No shit. One of the reasons Sancho left was because we didn't give him a pre-season with the first team when he was 17. We gave Brahim and Foden pre-seasons at the same age. Just because he left on his own accord that doesn't mean it wasn't our fault for not giving him any opportunities. Brahim also wasn't given any serious game time and was obviously tempted by the biggest club in Spain telling him he'd be an immediate first teamer and a star there (which it turns out was a bunch of hot air).
When the players mentioned were in the academy they were just as good if not better than the current lot of youngsters, so what makes you think the current crop are any more likely to "turn out good enough" than those lads??
Also, those players haven't got close to their peaks ages yet, so I don't know how you could even claim that they didn't turn out good enough.
This.
The almost disregard that we showed the academy in the final weeks of the season would have, unfortunately, spoke volumes.
Final game of the season, at home and against bottom of the table Norwich and we still had the following players on the bench:
Subs: Stones, Gundogan, Zinchenko, Bernardo Silva, Mendy, Fernandinho, Mahrez, Otamendi, Carson
Literally no need for two senior left backs and two senior central midfielders on the bench. two of these spots could have been offered to the youth players, with the hope that we could maybe blood one of them when we are 3, 4 or 5 up.
Can anyone honestly blame our brightest prospects for wanting to go elsewhere when we can't even be arsed to offer them a place on the bench in the mother of all dead rubbers?!
It is little wonder that so many of our 'loan army' players end up at no mark (in the scheme of things) clubs in Scotland or in a European second tier division as they don't get barely any minutes between them to prove themselves to any extent. Viscous circle, meaning that even if they do well on loan they have only done it at a level maybe at Championship (at best) meaning that they are in reality no closer to a place at a top club than before.
Hopefully if the 5 subs rule stays they will state that 2 of these will have to be under 21 which would force our hand, but probably more chance of pigs flying unfortunately.