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History Repeating Itself?


Philbert
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flanagan, kelly, ayala, wilson, wisdom, mendy, regan, robinson

amoo, silva, suso, connor thomas, shelvy, coady, spearing, sterling, ince

eccleston, morgan, ngoo, adorjan, ngog.

 

its not a bad crop of youngsters i suppose but the next four years will be telling.

 

I would love to see one or two go on two reach the level of giggs, scholes. Would love to see all of those names achieve that level.

 

I reckon a fair few of the names mentioned are capable of doing a wes brown, o'shea, p.neville, being decent squad players who can come in every now and then and do a half decent job. In which case we've said ourselves a fortune as we may not have to spend so much on quantity and can spend the money on 'quality'.

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They did develop at slightly different speeds, with Giggs ahead of the rest as he was exceptional, but they were all about the same age and came through more or less within a season or 3 of each other. Giggs, Beckham, Neville and Butt all won the Youth cup together, Scholes and Phil Neville got to the final the following year.

 

I would expect the same progression to happen with us as they will develop at different speeds too, especially as the age gap is a bit wider with players like Kelly being 20 down to Sterling at 16. but we've got a group of kids who will hopefully come through about 2 to 3 years apart who could well be good enough to be part of the squad, and that will mean that we can concentrate our signings to spend bigger money on first XI players that could win us things. The issue could be that they aren't quite good enough for regular first team appearances and decide to leave to get that though, bit like Keith Gillespie if comparing to the group from Utd.

 

Still early days, and it is probably unlikely that they will be as good or succesful as the Utd lot, but things are looking promising, and as a group of kids coming through at more or less the same time, there aren't many comparables (apart from the lads at Villa I mentioned).

 

 

I see what you are saying, a few came through in the same youth team together and then came through into the 1st team picture at different times

David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs were all in the same youth team but Scholes came through the next year's team with Phil Neville, scholes didn't come through to the 1st team until 95.

Giggs (Didn't realise his grandfather came from Sierra Leone, you learn sumfink new everyday ay?) came through with Sharpe around 91/92 and helped them win the league the 1st time in a few seasons later, Butt (92-93)and G Neville (94-95) came through in the following few seasons and Beckham was at Spurs until 1991 and didn't make his debut until 94 then went on loan to PNE in 94-95, he didn't really breakthrough properly until the following season which is 4/5 years after Giggs had come through even though they were in the same age group in the youth teams.

For the record Chris Casper, Gillespie and Savage where in that same team as Giggs and co but ended up elsewhere eventually. That was, an amazing youth team and as a result Ferguson decided to go that way rather than try and find players in the transfer market with bigger risks and higher costs to utilise it the way they have done since, bringing in players from other academies such as Beckham to add to it. They have reaped the benefit since and a big factor in their consistent success, even with the likes of Luke Chadwick's who they have sold on when they have gotten some use out of them and then sell them on for decent amounts of money or to have someone like Wes Brown in reserve who can step up for one or two games while 1st choice players and injured and play for a game or two before they get found out.

I think we have or are getting the academy sorted and all we need to do is make sure we have the right man in place to bring them through.

If we can create that sort of academy then that is what we should be doing.

 

Oh yeah, as to the Villa, they have been hyped as a youth set up for years now, going back to the likes of those brothers (Can't remember their names now, which shows my point.) who were meant to captain England and fell through the divisions and now the overhyped shite like Albrechson, Delfounso, Agbonlahor and co who will go the same way. We have not seen any decent level players come through at Villa from their youth team they are the most overratedhyped garbage there, Kelly is better than anything they've had for 10 years and will likely have for another 10 years.

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It wasn't that long ago that Stephen Wright was snuffing out Ryan Giggs at OT and scoring against Borussia Dortmund in the CL. It's not enough that the boys' have got talent, they need to be attached to a vehicle that is also attracting the right sorts of top-end players. That Man U side had Pallister and Bruce and Keane and McClair. I agree, though, the future looks rosy.

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we didn't do too bad ourselves in the 90's with Mcmanaman, Fowler, Owen, Carragher, Gerrard, Warnock

 

not easy to predict even once they've taken their chance with the 1st team. i thought Otsemobor was a player but he dropped down although to be fair he did get shot in the arse which can't have helped !

 

Exactly, we beat ourselves up about it cos we are always going to compare with what Man U have done. Macca could have been as good as Giggs had we been able to bring him through and manage him like Giggs was to preserve his longevity. We hammered him though when he was coming through cos of all the shite Souness had signed and then when we weren't eating at the top table later when Roy's boys were pissing around in training and penny passing in matches while United were run professionally and he departed elsewhere we wasted it. Gerrard is up there with anything United have produced as is Fowler/Owen etc. Then we have the likes of Mellor (Our Marcheda perhaps!) Thompson, Wright, Potter, Otsemobor, Hammill, Welsh, Raven, Danny Guthrie and others who didn't make it here but have done well at a slightly lower level in the end we have done as good as anyone, apart from United who are a bit of a freak. You wonder with some of these, the likes of Warnock/Partridge/Potter/Welsh what could have been with a little more of the right sort of development they may have made it with us, United seem to squeeze every drop they need out of theirs even when they aren't required longterm.

Last 5 years we have not seen anything at all really but give it time and hopefully the work of Rafa and others has set us up to try and compete with the mancs and beat them at their own game IMO.

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