Well I'm not sure that's the case. Players like Rashford,Lingard have been instrumental in Uniteds success over the last couple of years and has improved the squad no end.
And that has happened historically with players like Johnny Evans, Wes Brown etc who although found their level later on contributed to Uniteds success whilst there.
As for the reality there are loads of players in our squad not good enough for our level but we have paid decent money for them and they will have to be moved on. No different to playing kids who eventually need moving on and also gives a statement to any parents they will be given an opportunity. Also as we have seen with players like Rashford, Kane they might just play at the level and highlight they are more than good enough.
Barker had his chance at Rotherham and didn't pull up any trees in what turned out to be a very short loan! And the others you mentioned, exactly what have they done (Denayer apart) since. Denayer was a strange one, from POS at Celtic to an indifferent season (he couldn't get a guaranteed start at Sunderland) and now the latest. Possibly there is more to Denayer than we are privileged to know.
The 'timescale gap', implies that Utd had talent & we didn't.
I'm saying the opposite is true, we had the talent, they had the guts to play theirs & theirs became adult footballers whilst ours dropped in standard & left for obscurity.
I'm also saying, it will destroy the future of our academy, if we don't change quickly.
We didn't before the real investment started. The better kids were scouted & signed by rags.
In days gone by he would have got more game time but in the current set up the simple fact is that he and to date most of the academy graduates are just not good enough to displace players with sound international experience. I only saw two live youth games this year (plus the two televised games against Chelsea) but imo at most 2 or 3 have any chance of playing first team football for City. I agree it must be very frustrating for these guys as to show their worth they have to have a chance to show their worth. The ones going out on loan don't seem to be able to do enough to justify inclusion either. As I have said on many occasions in the past our academy is a stand alone business and most certainly is not a fast track to first team action.Barker 100% wasn't given chances when he needed them. He was put on the bench for something like 10 games without ever getting on, played EDS football for another year, got more and more frustrated, eventually forced through a loan move to Rotherham, which was always gonna be a terrible idea and now is going through the motions. You've gotta strike while the iron is hot, not while it's cooled down and while the players have lost their momentum through feeling that their best won't ever be good enough. And it's not just Barker, see Kean Bryan, see Thierry Ambrose, see Gunn and so on. Lopes actually did fantastically well at 17, creating two...then disappeared. Loads were doing excellent things at 17/18. None of them got a chance when they were warranting it and instead faffed around. Just a couple of sub appearances is all it would have taken. We had Ambrose on the bench, 3-0 up at home to WBA. He was flying...we brought on Sinclair instead for 20 minutes. A man who left the club two months later anyway. Why? Just why? And dont say to put him in the shop window cos that's a load of bollocks. It's just managers being terrible at integration.
In days gone by he would have got more game time but in the current set up the simple fact is that he and to date most of the academy graduates are just not good enough to displace players with sound international experience. I only saw two live youth games this year (plus the two televised games against Chelsea) but imo at most 2 or 3 have any chance of playing first team football for City. I agree it must be very frustrating for these guys as to show their worth they have to have a chance to show their worth. The ones going out on loan don't seem to be able to do enough to justify inclusion either. As I have said on many occasions in the past our academy is a stand alone business and most certainly is not a fast track to first team action.
City have had top kids since before there was an academy, never mind before the investment.
It's nonsense. They had a brief period of superiority with the Beckham era, which was a fightback against us with Lakey etc & is exactly what they are trying to do now, whilst we sleep. Even then they pinched Giggs off us.
I have some jelly and ice cream somewhere that I will gladly put to use should the MUEN finally go under. I was saving it but this would be too good to let pass.There's a beautiful fascination witnessing the newspaper industry enter the early stages of its death throes, but the MEN seems to aspire to speeding up that end process.