I shared the Dortmund article on twitter the other day, I thought it was also very interesting. I do understand the discussion about it and in truth both sides of the debate are correct. There are a number of objective factors that make it easier for European clubs to run successful academy teams, but also that as a club we should be using the likes of Dortmund (in truth there are about half a dozen German teas, Lille, Monaco, Sociedad, Bilbao) etc as models.
There seems to be a coherency and an aggression in terms of what they are trying to do which I like at Dortmund. It is an ethos that is built across the club. They accept losing top players but put a lot back into the system. That makes a lot of sense to me.
I think we need to be much bolder in terms of signing young players. I know we have an academy ban, but when thats lifted I'd like to see us be bolder and more aggressive. I mentioned Sancho when he left City being the perfect sort of signing we ought to have made. Brewster from Liverpool dithered over his contract, he'd have been another really smart signing. Each summer I do think we need to try and pick off some of the better talents at top teams academies who won't get game time.
In general we have a good record of buying younger players who have played first team football. That has been really fruitful for us, Holgate, Stones, Calvert Lewin, Lookman etc, hopefully Braithwaite is the next. This should eb continued.
It has been reported Brands is heavily scouting the French youth leagues. We seemed to try for South American younger players too (Sosa was close by all accounts) and we wanted a young Italian left back. I do think as things move forward, and we begin to become more stable and hopefully in Europe we can start to add more of these types of signings each summer and can supplement the local talent pool (which we do need to get a bit better at).
The culture needs to be implemented throughout the club though. In fairness to Brands, he said from moment one he wanted to build the team around Lookman, Calvert Lewin and Richarlinson. Lookman was immature and lost that sport but he was right on the other 2. We haven't bought another 2 players and they have flourished. It would be handy if a similar approach would allow Lewis Gibson to come into the squad as a 4th choice next season.
Walsh actually had a bit of a go at replicating this. You look at Gibson, Lookman, Adeniran, Bowler, Markelo, Calvert Lewin, Vlasic , Onyekuru and Sandro. Not all of them have been a success but there was a big effort to recruit younger players. We have to have the structure right above that, but we are getting there.