The problem you have, Mike, is you're sat at the end of the conveyor built waiting for the wrapped up present but not paying attention to what happens along the way. Simply thinking sacking Unsworth will give us PL level academy players is quite frankly insane as it is not the root cause of the problem. If we had a bunch of Ross Barkley's in the U18's who got to the U23's and never progress I'd agree, but we don't and we haven't.
People point to other PL teams like Saints and Norwich etc. playing youngsters but just because they're young doesn't mean they're very good. Saints gave debuts to Yan Valery and Will Smallbone when they were around 19 but do you think those two players, at 19, are players you'd want in our squad? Not at all. Teams lower in the table, without the expectatons around our club, can afford to play youngsters how are just okay. The complete anomalies that are Chelsea and City have so much more money and pull than we do in the academy. I mean even look across the park - how many PL talents have the RS brought through in the last 10 years?
Here is the U18 squad from 10 years ago. I'll skip through all the squads to now and tell you who I personally thought/think are PL level talents:
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/everton-fc-u18/startseite/verein/6920?saison_id=2011
Ryan Ledson - Highly promising, we all thought he'd maybe come through, he left for minutes and is slowly working his way to a high level.
Keiran Dowell - Coaching didn't hold him back, he held himself back. Is now in the PL for Norwich.
Tom Davies - PL player
Liam Walsh - Same as Ledson with physicality holding him back too not coaching.
Antonee Robinson - Personally never really thought he was all that but has shown he's probably a bottom half PL left-back.
Antony Evans - Held himself back, never really pushed himself on.
Beni Baningime - Honestly thought he could have done a job for us; never let us down when he played.
Anthony Gordon - I do think he's a PL level player but maybe not our level yet.
Ellis Simms - I don't think he's PL level yet and maybe never will be.
Ryan Astley - Bigged up when he was 16 but he's most certainly not got the physical stature to be a PL centre-half
We have a few now that are getting bigged up: Dobbin, Onyango, Welch, Campbell, Small etc. but it's a bit early for them and even then I'm not really sure any will make it here. Remember everything is subjective and some on the forum rate players more than others. They
all need the eye test.
As you can see it is not a case of Unsworth holding players back it's just the talent was never really there to begin with.
