How would you describe what Leeds did under O'Leary with Robinson, Smith, Mcphail, Kewell, Harte, Woodgate, etc? That didn't end too good. Not trying to trivialise the point though as its a good one, Trouble is it will take an awful lot of luck as well as all the efforts to achieve what Cortese is after. You only need to look at the teams that have had FA youth cup winning sides that haven't then gone on to make it at their clubs. It's a once in a generation thing, was the Giggs, Beckham, Scholes, Neville's team part of the brilliant set up at United or did they just get very lucky with that Group, if it was the brilliant set up how does that explain the subsequent failure to really produce any more top first team players, and yes that excludes Johnny Evans....? What I'm wondering is when a team gets settled in mid-table it is easy to spend just another £5m on the next problem position rather than take the risk on will the young player step up or not. I really want it to work though it would be great to have a spine of the team from the youth team. To answer the original post though from st Godders - you have to aspire to breaking the natural order, even if it is just for a day (the last weekend FA cup fixtures being an example), but not at all costs a la Pompey.
