madras

Shelvey himself has said he gets a load more time and space at this level.

Didn't even seem to be DCM yesterday. Him and shelvey seemed happy enough to drive forward. Much prefer that than the two of them sitting too far back. It seemed more like a 4-4-1-1 with Diane while not having a great 90mins had by far his best game for us. The most complete midfield pairing I've ever seen in English football was Vieira and Petite. Not like you need to be told about it but they could both do everything, either going forward or back. Love seeing an athletic central midfielder who can play a bit. Lee and Speed in our case. The only thing lacking from our two yesterday was looking to get on the end of something, we also looked to play more in and around as opposed to Sheleveys recent 40yd diagonals that look better they really turn out to be.

Didn't even seem to be DCM yesterday. Him and shelvey seemed happy enough to drive forward. Much prefer that than the two of them sitting too far back. It seemed more like a 4-4-1-1 with Diane while not having a great 90mins had by far his best game for us. From watching the highlights, it was clear Hayden was getting forward a lot more than what I've seen previously. Last time he done it like that was Reading as far as I can remember.

Didn't even seem to be DCM yesterday. Him and shelvey seemed happy enough to drive forward. Much prefer that than the two of them sitting too far back. It seemed more like a 4-4-1-1 with Diane while not having a great 90mins had by far his best game for us.

I'm not arguing against it, just saying thats the way it seems to be. edit and fwiw I wouldn't have sent Armstrong out on loan this season, I personally see him right now as championship standard and thats where we are. But it doesn't work mate. English teams in most cases are far behind their counterparts in Spain and in some cases Germany who spend way less money and give kids a greater chance. Look at Leipzig at the moment, pretty horrible club I know but at least they're buying young players and giving them a chance and its working out great for them so far. Dortmund as well are one of the best teams in Europe with loads of young players They ay be giving them a greater chance due to them being ready through coaching etc, however I'd bet give Leipzig an extra 50million to spend and they'll buy in and their kids will get fewer chances. Dortmund is the exception, like Ferguson's Man Utd with Beckham, Scholes etc and that was as much because the manager had faith in that particular group. Leipzig spent 45 million last summer on a 19 year old, a 20 year old and two 21 year olds At the expense of similarly aged kids from their academies ? Edit, it's a plan that may work long term and may work short term and for some may not work at all. We had a plan of buying ncheap from foreign markets and in Cabaye, Sissoko, Debuchy it seemed to be working, media pieces cited the nerwcastle model. Didn't work for long. Let's see where Leipzig are in 3 or 4 years time.

I'm not arguing against it, just saying thats the way it seems to be. edit and fwiw I wouldn't have sent Armstrong out on loan this season, I personally see him right now as championship standard and thats where we are. But it doesn't work mate. English teams in most cases are far behind their counterparts in Spain and in some cases Germany who spend way less money and give kids a greater chance. Look at Leipzig at the moment, pretty horrible club I know but at least they're buying young players and giving them a chance and its working out great for them so far. Dortmund as well are one of the best teams in Europe with loads of young players They ay be giving them a greater chance due to them being ready through coaching etc, however I'd bet give Leipzig an extra 50million to spend and they'll buy in and their kids will get fewer chances. Dortmund is the exception, like Ferguson's Man Utd with Beckham, Scholes etc and that was as much because the manager had faith in that particular group.

I'm not arguing against it, just saying thats the way it seems to be. edit and fwiw I wouldn't have sent Armstrong out on loan this season, I personally see him right now as championship standard and thats where we are.

Maybe Mourinho just didn't fancy him, he's done that with other more senior players aswell and given Mourinho's career spans 4 countries his can hardly be an English problem. More of a financial inclination, why risk a player (kid or otherwise) when you can hopefully buy ready made. I wonder how many teens are playing regularly throughout Europe at the clubs that have financial clout similar to the Premier league.

Er - they once played a 17 year old against Arsenal and he scored a hat-trick....his name was Shearer I believe... You know what he's getting at, he means recently (I'd guess since Bale) and I'd guess a bigger reason could be the quality of the kids we are talking about, the coaching they've received etc to get them to that stage, theirs were good enough. It's hardly like we've had floods of kids leave our academy and make it at premiership level even with other clubs. Not many kids make it without getting lots of games when they're 19/20/21 They also have to be good enough to get the games. Are kids in Southampton just naturally better than kids in other parts of England then? Possibly a better scouting system and better coached or are you saying that we would have had players like they've produced purely by chucking kids in ? Well we'll never know but it is all about the culture of the club. If kids see guys from the academy getting a chance they'll become more motivated because they'll begin to think that it's possible if they work hard that they'll get a chance too They'll get that chance if they are good enough. This is bs. The lack of chances given to young English players in the PL is one of the prime reasons there's a dearth of English players. At our club is generally a lack of talent and/or coaching. We haven't developed any significant player with any skill or technique in yonks. I don't think Carroll would've been given the same chance had we not gotten relegated. Subsequently, there's no way he goes for £35m Aye, just so happened to read this article on F365 which sums it up for me. “It is frustrating but I’m not angry that I’m not playing because I understand it’s difficult,” said Marcus Rashford in September, in response to questions over his lack of Manchester United playing opportunities under Jose Mourinho. “We have a lot of big players and a lot of players in my situation as well who are not getting the minutes they probably thought they deserved to get.” Given those frustrations, Rashford may be surprised to learn that he is one of a kind in the Premier League: a teenager playing regular football. A list of players currently aged under 20 with five or more league appearances in Europe’s top five leagues contains 57 names. Ligue Un is (perhaps predictably) the largest provider, with 22. Next comes the Bundesliga with 15, then Serie A with 12 and La Liga with seven. That makes 56; Rashford is the sole Premier League representative. Earlier this week, the CIES Football Observatory produced a report that extended that statistic across Europe, with similar results. It revealed that 87 teenage footballers had played 60% of their side’s league minutes by the end of November. Rashford (placed in 78th with 62%) is once more the only Premier League player who qualifies. The lack of minutes afforded to young English players is a well-documented but important argument, inevitably framed in the context of our national team’s failures. Yet these latest statistics go beyond patriotic concerns. It is not just domestic teenagers who are unable to gain a foothold in the Premier League, but teenagers of any nationality. That suggests that the issue lies with the league rather than the players. Young Premier League players are left waiting for an exceptional circumstance. Ifs and buts aren’t candy and nuts, but if Anthony Martial had not got injured in the warm-up against FC Midtjylland, Rashford would not have started the game in February. It’s hardly a huge leap to suggest that his chance of regular starts may never have come under Louis van Gaal. Would Jose Mourinho’s arrival have really changed that? His record with young players suggests not. The obvious reaction is to suggest that the use of teenagers correlates with the standard of team or league, thus explaining Ligue Un’s high figure. Firstly, that does not account for the relatively high figures in Serie A and Bundesliga, but also the theory of ‘worse teams use more teenagers’ does not stand up to scrutiny. Nine of Germany’s current top ten are represented in that original list of 57, and three of Serie A’s top six. The supposition that English clubs loan out their teenagers rather than play them partly accounts for the shortfall. Chelsea have loaned two teenagers to clubs in Europe’s top five leagues (Jeremie Boga and Victorien Angban, both at Granada) but only Boga makes the list of 57. No other Premier League club is represented. Instead, the Eredivisie (now Europe’s 13th-ranked league) has become the temporary home for many. Marlos Moreno, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Enes Unal are merely the Manchester City players currently at risk of a condition we can call Lucas Piazonitis. Signed in March 2011 at the age of 17, Piazon is still a Chelsea player, now on loan at Fulham after spells with Malaga, Vitesse, Eintracht Frankfurt and Reading. It’s too sweeping to say “well if he was good enough, he’d have made it by now”. At a club where Piazon could have been cherished and played, he may have become a better player. Vital years have been spent as a footballing nomad. Nor are the Premier League academies filled with Europe’s best young talent, neither loaned out nor given first-team opportunities. Chelsea are the only top-flight representative to make waves in the UEFA Youth Champions League, with no other English club reaching the semi-finals since the tournament began in 2013/14. This season, both Arsenal and Tottenham were knocked out in the group stages. The simple explanation is that the Premier League’s transfer activity is increasingly focused on developed (or at least developing) players, the enlarged broadcasting deal persuading clubs to pay the premium for finished products. This is the result of a division engorged by rich clubs. Deloitte’s latest money league (for the 2014/15 season) had 15 current Premier League clubs and two Championship clubs in Europe’s top 30 by revenue. If you were given £500 to buy a cake, you wouldn’t be pondering brands of flour, butter and eggs, but whether your delicious treat will have one or two tiers. The Premier League’s chronic short-termism also doesn’t help, where one or two mistakes become back-page proof of your ineptitude. Managers are asked for continuous improvement, to bolt pieces together while running at full speed. Criticism of Bob Bradley this week accused him of an inability to recruit players intelligently before he’s even been given an opportunity to do so. Buying players, not improving or educating them, becomes the prized skill. Young players understandably get overlooked. There are exceptions, of course. Another CIES report on the average age of squads in Europe’s top five leagues had Tottenham as the Premier League’s only representative in the top 15 (in 15th), with Liverpool also in the top 20. Both clubs are coached by managers with an established and commendable commitment to offering young players a chance, but in both cases that philosophy will be tested when the performance of the team comes under scrutiny. You may be thinking that this is a misplaced worry, that the cream will always find a way to rise to the top. Yet there is a question to be asked: Is a Premier League academy the right place for a talented young player? “The way they showed an interest in me and gave me the feeling they really wanted me convinced me,” said Ousmane Dembele when joining Borussia Dortmund. “Dortmund are the perfect club for young players, the past has shown that.” Renato Sanches’ words mirrored Dembele’s when discussing why he chose Bayern Munich over Manchester United, while Breel Embolo reportedly rejected the same club in favour of Schalke. Jean-Philippe Mateta (Lyon), Oliver Burke (RB Leipzig) and Gabriel Barbosa (Inter) also spurned Premier League offers, citing a desire for regular football. Many others will surely follow suit. In March, the Daily Mail picked their top ten teenagers in the world, which included Embolo, Dembele and Sanches and suggested potential next destinations for all ten. Manchester United and Arsenal were linked with five, Manchester City four, Chelsea three, Liverpool and Tottenham two and Everton, West Brom and West Ham one. Three have since joined Bundesliga clubs and become regulars, one has played in the Champions Legue for Juventus (Moise Kean) while two moved to the Premier League. Keep a look-out for when Tahith Chong (United) and Lorenzo Gonzalez (City) break into the first teams in Manchester. For all the talk of youth development and coaching standards, the biggest test of an academy is not the improvement of players but their progression to the first team. Competitive football (no, not the Checkatrade) is the most vital part of a young player’s development. By that measure, the Premier League is falling further and further behind, suffocated by its own wealth. The highest level of English football is struggling to provide those teenage kicks. http://www.football365.com/news/f365-says-no-teenage-kicks-in-premier-league As I stated earlier scouting and coaching play a massive part. merely playing them if they aren't ready/good enough does them nor their clubs no favours. So you think there's only one player under twenty in the Premier League who is good enough to have started more than 5 games this season? Obviously their coaches/managers think so, if not why not play them ? Because most managers don't trust young players in England and are risk averse to extreme levels Why wouldn't thy trust them when they see them every day in training and playing against first team players ? I don't know mate. Why did Mourinho not give de Bruyne a chance at Chelsea? Why did he buy him in the first place ?

Er - they once played a 17 year old against Arsenal and he scored a hat-trick....his name was Shearer I believe... You know what he's getting at, he means recently (I'd guess since Bale) and I'd guess a bigger reason could be the quality of the kids we are talking about, the coaching they've received etc to get them to that stage, theirs were good enough. It's hardly like we've had floods of kids leave our academy and make it at premiership level even with other clubs. Not many kids make it without getting lots of games when they're 19/20/21 They also have to be good enough to get the games. Are kids in Southampton just naturally better than kids in other parts of England then? Possibly a better scouting system and better coached or are you saying that we would have had players like they've produced purely by chucking kids in ? Well we'll never know but it is all about the culture of the club. If kids see guys from the academy getting a chance they'll become more motivated because they'll begin to think that it's possible if they work hard that they'll get a chance too They'll get that chance if they are good enough. This is bs. The lack of chances given to young English players in the PL is one of the prime reasons there's a dearth of English players. At our club is generally a lack of talent and/or coaching. We haven't developed any significant player with any skill or technique in yonks. I don't think Carroll would've been given the same chance had we not gotten relegated. Subsequently, there's no way he goes for £35m Aye, just so happened to read this article on F365 which sums it up for me. “It is frustrating but I’m not angry that I’m not playing because I understand it’s difficult,” said Marcus Rashford in September, in response to questions over his lack of Manchester United playing opportunities under Jose Mourinho. “We have a lot of big players and a lot of players in my situation as well who are not getting the minutes they probably thought they deserved to get.” Given those frustrations, Rashford may be surprised to learn that he is one of a kind in the Premier League: a teenager playing regular football. A list of players currently aged under 20 with five or more league appearances in Europe’s top five leagues contains 57 names. Ligue Un is (perhaps predictably) the largest provider, with 22. Next comes the Bundesliga with 15, then Serie A with 12 and La Liga with seven. That makes 56; Rashford is the sole Premier League representative. Earlier this week, the CIES Football Observatory produced a report that extended that statistic across Europe, with similar results. It revealed that 87 teenage footballers had played 60% of their side’s league minutes by the end of November. Rashford (placed in 78th with 62%) is once more the only Premier League player who qualifies. The lack of minutes afforded to young English players is a well-documented but important argument, inevitably framed in the context of our national team’s failures. Yet these latest statistics go beyond patriotic concerns. It is not just domestic teenagers who are unable to gain a foothold in the Premier League, but teenagers of any nationality. That suggests that the issue lies with the league rather than the players. Young Premier League players are left waiting for an exceptional circumstance. Ifs and buts aren’t candy and nuts, but if Anthony Martial had not got injured in the warm-up against FC Midtjylland, Rashford would not have started the game in February. It’s hardly a huge leap to suggest that his chance of regular starts may never have come under Louis van Gaal. Would Jose Mourinho’s arrival have really changed that? His record with young players suggests not. The obvious reaction is to suggest that the use of teenagers correlates with the standard of team or league, thus explaining Ligue Un’s high figure. Firstly, that does not account for the relatively high figures in Serie A and Bundesliga, but also the theory of ‘worse teams use more teenagers’ does not stand up to scrutiny. Nine of Germany’s current top ten are represented in that original list of 57, and three of Serie A’s top six. The supposition that English clubs loan out their teenagers rather than play them partly accounts for the shortfall. Chelsea have loaned two teenagers to clubs in Europe’s top five leagues (Jeremie Boga and Victorien Angban, both at Granada) but only Boga makes the list of 57. No other Premier League club is represented. Instead, the Eredivisie (now Europe’s 13th-ranked league) has become the temporary home for many. Marlos Moreno, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Enes Unal are merely the Manchester City players currently at risk of a condition we can call Lucas Piazonitis. Signed in March 2011 at the age of 17, Piazon is still a Chelsea player, now on loan at Fulham after spells with Malaga, Vitesse, Eintracht Frankfurt and Reading. It’s too sweeping to say “well if he was good enough, he’d have made it by now”. At a club where Piazon could have been cherished and played, he may have become a better player. Vital years have been spent as a footballing nomad. Nor are the Premier League academies filled with Europe’s best young talent, neither loaned out nor given first-team opportunities. Chelsea are the only top-flight representative to make waves in the UEFA Youth Champions League, with no other English club reaching the semi-finals since the tournament began in 2013/14. This season, both Arsenal and Tottenham were knocked out in the group stages. The simple explanation is that the Premier League’s transfer activity is increasingly focused on developed (or at least developing) players, the enlarged broadcasting deal persuading clubs to pay the premium for finished products. This is the result of a division engorged by rich clubs. Deloitte’s latest money league (for the 2014/15 season) had 15 current Premier League clubs and two Championship clubs in Europe’s top 30 by revenue. If you were given £500 to buy a cake, you wouldn’t be pondering brands of flour, butter and eggs, but whether your delicious treat will have one or two tiers. The Premier League’s chronic short-termism also doesn’t help, where one or two mistakes become back-page proof of your ineptitude. Managers are asked for continuous improvement, to bolt pieces together while running at full speed. Criticism of Bob Bradley this week accused him of an inability to recruit players intelligently before he’s even been given an opportunity to do so. Buying players, not improving or educating them, becomes the prized skill. Young players understandably get overlooked. There are exceptions, of course. Another CIES report on the average age of squads in Europe’s top five leagues had Tottenham as the Premier League’s only representative in the top 15 (in 15th), with Liverpool also in the top 20. Both clubs are coached by managers with an established and commendable commitment to offering young players a chance, but in both cases that philosophy will be tested when the performance of the team comes under scrutiny. You may be thinking that this is a misplaced worry, that the cream will always find a way to rise to the top. Yet there is a question to be asked: Is a Premier League academy the right place for a talented young player? “The way they showed an interest in me and gave me the feeling they really wanted me convinced me,” said Ousmane Dembele when joining Borussia Dortmund. “Dortmund are the perfect club for young players, the past has shown that.” Renato Sanches’ words mirrored Dembele’s when discussing why he chose Bayern Munich over Manchester United, while Breel Embolo reportedly rejected the same club in favour of Schalke. Jean-Philippe Mateta (Lyon), Oliver Burke (RB Leipzig) and Gabriel Barbosa (Inter) also spurned Premier League offers, citing a desire for regular football. Many others will surely follow suit. In March, the Daily Mail picked their top ten teenagers in the world, which included Embolo, Dembele and Sanches and suggested potential next destinations for all ten. Manchester United and Arsenal were linked with five, Manchester City four, Chelsea three, Liverpool and Tottenham two and Everton, West Brom and West Ham one. Three have since joined Bundesliga clubs and become regulars, one has played in the Champions Legue for Juventus (Moise Kean) while two moved to the Premier League. Keep a look-out for when Tahith Chong (United) and Lorenzo Gonzalez (City) break into the first teams in Manchester. For all the talk of youth development and coaching standards, the biggest test of an academy is not the improvement of players but their progression to the first team. Competitive football (no, not the Checkatrade) is the most vital part of a young player’s development. By that measure, the Premier League is falling further and further behind, suffocated by its own wealth. The highest level of English football is struggling to provide those teenage kicks. http://www.football365.com/news/f365-says-no-teenage-kicks-in-premier-league As I stated earlier scouting and coaching play a massive part. merely playing them if they aren't ready/good enough does them nor their clubs no favours. So you think there's only one player under twenty in the Premier League who is good enough to have started more than 5 games this season? Obviously their coaches/managers think so, if not why not play them ? Because most managers don't trust young players in England and are risk averse to extreme levels Why wouldn't thy trust them when they see them every day in training and playing against first team players ?

Er - they once played a 17 year old against Arsenal and he scored a hat-trick....his name was Shearer I believe... You know what he's getting at, he means recently (I'd guess since Bale) and I'd guess a bigger reason could be the quality of the kids we are talking about, the coaching they've received etc to get them to that stage, theirs were good enough. It's hardly like we've had floods of kids leave our academy and make it at premiership level even with other clubs. Not many kids make it without getting lots of games when they're 19/20/21 They also have to be good enough to get the games. Are kids in Southampton just naturally better than kids in other parts of England then? Possibly a better scouting system and better coached or are you saying that we would have had players like they've produced purely by chucking kids in ? Well we'll never know but it is all about the culture of the club. If kids see guys from the academy getting a chance they'll become more motivated because they'll begin to think that it's possible if they work hard that they'll get a chance too They'll get that chance if they are good enough. This is bs. The lack of chances given to young English players in the PL is one of the prime reasons there's a dearth of English players. At our club is generally a lack of talent and/or coaching. We haven't developed any significant player with any skill or technique in yonks. I don't think Carroll would've been given the same chance had we not gotten relegated. Subsequently, there's no way he goes for £35m Aye, just so happened to read this article on F365 which sums it up for me. “It is frustrating but I’m not angry that I’m not playing because I understand it’s difficult,” said Marcus Rashford in September, in response to questions over his lack of Manchester United playing opportunities under Jose Mourinho. “We have a lot of big players and a lot of players in my situation as well who are not getting the minutes they probably thought they deserved to get.” Given those frustrations, Rashford may be surprised to learn that he is one of a kind in the Premier League: a teenager playing regular football. A list of players currently aged under 20 with five or more league appearances in Europe’s top five leagues contains 57 names. Ligue Un is (perhaps predictably) the largest provider, with 22. Next comes the Bundesliga with 15, then Serie A with 12 and La Liga with seven. That makes 56; Rashford is the sole Premier League representative. Earlier this week, the CIES Football Observatory produced a report that extended that statistic across Europe, with similar results. It revealed that 87 teenage footballers had played 60% of their side’s league minutes by the end of November. Rashford (placed in 78th with 62%) is once more the only Premier League player who qualifies. The lack of minutes afforded to young English players is a well-documented but important argument, inevitably framed in the context of our national team’s failures. Yet these latest statistics go beyond patriotic concerns. It is not just domestic teenagers who are unable to gain a foothold in the Premier League, but teenagers of any nationality. That suggests that the issue lies with the league rather than the players. Young Premier League players are left waiting for an exceptional circumstance. Ifs and buts aren’t candy and nuts, but if Anthony Martial had not got injured in the warm-up against FC Midtjylland, Rashford would not have started the game in February. It’s hardly a huge leap to suggest that his chance of regular starts may never have come under Louis van Gaal. Would Jose Mourinho’s arrival have really changed that? His record with young players suggests not. The obvious reaction is to suggest that the use of teenagers correlates with the standard of team or league, thus explaining Ligue Un’s high figure. Firstly, that does not account for the relatively high figures in Serie A and Bundesliga, but also the theory of ‘worse teams use more teenagers’ does not stand up to scrutiny. Nine of Germany’s current top ten are represented in that original list of 57, and three of Serie A’s top six. The supposition that English clubs loan out their teenagers rather than play them partly accounts for the shortfall. Chelsea have loaned two teenagers to clubs in Europe’s top five leagues (Jeremie Boga and Victorien Angban, both at Granada) but only Boga makes the list of 57. No other Premier League club is represented. Instead, the Eredivisie (now Europe’s 13th-ranked league) has become the temporary home for many. Marlos Moreno, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Enes Unal are merely the Manchester City players currently at risk of a condition we can call Lucas Piazonitis. Signed in March 2011 at the age of 17, Piazon is still a Chelsea player, now on loan at Fulham after spells with Malaga, Vitesse, Eintracht Frankfurt and Reading. It’s too sweeping to say “well if he was good enough, he’d have made it by now”. At a club where Piazon could have been cherished and played, he may have become a better player. Vital years have been spent as a footballing nomad. Nor are the Premier League academies filled with Europe’s best young talent, neither loaned out nor given first-team opportunities. Chelsea are the only top-flight representative to make waves in the UEFA Youth Champions League, with no other English club reaching the semi-finals since the tournament began in 2013/14. This season, both Arsenal and Tottenham were knocked out in the group stages. The simple explanation is that the Premier League’s transfer activity is increasingly focused on developed (or at least developing) players, the enlarged broadcasting deal persuading clubs to pay the premium for finished products. This is the result of a division engorged by rich clubs. Deloitte’s latest money league (for the 2014/15 season) had 15 current Premier League clubs and two Championship clubs in Europe’s top 30 by revenue. If you were given £500 to buy a cake, you wouldn’t be pondering brands of flour, butter and eggs, but whether your delicious treat will have one or two tiers. The Premier League’s chronic short-termism also doesn’t help, where one or two mistakes become back-page proof of your ineptitude. Managers are asked for continuous improvement, to bolt pieces together while running at full speed. Criticism of Bob Bradley this week accused him of an inability to recruit players intelligently before he’s even been given an opportunity to do so. Buying players, not improving or educating them, becomes the prized skill. Young players understandably get overlooked. There are exceptions, of course. Another CIES report on the average age of squads in Europe’s top five leagues had Tottenham as the Premier League’s only representative in the top 15 (in 15th), with Liverpool also in the top 20. Both clubs are coached by managers with an established and commendable commitment to offering young players a chance, but in both cases that philosophy will be tested when the performance of the team comes under scrutiny. You may be thinking that this is a misplaced worry, that the cream will always find a way to rise to the top. Yet there is a question to be asked: Is a Premier League academy the right place for a talented young player? “The way they showed an interest in me and gave me the feeling they really wanted me convinced me,” said Ousmane Dembele when joining Borussia Dortmund. “Dortmund are the perfect club for young players, the past has shown that.” Renato Sanches’ words mirrored Dembele’s when discussing why he chose Bayern Munich over Manchester United, while Breel Embolo reportedly rejected the same club in favour of Schalke. Jean-Philippe Mateta (Lyon), Oliver Burke (RB Leipzig) and Gabriel Barbosa (Inter) also spurned Premier League offers, citing a desire for regular football. Many others will surely follow suit. In March, the Daily Mail picked their top ten teenagers in the world, which included Embolo, Dembele and Sanches and suggested potential next destinations for all ten. Manchester United and Arsenal were linked with five, Manchester City four, Chelsea three, Liverpool and Tottenham two and Everton, West Brom and West Ham one. Three have since joined Bundesliga clubs and become regulars, one has played in the Champions Legue for Juventus (Moise Kean) while two moved to the Premier League. Keep a look-out for when Tahith Chong (United) and Lorenzo Gonzalez (City) break into the first teams in Manchester. For all the talk of youth development and coaching standards, the biggest test of an academy is not the improvement of players but their progression to the first team. Competitive football (no, not the Checkatrade) is the most vital part of a young player’s development. By that measure, the Premier League is falling further and further behind, suffocated by its own wealth. The highest level of English football is struggling to provide those teenage kicks. http://www.football365.com/news/f365-says-no-teenage-kicks-in-premier-league As I stated earlier scouting and coaching play a massive part. merely playing them if they aren't ready/good enough does them nor their clubs no favours. So you think there's only one player under twenty in the Premier League who is good enough to have started more than 5 games this season? Obviously their coaches/managers think so, if not why not play them ?

And that's just Football, you have to assume it was rife throughout all sports and youth stuff.

Er - they once played a 17 year old against Arsenal and he scored a hat-trick....his name was Shearer I believe... You know what he's getting at, he means recently (I'd guess since Bale) and I'd guess a bigger reason could be the quality of the kids we are talking about, the coaching they've received etc to get them to that stage, theirs were good enough. It's hardly like we've had floods of kids leave our academy and make it at premiership level even with other clubs. Not many kids make it without getting lots of games when they're 19/20/21 They also have to be good enough to get the games. Are kids in Southampton just naturally better than kids in other parts of England then? Possibly a better scouting system and better coached or are you saying that we would have had players like they've produced purely by chucking kids in ? Well we'll never know but it is all about the culture of the club. If kids see guys from the academy getting a chance they'll become more motivated because they'll begin to think that it's possible if they work hard that they'll get a chance too They'll get that chance if they are good enough. This is bs. The lack of chances given to young English players in the PL is one of the prime reasons there's a dearth of English players. At our club is generally a lack of talent and/or coaching. We haven't developed any significant player with any skill or technique in yonks. I don't think Carroll would've been given the same chance had we not gotten relegated. Subsequently, there's no way he goes for £35m Aye, just so happened to read this article on F365 which sums it up for me. “It is frustrating but I’m not angry that I’m not playing because I understand it’s difficult,” said Marcus Rashford in September, in response to questions over his lack of Manchester United playing opportunities under Jose Mourinho. “We have a lot of big players and a lot of players in my situation as well who are not getting the minutes they probably thought they deserved to get.” Given those frustrations, Rashford may be surprised to learn that he is one of a kind in the Premier League: a teenager playing regular football. A list of players currently aged under 20 with five or more league appearances in Europe’s top five leagues contains 57 names. Ligue Un is (perhaps predictably) the largest provider, with 22. Next comes the Bundesliga with 15, then Serie A with 12 and La Liga with seven. That makes 56; Rashford is the sole Premier League representative. Earlier this week, the CIES Football Observatory produced a report that extended that statistic across Europe, with similar results. It revealed that 87 teenage footballers had played 60% of their side’s league minutes by the end of November. Rashford (placed in 78th with 62%) is once more the only Premier League player who qualifies. The lack of minutes afforded to young English players is a well-documented but important argument, inevitably framed in the context of our national team’s failures. Yet these latest statistics go beyond patriotic concerns. It is not just domestic teenagers who are unable to gain a foothold in the Premier League, but teenagers of any nationality. That suggests that the issue lies with the league rather than the players. Young Premier League players are left waiting for an exceptional circumstance. Ifs and buts aren’t candy and nuts, but if Anthony Martial had not got injured in the warm-up against FC Midtjylland, Rashford would not have started the game in February. It’s hardly a huge leap to suggest that his chance of regular starts may never have come under Louis van Gaal. Would Jose Mourinho’s arrival have really changed that? His record with young players suggests not. The obvious reaction is to suggest that the use of teenagers correlates with the standard of team or league, thus explaining Ligue Un’s high figure. Firstly, that does not account for the relatively high figures in Serie A and Bundesliga, but also the theory of ‘worse teams use more teenagers’ does not stand up to scrutiny. Nine of Germany’s current top ten are represented in that original list of 57, and three of Serie A’s top six. The supposition that English clubs loan out their teenagers rather than play them partly accounts for the shortfall. Chelsea have loaned two teenagers to clubs in Europe’s top five leagues (Jeremie Boga and Victorien Angban, both at Granada) but only Boga makes the list of 57. No other Premier League club is represented. Instead, the Eredivisie (now Europe’s 13th-ranked league) has become the temporary home for many. Marlos Moreno, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Enes Unal are merely the Manchester City players currently at risk of a condition we can call Lucas Piazonitis. Signed in March 2011 at the age of 17, Piazon is still a Chelsea player, now on loan at Fulham after spells with Malaga, Vitesse, Eintracht Frankfurt and Reading. It’s too sweeping to say “well if he was good enough, he’d have made it by now”. At a club where Piazon could have been cherished and played, he may have become a better player. Vital years have been spent as a footballing nomad. Nor are the Premier League academies filled with Europe’s best young talent, neither loaned out nor given first-team opportunities. Chelsea are the only top-flight representative to make waves in the UEFA Youth Champions League, with no other English club reaching the semi-finals since the tournament began in 2013/14. This season, both Arsenal and Tottenham were knocked out in the group stages. The simple explanation is that the Premier League’s transfer activity is increasingly focused on developed (or at least developing) players, the enlarged broadcasting deal persuading clubs to pay the premium for finished products. This is the result of a division engorged by rich clubs. Deloitte’s latest money league (for the 2014/15 season) had 15 current Premier League clubs and two Championship clubs in Europe’s top 30 by revenue. If you were given £500 to buy a cake, you wouldn’t be pondering brands of flour, butter and eggs, but whether your delicious treat will have one or two tiers. The Premier League’s chronic short-termism also doesn’t help, where one or two mistakes become back-page proof of your ineptitude. Managers are asked for continuous improvement, to bolt pieces together while running at full speed. Criticism of Bob Bradley this week accused him of an inability to recruit players intelligently before he’s even been given an opportunity to do so. Buying players, not improving or educating them, becomes the prized skill. Young players understandably get overlooked. There are exceptions, of course. Another CIES report on the average age of squads in Europe’s top five leagues had Tottenham as the Premier League’s only representative in the top 15 (in 15th), with Liverpool also in the top 20. Both clubs are coached by managers with an established and commendable commitment to offering young players a chance, but in both cases that philosophy will be tested when the performance of the team comes under scrutiny. You may be thinking that this is a misplaced worry, that the cream will always find a way to rise to the top. Yet there is a question to be asked: Is a Premier League academy the right place for a talented young player? “The way they showed an interest in me and gave me the feeling they really wanted me convinced me,” said Ousmane Dembele when joining Borussia Dortmund. “Dortmund are the perfect club for young players, the past has shown that.” Renato Sanches’ words mirrored Dembele’s when discussing why he chose Bayern Munich over Manchester United, while Breel Embolo reportedly rejected the same club in favour of Schalke. Jean-Philippe Mateta (Lyon), Oliver Burke (RB Leipzig) and Gabriel Barbosa (Inter) also spurned Premier League offers, citing a desire for regular football. Many others will surely follow suit. In March, the Daily Mail picked their top ten teenagers in the world, which included Embolo, Dembele and Sanches and suggested potential next destinations for all ten. Manchester United and Arsenal were linked with five, Manchester City four, Chelsea three, Liverpool and Tottenham two and Everton, West Brom and West Ham one. Three have since joined Bundesliga clubs and become regulars, one has played in the Champions Legue for Juventus (Moise Kean) while two moved to the Premier League. Keep a look-out for when Tahith Chong (United) and Lorenzo Gonzalez (City) break into the first teams in Manchester. For all the talk of youth development and coaching standards, the biggest test of an academy is not the improvement of players but their progression to the first team. Competitive football (no, not the Checkatrade) is the most vital part of a young player’s development. By that measure, the Premier League is falling further and further behind, suffocated by its own wealth. The highest level of English football is struggling to provide those teenage kicks. http://www.football365.com/news/f365-says-no-teenage-kicks-in-premier-league As I stated earlier scouting and coaching play a massive part. merely playing them if they aren't ready/good enough does them nor their clubs no favours.

It's ebbing away anyway, fewer people are doing it game by game and I couldn't really give a toss if people want to do it or not.

You're forgetting the likes of Shane Ferguson, Jak Alnwick, Sammy Ameobi, Bigirimana and there'll be more. All given a chance but just weren't good enough. It's one of the things I'm most interested with Rafa, seeing if there is a change in how we bring kids through.

Er - they once played a 17 year old against Arsenal and he scored a hat-trick....his name was Shearer I believe... You know what he's getting at, he means recently (I'd guess since Bale) and I'd guess a bigger reason could be the quality of the kids we are talking about, the coaching they've received etc to get them to that stage, theirs were good enough. It's hardly like we've had floods of kids leave our academy and make it at premiership level even with other clubs. Not many kids make it without getting lots of games when they're 19/20/21 They also have to be good enough to get the games. Are kids in Southampton just naturally better than kids in other parts of England then? Possibly a better scouting system and better coached or are you saying that we would have had players like they've produced purely by chucking kids in ? Well we'll never know but it is all about the culture of the club. If kids see guys from the academy getting a chance they'll become more motivated because they'll begin to think that it's possible if they work hard that they'll get a chance too They'll get that chance if they are good enough.

Er - they once played a 17 year old against Arsenal and he scored a hat-trick....his name was Shearer I believe... You know what he's getting at, he means recently (I'd guess since Bale) and I'd guess a bigger reason could be the quality of the kids we are talking about, the coaching they've received etc to get them to that stage, theirs were good enough. It's hardly like we've had floods of kids leave our academy and make it at premiership level even with other clubs. Not many kids make it without getting lots of games when they're 19/20/21 They also have to be good enough to get the games. Are kids in Southampton just naturally better than kids in other parts of England then? Possibly a better scouting system and better coached or are you saying that we would have had players like they've produced purely by chucking kids in ?

Right then, there's a couple of things in there that have me thinking and would like input from the old gits on here. Our PE teacher 1976-80 (aged 9-13) insisted on no underwear under PE gear (to be fair I still never wear keks under shorts) and he'd watch us now and again in the showers, there'd be about 20 in there at a time (loads of kids in the shower can be dangerous, I saw two split heads and one broken arm from larking about), now though I wonder and that's horrible. We weren't allowed to wear underpants under our shorts for PE either unless we had brought a spare pair and had to prove it. (same era). he also sometimes made us have cold showers as well and made sure we stayed in their with no one allowed out as if "we didn't the cold showers we must be puffs". Do you see anything pervy in it now, looking back ? It just seemed like the norm and something we'd been warned about by other kids before leaving primary school and going to the big school. Not sure what to think now looking back as it's over 35 years ago, but I know my kids don't have showers after pe at school, seems to have been stopped. It wasn't even a warning as we didn't see there was anything to be warned about. Nowt was going on, it's just when you read stuff it makes you wonder if the teacher was getting off on it. I don't think he was but it's awful even having to consider it.

Er - they once played a 17 year old against Arsenal and he scored a hat-trick....his name was Shearer I believe... You know what he's getting at, he means recently (I'd guess since Bale) and I'd guess a bigger reason could be the quality of the kids we are talking about, the coaching they've received etc to get them to that stage, theirs were good enough. It's hardly like we've had floods of kids leave our academy and make it at premiership level even with other clubs. Not many kids make it without getting lots of games when they're 19/20/21 They also have to be good enough to get the games.

Right then, there's a couple of things in there that have me thinking and would like input from the old gits on here. Our PE teacher 1976-80 (aged 9-13) insisted on no underwear under PE gear (to be fair I still never wear keks under shorts) and he'd watch us now and again in the showers, there'd be about 20 in there at a time (loads of kids in the shower can be dangerous, I saw two split heads and one broken arm from larking about), now though I wonder and that's horrible. We weren't allowed to wear underpants under our shorts for PE either unless we had brought a spare pair and had to prove it. (same era). he also sometimes made us have cold showers as well and made sure we stayed in their with no one allowed out as if "we didn't the cold showers we must be puffs". Do you see anything pervy in it now, looking back ?

Right then, there's a couple of things in there that have me thinking and would like input from the old gits on here. Our PE teacher 1976-80 (aged 9-13) insisted on no underwear under PE gear (to be fair I still never wear keks under shorts) and he'd watch us now and again in the showers, there'd be about 20 in there at a time (loads of kids in the shower can be dangerous, I saw two split heads and one broken arm from larking about), now though I wonder and that's horrible.

It's a release clause not a price tag or transfer fee.

Er - they once played a 17 year old against Arsenal and he scored a hat-trick....his name was Shearer I believe... You know what he's getting at, he means recently (I'd guess since Bale) and I'd guess a bigger reason could be the quality of the kids we are talking about, the coaching they've received etc to get them to that stage, theirs were good enough. It's hardly like we've had floods of kids leave our academy and make it at premiership level even with other clubs.

Err, I've never said this like He literally said a week or so ago that he was wanting to try Mitrovic out with Gayle. My issue, if I've got one, would be people saying he's too reserved and that we'd be blowing teams out the water if we switched to 4-4-2. This despite us being top of the league and the league's highest scorers playing the system that Rafa's played since Valencia (?) It's always worked for him and if he thinks it's what we're best playing with at the moment I'm not going to argue. The worry I have with this 4-2-3-1 is that it's quite rigid, we rarely see the supposed no10 get beyond the forward. Also the way people are going on it's like they are stuck in that formation and that pattern stays rigid and slides up and down the pitch as one. Many teams play with a nominal 2 up front but it's really more of a target man and support striker role and one of them dropping in when the opposition have the ball which could be called a 4-4-1-1 or even a 4-2-3-1 if the central two never ever ever get in advance of the forward.

Rafa should do what's best for the club rather than his system then ?