Quote Originally Posted by Loramski View Post
Burns had only played 21 Championship games before this season. He struggled to get games with Bristol City even after they were relegated, they sent him on loan five times before letting him go to League 1 Fleetwood in 2017.

Poole ended up playing one minute for Man Utd (in a European game where Rashford made his debut). He hasn't played in the Championship as of yet, although it's only a matter of time I'd have thought. He was doing well at Portsmouth before his ACL injury.

Lockyer played nearly 300 games in Leagues 1 and 2, as well as the Conference, before he played in the Championship.

Bristol City gave up with Burns and sold him, the other two players let their contracts run down at Bristol Rovers and Lincoln so any Prem or Championship club could've picked them up for nothing. The fact that the three went to Fleetwood, Charlton and Portsmouth suggests it wasn't just us who didn't see a lot of potential there. As Trigger said, it's easy with hindsight.
It's a fair argument for Lockyer, who has said that leaving to play in the lower leagues made him the player he is. And, to an extent, Burns (although it's worth noting Fleetwood made the League 1 play-offs in two of the seasons he was there, one of which he won POTY. So it's not like he had to drop to the depths to prove himself).

I disagree with Regan Poole though. Poole was told he was too small to play U16s football (as was Lockyer, incidentally), but within 2 months someone at Newport decided he was big enough to play senior men's football. That's not a case of hindsight, that was awful judgement at the time (and I remember Danny Gabbidon who was involved in the club at that point, saying as much). Either he had one hell of a growth spurt in those 2 months, or someone wasn't doing their job properly.

As I said, I'm not talking about players released at 18/19 here. I'm talking about 14 and 15 years of age, with several years of development still ahead. If our production line had been churning out talent after talent over the last 15 years, you could say "OK a few slipped through the net". But given the absolute dearth of quality academy players coming through in that time, I don't think it's an unfair point.

I find it hard to believe that each of those players could have racked up hundreds of Football League games without showing any potential at 14. Especially when you consider that 95% of their teammates in those youth teams have gone on to do absolutely nothing in football.

Of course there's always an element of luck, I get that. Players develop at different rates. Coaches get calls wrong and rejected players become more determined to prove themselves. But over the last 15 years, City's academy hasn't got much right - and they got a few big ones wrong.