure of the youth system makes sense when its products are smashing everyone around them.

 

[Ødegaard]

6, Sergi Roberto, Messi, Alba, Piqué, Busquests and Iniesta.

Alba and Pique doesn't really count in my book.
That said, I agree that barca has been good and lucky with the quality of their products.

 

[khoazany]

Was told last year that I could enrol my godson in this coming summers' Manchester United Summer Soccer School programme.

However the front page of the official Manchester United Soccer School site, despite being laughably headed by a direct quote from LvG saying " blah, blah … few clubs are more devoted to youth development … blah … how important youth development is to the club, historically AND going forward, … blah, blah … AS A CLUB WE ARE COMMITTED TO PLAYING ATTACKING FOOTBALL … blah … we believe that young players should be given the freedom and opportunity to express themselves and enjoy football …" now contains a one line statement that says:

"As a result of an ongoing review of our programmes, it has been decided not to run our Residential Training Camps in 2016."

That should tell most people where we are regarding youth development!

You know that Manchester United Soccer School has nothing to do with Manchester United Academy right?

 

[MrPooni]

Yes. And we did produce Beckham, Giggs and Scholes.

Do you expect this to happen again any time soon? Like the next 10 years or so?

The way folks like yourself view "Youth Development" is too simplistic. It's either develop the new 'Class of 92' or bust.

- It ignores the impact players such as John O'Shea, Darren Fletcher, Phil Neville, Wes Brown, Danny Welbeck etc. have had on a number of our successful league campaigns. There's tremendous value in having a pool of motivated, above-average/mid-level Premier League players such as the above who are willing to sit on the bench through the loyalty "Youth Development" breeds.
- It ignores the impact that having unknown quantiles such as Giuseppe Rossi and Federico Macheda can bring. They'll never make it at the club but they can provide the kinds of match winning moments a Nick Powell can't.
- It ignores the role top level youth development plays in strengthening the league system as a whole. Top clubs using their vast resources to help improve potential rivals may sound counterintuitive but developing talent and releasing them into the domestic ecosystem helps spread the burden of production and gives smaller clubs additional time to develop their own talent.

If everyone subscribed to your way of thinking, we'd end up in situation where the richest of the rich would dedicate all their resources to draining smaller teams of talent without providing kind of viable replacements. Talent would dry up, smaller teams would get weaker and weaker and the whole league system would suffer.

 

[RoadTrip]

I'm torn. On one hand, the OP seems rather confused. On the other, all-caps and exclamation marks are pretty powerful.

 

[JPRouve]

Alba and Pique doesn't really count in my book.
That said, I agree that barca has been good and lucky with the quality of their products.

My problem is that people are being difficult for the sake of it, Alba was a junior so I can accept the point but Piqué he has been an academy player for Barcelona and was a U18 for us, if United formed him, Barcelona also did.

 

[Rory 7]

You know that Manchester United Soccer School has nothing to do with Manchester United Academy right?

They are two different things but are linked. Beckham was spotted at a soccer school event for example, it was the Bobby Charlton Soccer School back then if I remember correctly.

 

[Revan]

Do you know when Scholes and Bekcham made their first team debuts?

Btw, I'm not sure how the youth products from 92 to 99 were supposed to displace Giggs, Scholes, Beckham and co. And it's fair if we prioritised the ones already successfully promoted highest as well.

Over the last 10 years our record is definitely not " shocking".

And in the decade before that the class of 92 dominated.

Not a bad couple of decades for our youth, eh?

Don't go full pedantic on me. What I was clearly saying is that since the class of '92 (be it 15 or 18 years, it doesn't matter), we have had 6 players who have been part of the squad and somehow contributed. The first three of them were very good, but not world class, the other three were a level below them.

It is still a poor return compared to many other big teams. Especially considering that United and youth have always been related and reading from many posts you will think that we are fecking Barcelona or Ajax in that aspect, despite that our best youth player in the last 10 years is Welbeck and in 15 years is Fletcher. There is no player from our academy since the class of '92 which would have been good enough to start for the likes of Barca or Bayern (not counting Pique and Pogba whom we poached from other teams and then they returned the favor by leaving us).

It isn't a good record for a team who mentions this much how important are youth players. We should improve dramatically in that aspect, or shut up and not act like we are doing much in that direction. Because clearly, we are lacking.

 

[CLARiiON]

Yeah, they developed Neymar and Suarez, how can we forget?

Nobody said you don't need to buy players. But saying that you don't need youth development is stupid.