We are fast becoming an also ran....

Of the 126 players called up by England at under-16 to under-21 level in August, United provided just TWO players.

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I've personally found this a bit strange tbh. Even when our youth sides have been doing well, we still haven't had many call ups for some reason.

There's been a few grumbles about a club v country disagreement, which to an extent would explain us having few players called up during recent International breaks.

I don't think it's a lack of quality because despite the doom and gloom surrounding the academy and youth system in general at the moment, we still do have some promising young players, even though the U18 side have been in really poor form the last few months.

We're ridiculously short in terms of squad depth too and if we get injuries at U21 level, players are moved up from the U18s which leaves the squad very thin.

Warren Joyce a few months back said that United had to turn down loan offers for players who the club wanted to continue to develop on loan because it would leave us unable to field an U21 side.

It's incredibly poor planning and further evidence of how bad things are.

Fair do's, the infrastructure of the club is strong and business side is booming. Champions league is still paramount though , otherwise players will choose other financially strong teams who willing to pay.

The thing is that at youth level the two teams who are performing best are the two who seem least likely to give youth a chance. If parents really want their kids to succeed they need to look away from the shiny new facilities and actually look at the facts when it comes to progression to the first team.

Doesn't excuse our stagnant youth system atm but does lead to question marks over the intelligence of the people advising these young players on who to sign for and what their motivation is

TRS

I made the same point about pushing players up into the U21 side ahead of time yesterday.

I think this has been in part a sort of fast-tracking policy in some cases. Fosu-Mensah, Gribbin, Rashford, Ash Fletcher and others have been given early opportunities at U21 level in recent times, as were, for example, the triumvirate of Pogba, Tunni and Ravel before them.

Granted, injuries have also forced this early promotion, but in some cases it appears to be used to give the more promising players who are deemed to be suitable experience at a higher level.

For whatever reason, such promotions will weaken the U18 squads.

does the youth programme really matter that much?

other than the class of 92 nothing of note has come from your academy in decades.

its really just a roulette bet on kids, not a 'development programme'

class is born, not made

I agree Kaiser's, to an extent.

But if you have a good youth system, the best young players are likely to come to you. Ref City and Chelsea a game. You might not get a host of world beaters but if you get even one, then it's a very worthwhile exercise. The other thing is that it pays for itself, beyond any initial outlay. As any promising player who maybe isn't going to make the first team can be sold on

i might have worded it a bit strongly, a club would be dumb not to have one because theres always a chance youll stumble on a scholes, gnev, giggs, gerrard, fowler... but i would view that like playing the lottery rather than some stroke of genius

I can sort of see what TKT is saying here. We United fans romanticise youth because of the Busby Babes and the 1999 treble team. But our 2008 side was awesome and was full of players like Carrick, Hargreaves, Rooney and Ferdinand, bought for large sums and often from English rivals; relatively cheap overseas talents like Park, Vidic and Evra; and then the likes of Nani, Anderson and Ronaldo, foreign youngsters on whom we took a gamble, with mixed success. Brown, Fletcher and O'Shea made up the squad, really.

Obviously, you want a good youth set-up, but United brought through nobody better than Darren Fletcher after the late 1990s and still managed to dominate.

John Oshea !
I sometimes think we have been giving youngsters the odd game to boost their selling price !
Tunnicliffe, Lawrence, Keane, Cambell, Simpson etc...
Soon most likely Blackett and a few others will be sold who got given the odd game.
Wilson should have been a squad player this season and used from the bench regularly !

Yes, I wanted to see Wilson feature this season. He'd be a good option from the bench if nothing else.