I know youth is important, but this article is rather pointless really.

Yes recent development needs to improve.
However, considering our catchement area etc, had Martin sustained his early form that wouldn't be a bed return for the academy, coupled with recent appearances by Shackell (before we sold him).
His failure is more down to the lad himself, and man management by the first team not academy staff.

Its this point that annoys me most:Among them were Darren Eadie, Craig Bellamy, Danny Mills, Keith O' Neill, Daryl Sutch, Andy Marshall and Andy Johnson - not a bad nucleus of a team.

Go back a bit earlier and you can add Ruel Fox, Jeremy Goss and Chris Sutton to the list of notable youth team successes.

Ok. He briefly mentions the academy rule change later on, but have a look at those players. How many of them would be allowed to sign for norwich now? Its pointless comparing past glories with current production. We simply cannot bring the quality into the academy that we used to.
Yes we may have missed one or two over the last decade, but its not like lists of players are being missed by city and making careers elsewhere.
The academy, under current rules, is only likely to give us 1 or 2 first team players every 3 or 4 years now.
That's a decent return.
We've been below that recentlt, and he rightly points out that needs to improve.
To compare it with the past is utterly utterly pointless though.

Posted By: megson, Feb 13, 12:05:18