Interesting comment from Michael Bailey this evening in his Athletic Q&A, headline is basically that the club don't see anyone at the top end of the academy (or out on loan) as being the next "crown jewel". If offers were to come in for McCallum, etc, they'd take them. Dickson-Peters, Kamara and Omotoye might be exempt from that, but only because they're yet to have the experience to truly assess them. Omobamidele and Mumba have been obviously graduated to the first team. Other interesting comment was that Omobamidele would be considered 3rd choice CB currently - implying he's ahead of Kabak? Be interesting to see if that plays out if the current partnership is disrupted.
On that theme, Dickson-Peters scored a hat-trick for the U23s in their 5-1 win over Reading today. That's 10 goals in the last 2 games: https://www.canaries.co.uk/content/tom-dickson-peters-i-cant-ask-for-much-more
Michael Bailey likes to be seen as itk on things like this or transfers but the next young player isn't easy to predict. His use of 'the club' is fairly typical. Presumably that's an abbreviation for 'sources at the club' used by journos and bloggers looking to fill space and get clicks. The next youngster to emerge isn't easy to predict. Even Maddison wasn't a cert when he was out on loan at Aberdeen. He cancelled the rest of the loan to come back to Colney. Neil could have used him but didn't. Was that a 'club' view? SW brought in DF and 'suddenly' we had a star emerge. It was similar with Aarons, who few had heard of until he was given a chance in pre-season and suddenly became first choice. There were many others, some of whom have made it, like Cantwell and Omobamidele, others who didn't quite make it. How many of us saw Omobamidele coming before Gibson's injury propelled him into the side? If it's true that the club are willing to listen to offers on our loanees then SW made a major error paying over £3m for McCallum. The self financing model is based on us developing young players, so if Bailey is right, the club could be in considerable difficulty if we fail to survive this season. I don't think that'll be the case.
There is also Jonathon Rowe and Jon Thomkinson to look at. There are 5 or 6 players 18-19 years old playing regularly for the u23's. If by "crown jewels" MB means players expected to move up to the senior team soon, then maybe there are none of those; but it doesn't look like a bad crop of young players IMHO.
Don't agree with this conclusion. The academy doesn't have to be developing first team players to be working in the interests of the club. McCallum, Sinani, Martin, Adshead, Famewo....if they're sold to Championship/League 1 teams then they can still turn a modest profit, or at the very least demonstrate that joining the NCFC academy is a good route to a career in the football league (helpful when negotiating with younger players). Even if a player is bought for more than they're sold, that's expected some of the time. The academy won't have a high hit rate. Players may look ready for senior football at 18 and expected to continue to develop, but have hit a peak already. As long as the logic for acquiring them in the first place was sound, the risk is part of the model.
Norwich City Under-23s forward Jonathan Rowe has been nominated for the Premier League 2 Player of the Month award for November. Well done Jonathan! https://www.canaries.co.uk/content/jonathan-rowe-nominated-for-pl2-player-of-the-month-award