Except that our academy isn't failing, the failure is integrating players into the first team Got a ballpark figure to fling around for that?
I think I’d play almost any youth player over Lo Celso and co to be honest, lol. Agree though and would’ve done the same. Should’ve played against Mura or in any of the ECL games under Conte or Nuno. For a club that supposedly put/ puts emphasis on youth development, we’ve lost huge prospects for peanuts under each of the last four permanent managers.
If they are not integrating then that is a failure. The point of the academy is to provide players for our future. You have just identified where it fails.
Even taking that perceived failure into account, we have to be asking if the quality was there in the first place? Why aren't exponentially more academy products playing in top divisions across Europe? If we can't integrate, the next best thing is obviously to generate significant profit. We haven't really done that at all since the days of Townsend, Livermore and Caulker. Either our loan-out system is broken or the coaching itself and/or initial recruitment of kids just isn't good enough. It is simply inexcusable that we have produced Walker-Peters, Tanganga and Skipp as PL level players in 6 years.
You mean like Madueke, Edwards, Walker-Peters and Vejlkovic who have all played in top divisions across Europe in the last eighteen months? Let's be honest here, people are cherrypicking other club's academies just like they cherrypick a club in the relegation zone signing somebody who'd never be more than a bench player for us as proof of...**** knows what at this point. Case in point, people on here are handwringing saying "Be more like Chelsea!!!!"...yet Chelsea are being linked with having to pay £75m+ for Declan Rice, a former youth player of theirs they let go for nothing. So, was there a lack of quality there?
I've been one of Markanday's biggest cheerleaders on here, but the contract situation is mixed. Does he not want to sign one because he's not getting game time or is he not getting game time because he won't sign it? There's certainly been opportunities to put him in this season and our various managers haven't taken them. Scarlett's been in and out, but he seems to be ahead in the pecking order. It's very strange.
What confuses me is the fact we’re getting rid of someone like Markanday, when at the same time we clearly can’t compete quite at the level of others in the transfer market. Whether the academy is up to scratch or not is another question, but surely we can’t be selling our best talents when we also can’t seem to buy ready made players either?
I crossed it out cause I thought the tone was unnecessary. Not enough for me to delete it, but unnecessary all the same.
Markanday is no massive loss, I’m yet to see any of these ‘great’ prospects prove Spurs wrong. If the club offered him a new deal but he wants regular football then fair enough. The fact he’s going down a league and not to a PL would suggest the club have been right not to give him games. Stick in a buy back clause and percentage of profit and then you’ll covered if they come good at their next club.
He's joining Blackburn though, who look pretty good for promotion right now. They're in 3rd place with 46 points, while 1st and 2nd are on 49 and 48. Ben Brereton Diaz has scored a ton of their goals, though. If Markanday can chip in and take the pressure off him, then they could be in the Prem next season.
There can arguments for both but I'd imagine if Markanday had featured in the EL last season and the ECL this season, we would've had his contract wrapped up easily by now and he could've possibly been heading out on loan this window to further his development. When you're the top scorer for the reserves, racked up some assists too, won the PL2 POTM award and you're only appearance for the first team to date is a 15 minute cameo at Vitesse, I think I'd be questioning my future, especially when there's an offer of first team football in the Championship on the table.
Don't worry, mate. We'll spend another year hoping Ndombele or Lo Celso will come good or Dele will recapture his form three years later. That's what really matters.
Yeah good move for him but I don’t see this a failure by the club. Numerous managers and staff will have seen him day in and day out. If he was good enough to be in the first team on a regular basis then surely he would have made an impact by now. Maybe in years to come he will be good enough but right now I trust them to know he isn’t. Hopefully they have clauses in the sale to top up the fee if he does well at Blackburn.
He definitely should've had more time, but the seasons have been really weird. Constant chopping and changing of the manager probably hasn't helped him, either.
Chances could've been given to youth players to prove they're better than these expensive idiots. Imagine what would've happened if Poch never gave the chance to Kane to oust Adebayor or Soldado. Likewise Mason, Bentaleb and Townsend at the time. That was the last time we gave significant chances to young players and it paid massive dividends, both from a playing and financial perspective. We've got talents like Markanday, White and co that aren't getting a look-in whilst players that consistently do **** all continue to get selected.
