Are the acadamy a great measure of the incompetence of the Glazer-era?

andersj

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Or just the best measure of how poor they have been to the club. Dont get me wrong, the acadamy has, as always kept producing some good talents. Without them, Man Utd would have been even further behind.

But while the best talents in UK used to push hard to get to Manchester United, that is no longer the case. For the past few years, a club like Chelsea have had players like James, Guehi, Tomori, Livramento, Ake, Colwill, Chalobah, Mount, Gallagher, Loftus-Cheek, Abraham and several more come through and become PL-players. Players like Rice and Olise was also several years at the Chelsea acadamy.

I dont think Man City is as impressive on an individual level in terms of graduates, but their underage teams appears to be winning everything every year. Furthermore, it is obviously very, very attractive for the top talents in UK (ref a few of our players putting their children at the City-acadamy).

Considering where Man Utd were in 2005 it is hard to understand how the club could let themself get knocked of that perch. I know that both Chelsea and Man City have invested heavily in their acadamies, but it is still relatively small amounts for these businesses.

In my opinion, it is a really good «measure» of how useless and incompetent the Glazers have been. No focus on one of the great competetive advantages of the club.
 
andersj said:
Or just the best measure of how poor they have been to the club. Dont get me wrong, the acadamy has, as always kept producing some good talents. Without them, Man Utd would have been even further behind.

But while the best talents in UK used to push hard to get to Manchester United, that is no longer the case. For the past few years, a club like Chelsea have had players like James, Guehi, Tomori, Livramento, Ake, Colwill, Chalobah, Mount, Gallagher, Loftus-Cheek, Abraham and several more come through and become PL-players. Players like Rice and Olise was also several years at the Chelsea acadamy.

I dont think Man City is as impressive on an individual level in terms of graduates, but their underage teams appears to be winning everything every year. Furthermore, it is obviously very, very attractive for the top talents in UK (ref a few of our players putting their children at the City-acadamy).

Considering where Man Utd were in 2005 it is hard to understand how the club could let themself get knocked of that perch. I know that both Chelsea and Man City have invested heavily in their acadamies, but it is still relatively small amounts for these businesses.

In my opinion, it is a really good «measure» of how useless and incompetent the Glazers have been. No focus on one of the great competetive advantages of the club.
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I wouldn't even say incompetent but rather the academy was neglected for a long time in comparison to the likes of Chelsea and then Man City. Chelsea under Ambramovich went from strength to strength where they were stockpiling youth players which brought them huge success. Ambramovich also part funded clubs like Vitesse in Holland who took Chelsea's young players on loan hence the likes of Mason Mount were getting early first team exposure.

I can go on about this but under the Glazers we'll carry on playing second fiddle in comparison to the aforementioned clubs.
 
We are not the worse at producing high potential youngsters but we are nowhere near the best. Im quite sick of United getting ripped of in the transfer market which should be an incentive for the glazers in investing in it more be it in facilities or better coaches whatever. But at the end of the day, even if they did, its still a lottery. This club demands immidiete success which is iffy to me because even with the big name signings the still havent managed to acheive the level of success we once had. It would help if we stick with our manager longer than 3 years where can properly exert his philosphy on the acadamey and build players who would suit his system.
i do belive chelsea will hit a dry spot eventually even with the added investment, its just how it goes. Happened to West Ham and Sothampton and even us after 92 to about 05.
 
Tbf we still have Rashford who's one of the best players in Europe. Greenwood, Garnacho, McTominay, Pellistri, Hannibal, Diallo, Williams etc. all in our squad. Mainoo who looks very promising.

Then elsewhere Lingard, Elanga, Rothwell, Garner, Pereira, Chong, Norwood, Henderson, Keane etc. who are all PL players (or will be this season) who've come through our academy since the Glazers have been in charge. You could add the likes of Pogba, Januzaj etc. if you include teams outside the PL.

Granted not a list of world beaters and some not recent, but all from the Glazer era, and I think probably only Chelsea in this country who produce both more and better levels of talent barring one offs, and that's because they paid an awful lot of money to do it and ended up with a transfer ban.
 
Our academy has produced an incredible amount of talent in the time period you mentioned - certainly as good as Chelsea's academy.
 
We still produce a lot of very good PL level players. The bar to make it at United is ridiculously high. So I don't fault the Academy for that.

What we should be doing better is selling young players with buyback clauses earlier on, instead of holding onto them for too long and stunting their development with loans to different clubs every year.
 
andersj said:
Or just the best measure of how poor they have been to the club. Dont get me wrong, the acadamy has, as always kept producing some good talents. Without them, Man Utd would have been even further behind.

But while the best talents in UK used to push hard to get to Manchester United, that is no longer the case. For the past few years, a club like Chelsea have had players like James, Guehi, Tomori, Livramento, Ake, Colwill, Chalobah, Mount, Gallagher, Loftus-Cheek, Abraham and several more come through and become PL-players. Players like Rice and Olise was also several years at the Chelsea acadamy.

I dont think Man City is as impressive on an individual level in terms of graduates, but their underage teams appears to be winning everything every year. Furthermore, it is obviously very, very attractive for the top talents in UK (ref a few of our players putting their children at the City-acadamy).

Considering where Man Utd were in 2005 it is hard to understand how the club could let themself get knocked of that perch. I know that both Chelsea and Man City have invested heavily in their acadamies, but it is still relatively small amounts for these businesses.

In my opinion, it is a really good «measure» of how useless and incompetent the Glazers have been. No focus on one of the great competetive advantages of the club.
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It's interesting to look at some of these players.

The Chelsea list looks fantastic on paper but only Reece James and Mount have actually done anything for them in all that time. I'll give them a few ticks for some of the fees they've attracted for the likes of Abraham, potentially Gallagher, Loftus-Cheek etc. That's great for the coffers.

City have produced what, Phil Foden? Nobody else really established as yet.

For me the romance of the academy is in producing actual first team players. Selling them is great for the Finance Director and winning a Youth cup is nice for a cabinet somewhere but ultimately the real purpose of these academies, particularly from a fan's point of view is to produce established first team players with a connection and loyalty to the club. I'm not really interested in "making careers" for players. That's nice but having them go off to play at Crystal Palance doesn't get me excited about our academy.

I think we still fare well as far as producing players for the first team. But of course the talent production can improve. It looks quite spotty. But I think we have a better history and philosophy of integration than these clubs. It's really hard to integrate academy players, and that shows in these lists. Even very good players often have to go elsewhere before they can make it at top 4 sides.
 
noodlehair said:
Tbf we still have Rashford who's one of the best players in Europe. Greenwood, Garnacho, McTominay, Pellistri, Hannibal, Diallo, Williams etc. all in our squad. Mainoo who looks very promising.

Then elsewhere Lingard, Elanga, Rothwell, Garner, Pereira, Chong, Norwood, Henderson, Keane etc. who are all PL players (or will be this season) who've come through our academy since the Glazers have been in charge. You could add the likes of Pogba, Januzaj etc. if you include teams outside the PL.

Granted not a list of world beaters and some not recent, but all from the Glazer era, and I think probably only Chelsea in this country who produce both more and better levels of talent barring one offs, and that's because they paid an awful lot of money to do it and ended up with a transfer ban.
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+ PL winners Evans, Welbeck, Cleverley, Drinkwater.
If the bar is to produce another Class of 92 then yes our academy hasn’t replicated that. But otherwise our academy is absolutely fine.
 
Abraxas said:
It's interesting to look at some of these players.

The Chelsea list looks fantastic on paper but only Reece James and Mount have actually done anything for them in all that time. I'll give them a few ticks for some of the fees they've attracted for the likes of Abraham, potentially Gallagher, Loftus-Cheek etc. That's great for the coffers.

City have produced what, Phil Foden? Nobody else really established as yet.

For me the romance of the academy is in producing actual first team players. Selling them is great for the Finance Director and winning a Youth cup is nice for a cabinet somewhere but ultimately the real purpose of these academies, particularly from a fan's point of view is to produce established first team players with a connection and loyalty to the club. I'm not really interested in "making careers" for players. That's nice but having them go off to play at Crystal Palance doesn't get me excited about our academy.

I think we still fare well as far as producing players for the first team. But of course the talent production can improve. It looks quite spotty. But I think we have a better history and philosophy of integration than these clubs. It's really hard to integrate academy players, and that shows in these lists. Even very good players often have to go elsewhere before they can make it at top 4 sides.
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It's so hard to break through at these clubs, even by the standards of PL football, particularly if they're either buying in established stars, creaming off promising 18-20 year olds from other leagues, like Chelsea and, to an extent, City have been trying to do, or giving preference to a certain physical type of player ( we've been more likely to promote and develop at first team level a McTominay type after their growth spurt rather than potential Silvas; even now, its more physically precocious in terms of body or speed players, though in the case of genuine technical/creative quality like Mainoo and Garnacho I've got no issues...).

City have developed a number who could be playing for them if they weren't so monomaniacally geared towards 'success now', for instance Lavia. Cole Palmer has been on the fringes of their first team for a couple of years and i think he's good enough to, say, become a Grealish level player at another club (maybe it would help if he did more heavy-lift 'leg days' at the gym, JG style!); Rico Lewis is very good, and I'm guessing is going to be a first team for them longer-term, at left back and maybe doing the Lahm /German thing of full-back to DM. Chelsea likewise: aside from James and Mount, someone like Lotus Cheek maybe isn't a top-4 starting 11 player but definitely a 1st team squad player who would play most weeks one level down (say, at Villa); Abraham is a first-reserve striker, just like we used to produce the likes of O'Shea and Brown and not have them start most games except in spells but still see them as academy successes etc.

Most of these guys will want to play regularly though and even need to in order to not drift into the Championship when they're 23 because of not having competitive games to kick on their progress, so you have to factor that in, take pride in the ones that go elsewhere and make it and just hope the club are selling them at opportune moments (which we haven't tended to do -losing them for nothing, or selling for a few million when they were valued at 20m previously before a bad loan)
 
It's also important to note that City's youth system is run under a completely different operating model than ours. Their academy exists primarily to develop players for sale in order to boost their FFP allowance. Thus, less reluctance to sell their young players for attractive fees as soon as serious interest materializes in them.
 
I think we are doing ok. Class of 92 is a one-off thing, and its pretty much even out with other top clubs afterwards. Of course we didn't dominate the youth academy like Bayern at Germany or Barca at Spain. But we shouldn't have such right as England is far more competitive at all levels than anywhere else. And of course there are also rules preventing clubs from signing youth player living outside of their catchment area.

Since 2005:

Man Utd
- Heaton (2005)
- Evans (2006)
- Welbeck (2008)
- Zieler (2008)
- Drinkwater (2009)
- Joshua King (2009)
- Pogba (2011)
- Lingard (2011)
- Michael Keane (2011)
- Januzaj (2013)
- Pereira (2014)
- Rashford (2015)
- Henderson (2015)
- Mctominay (2017)
- Greenwood (2018)
- Elanga (2021)
- Meijbri (2021)
- Garnacho (2022)
- Mainoo (2022)

I think especially those highlighted has the world class potential.
 
Our academy has been fine in producing talent to play for United but has been dire in selling talent outside. City pocket 60-80m a year from academy player sales now - we're more in the region of 20m. In hindsight, Henderson had a 50m bid from Chelsea rejected, Tuanzebe had a bid from Villa etc. Our good prospects also seem to go for peanuts - 1m each for Savage, Iqbal and Laird compared to 15m for Trafford, 12m for Borges and 10m for Charles at the City academy. We have failed at this end and we need to roll out more Elanga style transfer paths.
 
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OverratedOpinion said:
I would be absolutely shocked if that were true.
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Maybe rejected is a strong word, but there was definitely interest and we could have easily sold him for 35-40m a couple of years ago. Now I'd be surprised if he can get us 10-15m. The value drop on these sort of players has been significant for us when we've held onto them and has often been a lose-lose situation over the last decade. SAF was very good at selling these sort of players when a good offer came in.
 
It surepy is not first choice anymore, and we need to improve. But the fact that we have been shit for 10 years as a whole and the first team did not help either. People prefer winners
 
Not many clubs manage to produce real top level youth products. We currently have Rashford and Garnacho. If Greenwood wasn't a real piece of work, you'd throw him in there too.

I'd take quality over quantity all day long.
 
If we can get 1 player through to the first team a season and be a success, then thats all you can ask for. s others have said, we seem to be loathe to let go of any players we can possibly sell for a decent fee. Tuanzebe and Henderson for example, who were never going to break through to the first team and could have gone 2/3 years ago for good fees.
 
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