Ultimately Jones, Smalling, Welbeck, Morrison, Cleverley etc. will be remembered as failures. You can blame injuries, attitude or whatever but the reason for their shortcomings is simply that they weren't good enough.
The point is that the caf (and United fans in general) set themselves up for disappointment. Every 'talent' is supposed to be the next big thing. Even with the current bunch, Greenwood is apparently the next RVP, Garner is the next Carrick, Chong is the most natural dribbler we've had for ages, Gomes is the solution to our no. 10 problems. Yet these kids barely have any starts for the A team. In 2-3 years some of these will either be playing for worse teams or they'll stick around with the club and be given the Pereira treatment by the fans (massive hype 2-3 years ago, now pretty much considered irrelevant).
I do agree that some posters really aren't critical enough of the youngsters. There's a difference between protecting the kids form unjust criticism, not being reactionary, and being too lenient from a talent perspective. People need to realize that it's really difficult to make the step up and that most will not make that step up. That is why when I discuss our young talents I always take that into account and have a higher standard for what it takes to truly make me believe they're good enough. I will get it wrong though as I wasn't a big fan of Michael Keane (compared to Tom Thorpe), and I also wasn't fond of McTominay just like I wasn't fond of Blackett. I've always thought you have to show that you're special at youth level to even have a chance. That's different to just being overly critical and bashing youngsters via social media or in person. You have to protect the kids from those over the top reactions.
However, I also believe that posters and myself have gotten better at assessing what it takes to make it at United over the years. We're more experienced after watching years and years of youth players, and getting to compare the levels of these players to past players.
I don't know who told you Chong is our most natural dribbler in ages. Ravel was a better dribbler. Chong shows glimpses of that type of dribbling to the point where he looks like George Best in elegance when he's speeding past players (probably due to body type, speed). Difference is that Ravel had way more consistency in technique, and Ravel obviously had more to his game. That's a big difference and that is why Chong's glimpses are only glimpses. I think the only reason why anyone would say Chong is our most natural dribbler in ages is due to playstyle. We've had a lot of technical players who could dribble, but they were more attacking midfielders and didn't play that traditional winger style. Gomes, Januzaj, Rashford, Gribbin, etc... all ran well with the ball, but they just don't play that traditional winger role.
We'll see where this lot ends up, but I'll give my rankings for different positions/roles of our players over the years based on their play at youth level
Striker: Greenwood > Wilson >? Rashford > Keane > Burkart > Henriquez > Fletcher
Utility attacker: Lingard > Mellor > Weir > Bohui > Willock
AM: Ravel > Gomes > Januzaj > Gribbin > Daehli >
DM/BoxtoBox: Garner > Pearson > Rothwell = TFM > McTominay > Tunnicliffe >? Charni (short stint) >? Grimshaw
CM: Pogba >? Gomes > Levitt >? Pereira > Puigmal (aggressive ranking) > Petrucci >? Larnell Cole > Goss
CB: Tuanzebe > Thorpe > O'Connor = TFM = Keane > Williams >Mcnair > Warren > Ercolani > Bernard > Veseli > Wootton
FB: Laird > O'Connor >? Williams > CBJ > Vermijl > Varela = Janko > Fryers > James > Love > Blackett > Olosunde > Sang > El Fitouri
Winger: Chong > Lawrence > Harrop > Mitchell (could be 2nd before the injury)
Excuse the groupings being muddled and some rankings are a little tougher because different players had different attributes over the other. Also some players started off in other groups like Rashford and Greenwood originally being attacking midfielders, but then went up top. Similarly, there are a couple whoUsually our attack has been the most talented so Daehli being ranked last still means he was really good and I'm still keeping up to date with him at St. Pauli.
Personally, I think our biggest talents in the last 10 years are Ravel, Gomes, Greenwood, Januzaj, Pogba, and I'm now including Garner as well. Laird is there with Rashford, Gribbin, Pereira, Tuanzebe, Chong, and Wilson. Could go up if he continues performing, but that 2nd group all had periods where they were stars of the youth team. Third group is probably Levitt, TFM, O'Connor, Williams, Daehli, Keanes, Thorpe, Lingard, and Pearson. Extremely gray lines between these groups.
My memory could be off on some fringe talent like Veseli and Wootton, so others might disagree with my list and I'm also missing some players as I want to watch them some more before I rank them.
So based on how I view players, I think this group fares really well to past squads. Probably the most talented since the 2011 fa youth cup winning group so it didn't surprise me that we did better in last season's uefa youth league, though we had some big omissions which led to our surprise defeat.
