In my opinion the youth academy needs a serious rethink in terms of discipline. Too many top players (Ravel, Lingard, Pogba, Greenwood etc) had lost their way. In my opinion the United's spot light is too big for young players to thrive in. Maybe its time we sign a deal with a feeder club. Alternatively we can do what I suspect we're doing this January ie we sell those players and add buy back clauses to the deal.
Wow, a devilish post I agree with! To varying extents, you can also add the likes of Januzaj, Macheda and Wilson to the list (all I believe have publicly stated they lost focus after making the first team, thinking they had made it). There's others who fell off the map even before reaching the first team like Gribbin, Petrucci and probably many more lower profile talents who didn't reach their potential. There also seems to have been more than a fair share of academy players who have had career destabilising injury records (or a combo of injuries/mentality) - Tuanzebe, W. Keane, Thorpe, M. James, which might suggest some issues (although most of these are quite some time ago).
There's possibly been some improvements in recent years, hard to tell because it takes many years to bear fruit. But we have Mainoo and Garnacho, a few on the periphary like Gore, Kwambala, possibly Fernandez/Hannibal, whilst there's several players who have left who at least look like becoming solid PL players. Hopefully we see these kids progress plus more youngsters coming through in the next few years. But ensuring they stay on track and not distracted has to be a top priority.
