Welbeck got a lot of unfair stick, the usual boring “British academy bias, workhorse, Pashun” etc. comments whereas Januzaj was seen as the next George Best based on a couple of good games under Moyes when everyone else looked bad.
Best academy player we've produced since the class of 1992?
- Thread starter Vidyoyo
- Start date
For me Scholes just like Giggs, Becks, Butt and Neville is part of Class of 92. Otherwise of course he wins by more than just a country mile.
I suspect there might be a correlation between how poorly a team does at the present to how willing fans are to hype their youngsters?
If your club is up and running, fans take happy notice of youngsters but don't necessarily feel the urge to place immense expectations in them.
If your club is struggling in the present, hope, the idea of a player's promise, becomes very attractive.
Valdes in goal for Barcelona too despite the La Liga best goalkeeper awards he won I never thought was best in class.
Pique I do remember been arguably the best CB in the world though at one point. He was really powerful and good on the ball. Could win headers all day long too.
I would probably pick Scholes of those 3. I believe Pogba is the most talented but Scholes could dictate almost any game he played in. Over a season that is a huge asset.
Januzaj if it doesn't count as bought
Because Januzaj was 18 and controlling games. His vision for through balls and how easy it was for him to leave a defender was absolutely incredible. It is no coincidence he's now a key player for a top 4 La Liga team. The boy was miles ahead of welbeck in terms of talent.
Scholes
I don't think thats the case, it's that some club fans are invested too much into promoting young players and it's generally based on which club they support.
I remember Barca fans used to hype every La Masia graduate when they were best club under Pep, they still do that now.
We used to do same for ManUtd academy players under SAF, we do it now too. Welbeck was highly rated, shame he was very injury prone. Also under SAF he was good functional player.
Scholes is in my top 3 favourite players of all time but I still always wrongly associate him with the co92.
In terms of pure talent alone..
Tier 1 - Pogba, Morisson, Pique, Greenwood - Technique, skill and football intelligence these lads, different gravy
Tier 2 - Brown, Fletcher, Rashford, Lingard - First team quality no question.
Tier 3 - Januzaj, O'Shea, J.Evans, Rossi, Welbeck, P.Neville, McTominay
If you include Paul Scholes then he is ahead of them all, and my favourite alongside Wes Brown.
Most overrated academy player in recent years? Gotta be Fosu-Mensah - Physically strong for his age group but technically he was very clumsy.
I was baffled by the extreme hype, one internet fan channel labelling him 'the next Bryan Robson'
. Wasnt a dead cert for me.
Tier 1 - Pogba, Morisson, Pique, Greenwood - Technique, skill and football intelligence these lads, different gravy
Tier 2 - Brown, Fletcher, Rashford, Lingard - First team quality no question.
Tier 3 - Januzaj, O'Shea, J.Evans, Rossi, Welbeck, P.Neville, McTominay
If you include Paul Scholes then he is ahead of them all, and my favourite alongside Wes Brown.
Most overrated academy player in recent years? Gotta be Fosu-Mensah - Physically strong for his age group but technically he was very clumsy.
I was baffled by the extreme hype, one internet fan channel labelling him 'the next Bryan Robson'
. Wasnt a dead cert for me.In terms of PL appearances, Shawcross also deserves a mention; think outside of the United team, he’s made the most appearances.
He was highly regarded but more in terms of “he’d be a good addition to the squad” instead of “he will be one of our main men”
He was highly regarded but more in terms of “he’d be a good addition to the squad” instead of “he will be one of our main men”
It's still Pogba and Pique
JOS was 17 when he signed for United.
Greenwood for me but I think Mctominay will be a great player if current form is built on.
How are you deciding that Scholes isn’t apart of class of 92? He is older than Beckham, Gary, Butt, Thornley etc. He is ‘74 while they are ‘75. He’s late in the year so he’d be the same school year as them. How would he be since them when he’s older?
How is Greenwood the best player we produced when Pique went on to win every god damn thing possible in this game?
He did, my post was more in jest. Because I saw a couple mentioning Pique, Pogba and amonst others players who've done nothing like Rossi and Ravel Morrison.
Pique came from Barca at 16, he's not an really academy player.
Pogba came from Le Harve at 16, again not really an academy player.
In terms of pure talent, at least two or three of those in Tier 3 are ahead of Lingard. Perhaps more.In terms of pure talent alone..
Tier 1 - Pogba, Morisson, Pique, Greenwood - Technique, skill and football intelligence these lads, different gravy
Tier 2 - Brown, Fletcher, Rashford, Lingard - First team quality no question.
Tier 3 - Januzaj, O'Shea, J.Evans, Rossi, Welbeck, P.Neville, McTominay
If you include Paul Scholes then he is ahead of them all, and my favourite alongside Wes Brown.
Most overrated academy player in recent years? Gotta be Fosu-Mensah - Physically strong for his age group but technically he was very clumsy.
I was baffled by the extreme hype, one internet fan channel labelling him 'the next Bryan Robson'
Haha same old. He “controlled” a couple of games when the opposition had no clue who he was.
Also which is this top 4 team you are talking about? When have they actually finished in top 4?
IN terms of birth years you are of course 100% right. But as he never played in the youth team in 1992 when the other lads won the FA Youth Cup I exclude him from that group. He wasn't part of that team.
The 'Class of 1992' is a false moniker. It doesn't relate to players birth years which they use now...born 2003, 2004, 2005 etc. It is used wrongly to include a whole bunch of young players who came through at 'roughly' the same time.
So if people want to use birth years then
1973 - Ryan Giggs
1974 - Paul Scholes, Kevin Pilkington, John O'Kane
1975 - Thornley, Gillespie, Beckham, Butt, Gary Neville
1976 -
1977 - Phil Neville
Paul Scholes could have played in 1991, 1992 and 1993. But he didn't...he only played in one youth season which was 1992/93 so if we had won the FA Youth Cup that season...he would have been part of the 'Class of 1993'. Most of the others except Giggs would have been part of that team too, including Phil Neville who was three years younger.
So I suppose it depends on your definition of 'Class of 1992'...mine is that it relates to players who actually played in the FA Youth Cup that season. Scholes and P. Neville didn't so that's why I categorised Scholes as the best youth player since that group.
You may want to use birth years as your definition which is of course absolutely fine...
I think for this thread we can not be pedantic (translation, factually correct) and use the generally understood class of 92' as including Scholes and Phil, seeing as they were both in the doc and that famous photo.
We've produced so many, but my personal choice in terms of raw ability is Marcus Rashford.
If you can count Paul Pogba, then he's a world cup winner. Jonny Evans has 3 Premier League titles.
On another note I looked through transfermarkt and found Dwight McNeil at Burnley up there with a value of £20million which was vaguely interesting to me
If you can count Paul Pogba, then he's a world cup winner. Jonny Evans has 3 Premier League titles.
On another note I looked through transfermarkt and found Dwight McNeil at Burnley up there with a value of £20million which was vaguely interesting to me
Using that criteria...virtually every Irish and Scottish player to join the club throughout our history don't count as youth players either.
As I mentioned in a previous post, both Pogba and Pique arrived at 16...so did Darren Fletcher, Jonny Evans, Johnny Carey, Johnny Giles and 50 others.
So if you use 16 as a criteria then you will have to go back in time and rewrite our history and that of all the other league clubs.
The criteria that is used by the FA and others is very clear. It is part of their rules for qualification in the FA Youth Cup.
You have to be 17 or under, not played first team elsewhere and actually play in the Academy/youth team.
Pogba, Rossi, Pique, Januzaj and all the other lads who have come through the system meet that criteria. They are directly in parallel with all those players who joined us at the same age in the 1930's-1990's. The existence of Academies have just meant that some Academy graduates join us at 9 years old, some at 12 (like Elanga), some at 14 (like Ramazani) and others at 16 (like Pogba, Pique and also Charlie McNeill, Joe Hugill, Ethan Ennis, and whole bunch of lads currently in our Academy).
It's like going to school...you either go to that school or you don't.
Pogba and Pique went to our school...so they count.
They spent the majority of their youth development elsewhere.
It's like putting a lick of paint on a house and then claiming you were responsible for building the whole thing.
Just out of interest, it seems a bit harsh that we can't class Isak Hansen-Aarøen as an academy product given that he has played first team football for Tromsø. The definition does make sense though in the majority of cases.
Pure talent = Ravel
Best player (so far) = Rashford
Best player (Potentially) = Greenwood
Best player (so far) = Rashford
Best player (Potentially) = Greenwood
Like Lee Sharpe and Regan Poole...they played in our Academy...arrived before 18...but as they had already played first team football we exclude them. If Norwegian football was Amateur Hansen would count...but pretty sure it's a professional league.
Makes complete sense.
It's like going to one school from 5-14...then finishing your education at a second school from 15-17. Do you say you never went to the second school? Do you say you learnt nothing at the second school? Does the second school have no impact on your development particularly as it prepares you for life outside of school? How do you know that the first 10 years was more impactful than the last three?
A 'lick of paint' is the equivalent to giving them a set of kit and putting their profile on the website. I'm pretty confident that our coaches do a bit more than that.
Each school has impacted your development, but you only graduate from one of them.
That's why the likes of Dwight McNeil (Burnley), Jack Harrison (Leeds) and many others aren't regarded as Manchester United youth players, because although they spent years at our Academy as very young kids, they went on to be scholars at other clubs who rightly completed their development and gave them the opportunity of first team football.
Pogba as an example, changed football teams/Academies every two years. He actually spend longer with us than Le Havre. So was his two years at Le Havre more impactful than the first four years at United?
You have to have one set of criteria so that you can be consistent across the leagues and over time.
Whether people like it or agree with it is mainly irrelevant...those players count.
These lads who came in at 16. They
aren't really just products of the academy they just graduated from it.
If they play 2-3 seasons in the juniors then they are
Historical data, the club, the FA and the players themselves would all disagree with you.
Of course it’s your prerogative to hold an alternative view…
Which is anything more than welback did. He was the shining light in a team of seasonsed pros, has a world cup semi final goal for Belgium and that team is real sociedad who in recent years have even flirted with being on top off the table
Maybe try answering the question. You said top 4 team? So when exactly was this? I would actually say Welbeck had the better career, won a few trophies with two different top clubs in England including a league title while getting enough playing time. Considering one was considered a good squad player who was not as talented as the strikers he was competing with back then at United such as Rooney and RvP, and the other was supposed to be some kind of technical genius with incredible vision (lol) their careers have been very similar and if anything Welbeck has had the better career.
You haven't followed La liga this season? Januzaj is playing at a much higher level than Welback has in his career for any meaningful stretch.
Anyway, you started this whole thing by framing the attention Januzaj got over Welback as being some sort of agenda related to Welback being British. There was a good reason why fans were more excited about Januzaj. It has nothing to do with being English or not. Greenwood is being praised to the moon as well because of his talent.
But yeah, we just hated on the striker who just left Watford for Brighton because we are anti-English and it has nothing to do with english players being overrated
Keep ignoring facts. And come back when you can actually spell our academy graduate’s name correctly.
Here is the definition of rewriting history. The guy was bambi on ice, but our fans were warm towards him. Your post is not entirely true.
Petty points to deflect from the issue in hand. No one talked about British academy bias or "pashun" as you put it. No one has ever done that. When British players are talented: Greenwood, Rashford etc people get excited when its not they don't.
Not really. Of course there were people who liked him, he was young, just broke through and SAF used him regularly especially in big games. But others had no patience and gave him stick because they were used to Rooney, RvP, Ronaldo, Tevez, Berbatov.