Always amazes me that so many other academies are stuffed with signed in players from overseas pro-clubs.
We've got Iverson (and Hansen but he wasn't from a pro club) but United have 5 (at least) in that squad.
I guess the counter argument is that if you spot that you have poor years coming through early, u15, u16 s say are poor then you can do something about it in the u18s rather than in the U23s . Apply that to us and you'd have to say that we've had poor u18s in the past few seasons, and as a result this season our U23s is chock full of players we signed from other clubs and were not with us as 1st year Scholars at 16.
We could nearly put out an U23s team of outfielders that we've bought in , just missing another defender e.g. Foulds, Gibson, Markelo, xxx; Adeniran , Bowler, Donkor; Henen , Mathis, Sambou. I've put a bit of license into their playing positions but it illustrates that we sometimes have very few "home grown" players in our U23s . Maybe Utd have tackled the problem earlier , we've done it later and spent money in doing so .
None of the current u18s are putting their hands up as being ready to play in the U23s , which is something that marks out good players at an early age, the ability to play up an age or two. Maybe Gordon will be the one this season. I love watching the 18s /23s if I can get a stream but I accept that our strategy now is to buy in young players if we like them or have identified a weakness in our teams.
