Becoming a PL player isn’t a linear thing like Football Manager. We’ve had loads of players who were highly rated as kids stagnate or regress as they get older. The culture of the club isn’t helpful to these kids as they only get a chance if there’s an injury crisis, and this probably reduces their motivation and ambition to get better as they can’t see a clear pathway to the first team. By the time the likes of Vuckic, Bigi, Aarons leave Newcastle they are miles behind players of their own age who they were once the equal of or better than. All three of those players and more like Kemen and Mbabu were hand selected by us at a young age from outside our academy so they were obviously really talented players. The list of these players is so long now that I don’t think its a coincidence that all our highly rated young players fall apart at 20/21