He stayed and fought for 3 seasons hanging around the first team, going into his 4th season “in” the first team he wanted to know he was gonna play regularly or go on loan. I can’t understand how City fans are convincing themselves that was unreasonable? McAtee did the same last season, insisted on going on loan to play and the club let him.
If the club and fans expect 18 year olds as good as Palmer to hang around on the promise of a couple of league cup games a season while we buy first team players in their position until they’re 22 then 90% of them will leave. Given only the best 2/3 of each year group are even good enough to be around the first team like that, we’re gonna get an academy graduate come through every 5 years at best.
When Palmer left I said it would be a very expensive mistake for the club but it would be worth it if they learned their lesson because we’ve got a lot of kids 15 and up who have as much talent but likely won’t stick around for years and years to get their chance.
Pep has a tendency to underrate academy players without experience, but he also doesn’t want them on loan, which is putting them in a catch 22. Whether it’s with Pep or after he’s gone, the club needs to find a better way of transitioning players from the academy to the first team if they want a core of academy grown players in the team as they’ve repeatedly said they do because it won’t happen with the current rate of one kid coming through every 5 years or so.
