Just proves that 40 goals a seasons on kids academy pitches mean nothing, whether you are at Forest Green on £100 a week or Chelsea on £5k a week. For every Abraham, there will sadly be 20 Ugbo's. Clubs will hopefully suss that it is a gamble not worth taking and in turn that will stop the big clubs hoovering up 'talent'. We can live in hope.
A lot depends on availability of positions in the first team. If we’re strong in the midfield areas for eg, then it’s going to be tougher for a young midfielder to breakthrough. Jon Parkin is a poor eg. because, as I understood it, he left for alleged disciplinary reasons and his alleged poor attitude/behaviour when loaned out. Noble- Lazarus was going to be The next big Academy find, but unfortunately it didn’t work out for him or us. After watching Danny Rose in the youth and Reserve teams I thought he was going to become the next Kevin Phillips, sadly what I saw of him in the first team didn’t make me think this would happen. It can also depend on where you are in the league, relegation scraps are not always the best environments to debut the youngsters. There are so many variables at play when considering playing a promising youth player,and if they actually establish themselves in the first team/ squad, including good old Lady Luck
