I mean, it's regrettable that we lost one of our best talents. However, youth recruitment has been neglected with no effort made on improving the academy even in the Shepherd era. The only breakthroughs in more recent years have been Ameobi, Carroll and Dummett. Promising prospect Woodman didn't get much game time. And your older brother didn't break into NUFC's first team either. Then you have those spanking new facilities that other clubs built.
Had we focused on improving the club, including the academy, things might have been very different.