We've not had any major successes for years through our academy. Dummett is a tidy player worthy of lower-to-mid Premiership; Longstaff has very good potential but it's too early to call; Woodman has been excellent when called upon for England U21's/ U23's and has a good chance of being our first choice in the next couple of years... no world beaters though. Fraser Forster never seems to get mentioned though and he was our academy product, he just happened to come through at the same time as Krul and understandably didn't want to play second fiddle. Given the semi-final in 1990 had Gasgcoigne, Waddle, Beardsley and we then had Shearer we've had a pretty shocking time ever since. Players like Alan Thompson and Michael Carrick have ended up elsewhere rather than with us. We've just been hideously mismanaged as regards the youth set-up, one of the worst culprits for which was Keegan if i recall correctly!
Thing is they will pay premier league money for him and he’ll have a far higher budget. If he’s gone cos they offer him 3 times the salary so he it. But if he’s gone fir the same money then he’s a ****
If I remember rightly we were in for both Waddle and Beardsley before Newcastle, but fluffed both, not the worst mistakes by any means but typical of our transfer record, which must compare favourably with the worst.