Seamus Colemole
Previously deathbyropeandglass
My conclusion is that it is much harder to ease youth team players into the first team squad when you are battling for European places rather than when you are mid-table and dropped points don't matter as much.
Yet last year when we had little chance of Europe in the league and were still in the FA cup even then people said we couldn't risk a young player because they might make a mistake and cost us a point and in our financial position every league place counts. Which is the same financial position which means its more important for us to produce first team players through our academy than it is most other clubs.
We don't have cash to spend, so a constant stream of first team players from the youth ranks would improve the first XI, it'd add depth to the squad, and it'd also give us some income from any we sold on. I mean at United even relatively average players like Richardson earnt the club a good few million in transfer fees.
As Bruce states. I'm not really interested in what other managers did in other eras or what other managers are doing at other clubs. Its so very very important for us right now that young players make that step up from reserves to first team. But in recent years its really not happening.
Why has been debated on here numerous times but the fact is we're just not doing as well as we need to because our squad is still too damn small and it hurts us.