5-2 now. Foden again. What a goal

Something going right at England youth level. They looked really good throughout that tournament. Foden in particular looked great, but of course he's at Man City so never likely to play for them. Be interesting to see where he ends up.

He is rated highly by them but their squad is so strong it may be in his interest to develop elsewhere.
Back to England, to say i am shocked at winning both the u-17 and u-20 tournaments (in the same year) is an understatement.
With Arsenal players like Emile Smith-Rowe being peripheral, there's very little emotional attachment.

Maitland Niles was peripheral too in the u20 victory. Like I said, we gamble on very little talents at youth levels compared to the other top clubs. Most of the best performing players in the youth tournaments are already at big clubs.

I would be shocked if Pep dont give Foden a chance. He is exactly the type of midfielder he loves. Such a shame we didn't get Sancho.

Foden has just turned 17, if I were him I'd have my eye on Silva's spot in the squad who's going to be 32 soon.

That being said it wouldn't shock me if City, despite all their good intentions, ended up buying someone for millions and Foden finds his opportunities limited.

Clrnc wrote:

Maitland Niles was peripheral too in the u20 victory. Like I said, we gamble on very little talents at youth levels compared to the other top clubs. Most of the best performing players in the youth tournaments are already at big clubs.

I wouldn't put too much stock in these things. You go back and look at any given youth team and two things will stand out: 1) The really great generations, like the one that dominated everything in Barca between 2006-2012, came together early, but those only happen once every few decades. And 2), the rest is pure randomness. Most of the players people expect to break big will never actually make much waves. This is a good opportunity to post this picture again:

The best one by a long shot in that team is Walcott, and he turned into roughly 1/10th of the player everyone expected him to be.

There's an added incentive in youth players nowadays because you can sell them for much higher fees than in the past, and Chelsea have turned this morally questionable habit into an art form. As far as talent development goes I wouldn't pay too much attention to who's prolific at U20 level though.

This team was formed by tabloid and in those days England didn't achieve anything in youth football either. The golden generations who perform well at youth levels generally will do well at senior level too. E.g. Germany, Portugal. U17 WC is a bit of random, given that most of the time the team who win it is the one who have players who developed faster physically over their peers. A quick look at the individual award winners at this level gives you Fabregas, Anderson, Kroos, Donovan, Vela, Iheanacho but the rest are all rubbish players.

A better bet is the u20 world cup. With the exception of golden glove winners, since keepers peak much later, majority of the players who shone went on to do well in their career. A study previously showed that for teams who made it to the QFs and beyond, an average of about 60% in the first team lineup will make it in their career and perform well at a high level. If you looked at the recent u20 world cup, most of these players are already at a big club. Juve, PSG, Madrid etc.

10 year anniversary of World Soccer's 50 most exciting teenagers list in 2007. 

They got a few of them right! 

This list is a great reminder of just how tough it is to project where talent will end up.
That top 5 was a wash. Pato was the only close thing. Fellaini at 20.
If I were to pick 9 players from that list it would be Bale (6), Augero (7), Di Maria (11), Benzama (15), Kroos (27), Ozil (37) Sanchez (42), Rakitic (45) and Banega(50).

Tbh 15-20 of those players went onto become established names - that's a fairly decent record.

So what now with England? Do people still diss their youth setup? There's always a big disconnect pointing to the youth system when criticising senior performances. The lag in translating new policies into real impact is never taken into account.

Mirth wrote:

Tbh 15-20 of those players went onto become established names - that's a fairly decent record.

But that's mostly because they were pretty obvious picks, no? Either they came through their academy and started performing for the first team at a high level (Benzema), made waves at for their youth national teams (Kroos) or were already bought for huge fees (Pato, Anderson, Agüero). Not to say it's a poor list but I reckon if we did a list here today the result wouldn't be worse.

Fair point - a lot of those that made it were already at big clubs when the list was published. It's not quite as bold a claim.

jones wrote:
Mirth wrote:

Tbh 15-20 of those players went onto become established names - that's a fairly decent record.

But that's mostly because they were pretty obvious picks, no? Either they came through their academy and started performing for the first team at a high level (Benzema), made waves at for their youth national teams (Kroos) or were already bought for huge fees (Pato, Anderson, Agüero). Not to say it's a poor list but I reckon if we did a list here today the result wouldn't be worse.

Yes. This was basically my point above. Sure the U20 gives you a decent overview of the bulk of the next generation, but we're not talking about finding players who go on to become decent Premier League level footballers. We're talking about identifying guys who'll help you win trophies and titles.

jones wrote:
Mirth wrote:

Tbh 15-20 of those players went onto become established names - that's a fairly decent record.

But that's mostly because they were pretty obvious picks, no? Either they came through their academy and started performing for the first team at a high level (Benzema), made waves at for their youth national teams (Kroos) or were already bought for huge fees (Pato, Anderson, Agüero). Not to say it's a poor list but I reckon if we did a list here today the result wouldn't be worse.

Which is the point I'm making, all these players that have any sort of potential has been snapped up by big clubs.

But not really. I mean Gareth Bale was still at Southampton when he was Maitland-Niles's age. Tottenham grabbed him when he was 19. Griezmann, to name a recent player who won the golden boot during the real Euros and not an U20 tournament, was at Sociedad until he was like 23. Diego Godín has arguably been the best defender in the world these last three years and he didn't make waves until he was in his mid-20s.

Fair enough, we didn't gamble on those players either.

Stockpiling on youth talents is such an easy thing to do for big clubs nowadays. Even if they don't make it, you will be able to sell them for a good profit. You just need that 1 or 2 to make it for the entire investment to pay off. The last player we gambled on from these tournament is probably Vela.

No point in stockpiling those talents if we're not going to make use of them. It used to be Wenger's calling card but there are so many managers around in Europe and even in England who nurture talent better than he does. 100% agree we need to step our scouting network up but even more crucial is having a manager who could help those talents reach their potential

Also many others have gone through the academies of those clubs. There are no favelas in North London so it's not likely the next Ronaldinho will come from Hackney but what we can do is sign talents very early on like we did with Bellerin or Bayern did with Kroos

Look at our side tonight, it's not like there's no room for quality kids to get game time at Arsenal.

WTF!

Evra kicks the fan and gets a red card!