Quote Originally Posted by thehumblegringo View Post
That's true but there has definitely been a change recently whereas clubs are willing to put young players in but it's noticable that this is only happening where clubs play a more progressive style of football. Norwich is probably the greatest example of this at the moment and if you look into their current structure it's incredibly impressive. They even have a loans manager who picks clubs suited to the kids development and tracks every fine detail of their progress.

I fear that we haven't got the fan base to allow us to implement a new style of play as this just couldn't happen overnight.

I fear for your cousin as he shouldn't be playing with his own age group at 18. I wonder if results are more important than individual development? Either that or the fact that the divide between academy and first team is a chasm therefore the management of the first team don't trust the academy and the management of the academy don't trust the first team!
Norwich and their recruitment are light years ahead of us. They are signing unknown foreigners for peanuts and we are signing the likes of Bacuna and giving him 4.5 year deals.

I don’t even know if the kids at the club are any good anyway but there definitely doesn’t seem a path through to the first team for any youngsters. You only have to look at the teams fielded in the cups this season.

Not many of the youngsters who’s paths have been blocked in the past have amounted to much but I do wonder if some of them suffered because of the system.