- Jan 11, 2013
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- #6,641
So they leave after years of service and fetch you a profit. Ferguson spent a lot of money on first team stars. He broke the transfer record seven times. But when it came to squad players, he knew homegrown players can fill the gaps, and probably better than paying for a guy to warm the bench for a year or two who doesn't get the club, who doesn't acclimatize with the surroundings and who might not be better than the player he's blocking the path of.
Suppose John O'Shea came through at Bolton. Would he have looked good enough at that standard of team (lower half) for Ferguson to want to sign him? Probably not. But he came through at Utd, and was good enough to do a job at that standard (top) to make almost 400 games.
That sounds contradictory but it's actually quite simple. You can put Onomah in central midfield for Spurs and I believe he'll do better than at Villa. Better players, better football style. To use a past example, Ryan Mason wasn't really pulling up trees at his many loan moves, but he was given a chance by this manager, and actually for a while in 2014-15, he looked a class act.
Exactly. Granted Man Utd are in a better financial state to break records, but when we are hamstrung financially compared to our rivals, taking a page out of Fergie's book potentially saves us millions in transfer fees and wages, while making us millions when they decide to move on. You put average players with quality and they look decent, they leave and they might not. At worse that is what will happen to the best of our youth players, with the money saved/earned we can then put even more world class players around them. I will never understand the academy player has to be better than an international player to get a chance. As BG said would a 20year old Aurier have come through here, of course not and yet we're still working and having tos how patience with him. Look at TAA, look at Walker when he first started and then the patience we showed for next 8 years why not just give KWP the chance, no academy player has ever effed anyhting up for us.
You're other point is excellent too, and I think gets misconstrued here. I don't rate all of these academy players as top class or better than our first teamers. Even looking at Oduwa when he was at Rangers, if he wasn't our player I wouldn't advocate buying him, but while he is with us and showing promise where is the harm in trying them out in a better system, with better players. They do a job then move em on. Best case scenario they relaly learn, it does wonders for their confidence and they become WC. There isn't a standard path academy products follow but give the best a chance, and at worse they will fulfill a role in the squad then make money. The other benefits are that if they are squad players, rather than buying squad players from elsewhere, you will have a homegrown club conneciton in the squad, that might put in that little bit more effort or show that little bit more commitment repaying the club, that helped them rather than if they're not playing just looking to move on.
So many clubs/fans are gripped by the fear of failure, and the belief that inexperience means someone is a liabilty and will be detrimental. But when implemented successfully the academy can be a core reason for a clubs success