Paul Scholes: concerned that City are moving ahead of United at Youth Level

[khoazany]

I think United's academy is a bit overrated to be fair.

Investment in youth is supposedly all about producing players for your own team, yet when you look at United, there's only really been John O'Shea/Darren Fletcher/Jonny Evans who have gone on to be Manchester United regulars since the class of 92 and these players are hardly titans of the game.

We've lost talents like Pique/Rossi/Pogba/Shawcross due to them not being given opportunity here, produced (in boat loads) players like Danny Simpson/Phil Bardsley/Tom Cleverley/Kieran Richardson who go on to have careers at lower tier Premier League clubs, sold Danny Welbeck, so what is Manchester United's academy all about, If 99% don't go on to be Manchester United players?

Things appear to be changing under Van Gaal and he is giving youth a chance, but Sir Alex Ferguson's last 10-15 years at the club, it was dreadful and for me United's and Sir Alex motto of 'always giving youth a chance' was a myth as academy players was never given the chance or wasn't deemed good enough under his watch, therefore you have to say Manchester United's academy in the last 23 years has been a failure.

United struggled with youth development after Harrison retired for a while until round the last 5 years when we have had more players coming through the rank who're good technically which is supposed to be a result of Meulensteen's overhaul of how the kids are coached at younger levels and also spent more resources into scouting and bringing foreign imports at 15/16.

If I'm being honest all of these City investment to their youth setup seems more like "to prove a point" other than really to produce first team players for them (although I think a few will come through if they're too good to be ignored).

 

[Walrus]

Compared to City, we are La Masia don't you think?

This attitude reeks of arrogance and complacency. When United players past and present are sending their kids to the cross-town academy of one of our biggest rivals, it should be setting the alarm bells ringing. The "We are United, we are better than everyone else." mindset just baffles me.