Unal has had to move on as his loan this year. Zuculini was the same last year. Guidetti did well in Holland and was never seen again. And now Roberts goes to Celtic.
What's the strategy - we've targetted quality young players but (nacho aside) none of them seem to break through (...yet).
Shouldn't we be keeping this talent in the CFA and indoctrinating them into the City way rather than letting them go out?
John Guidetti was never heard of again because he ate some bad chicken, got a virus and nearly had to have his leg amputated. He was bedridden for nearly a year.
Unfortunately that tends to have a detrimental effect on a 20 year old, but he's starting to salvage a career at Celta Vigo now, things are going well for him.
Unäl had to go on loan because we couldn't get him a work permit - remember we spent a year getting Kalechi one too.
I think they'd have put him in the EDS of possible, but the Belgian league is a decent enough one to start him off and unfortunately it didn't work out for him, but he should play at NEC.
Zuculini was always a weird move, too old for EDS and obviously not ready for the first team and there was no space for him anyway, but I think his problem was the fact he convinced someone to let him pick his own loan club (Valencia, where he had friends from Argentina) and then just after that Valencia got taken over and spent 50m on midfielders.
I don't think guidetti belongs in this conversation because he was an academy product, but of the 3 young very players we've signed who didn't immediately go to the academy or first team, 1 has been an outstanding success, the other a failure, and the third too soon to tell.