Armand Traore

[Özim]

Barcelona is a good example of this, they have a good bunch of players promoted from the academy over the years Puyol, Xavi and Messi are all diffeerent batches of youth. They add Ibra, Ronaldinho, Henry, Mascherano, Villa, Alves etc to that mix where they cannot find quality in-house replacements

Barca's youngsters have been significantly better than ours in reality and they don't focus on the youth policy as we do.

They have and always will buy in top players (at very high prices though), the fact they bring through young players is pretty amazing considering the talent these players are up against, they're a good example of how you can bring through top young players without it being your sole focus.

The issue with our policy is that for years all we've card about is the kids, there's no balance and we've not repaed the rewards of the policy we've adopted.

With the amount of resources we've spent on youht I would have expected better results in terms of the quality coming through, there's 2-3 that have been good the rest are nothing special.

[server too busy!]

But look how long its taken Barcelona to be this good a team, it didn't happen over night. Xavi is well into his 30s and the team is ageing, its taken them many years to get to this level and I don't think they will again. Its just a golden era like the old Utd team.

[selassie]

If Clichy is sold could he be our new first choice left back?

He's garbage.

[Flavs]

But look how long its taken Barcelona to be this good a team, it didn't happen over night. Xavi is well into his 30s and the team is ageing, its taken them many years to get to this level and I don't think they will again. Its just a golden era like the old Utd team.

Barca are like AC milan in that they go in cycles brilliant and win everything and then drop off while they sell loads of players, buy a load of players and supplement it with youth and then wait while it all gels then come back strong again.

Think back to the teams of the past? The Stoichkov team, the Ronaldinho team and now this, what happened in betwen? Same for AC The Baresi, Gullit team, then the Maldini and Seedorf lot and now this new lot.

[The Verminator]

He's garbage.

I don't rate him either. I wouldn't rule out what I asked becoming true however. Probably not though...I hope!

[Darth Vela]

The reason is it's been our whole focus for years and yet it's hard to tell if we're any better at finding young talent than anyone else who doesn't focus on a youth policy.

Considering the amount of money and players and time we've spent on the youth policy I'd say it's not been much of a success.

It's about the development as much as simply spotting potential. Wilshere is the first of a new wave, the guys who've grown up the Arsene way, if none of the others are able to follow him then sure, it'll be a failure but until then I don't think you can class it as a complete failure.

Anyway, I don't think Traore will be back in the squad next season whether it's a loan or a permanent, Pedro will be coming in along with maybe other wingers and, if Clichy goes, we must replace him with someone who's ready, like Baines, so he won't gt a look in at LB either.

[Özim]

It's about the development as much as simply spotting potential. Wilshere is the first of a new wave, the guys who've grown up the Arsene way, if none of the others are able to follow him then sure, it'll be a failure but until then I don't think you can class it as a complete failure.

Anyway, I don't think Traore will be back in the squad next season whether it's a loan or a permanent, Pedro will be coming in along with maybe other wingers and, if Clichy goes, we must replace him with someone who's ready, like Baines, so he won't gt a look in at LB either.

To be fair when AW first arrived he had a 10 year plan regarding bringing youngsters through, whilst Wilshere has broken through and been very good he seems to be the only one so far, it wouldn't have been unfair to have expected a few more.

Not sure any of the other youngsters will make it either.

[Flavs]

To be fair when AW first arrived he had a 10 year plan regarding bringing youngsters through, whilst Wilshere has broken through and been very good he seems to be the only one so far, it wouldn't have been unfair to have expected a few more.

Not sure any of the other youngsters will make it either.

Why arent you including Theo, Cesc, Clichy, Bendtner, Djorou, Gibbs, James Harper, Steve Sidwell, Jay Bothroyd, Fabrice Muamba and so on?

[Darth Vela]

To be fair when AW first arrived he had a 10 year plan regarding bringing youngsters through, whilst Wilshere has broken through and been very good he seems to be the only one so far, it wouldn't have been unfair to have expected a few more.

Not sure any of the other youngsters will make it either.

Yep, Wilshere is the first as we've all witnessed his great talent (apologies for the hyperbole but it's true imo) so after one year of this 10 year mark, you're willing to write it off? One year? Really?

I'm not sure any of the others will make it either, that's a major part of youth development, you throw shit at the wall and see what sticks but we've got the stickiest shit...don't think I should carry this analogy any further but the point is we've brought a fair few youth guys into our team in this time, with varying success admittedly, but Cesc/Clichy/Bendtner/Flamini/Djourou have all come through and played regularly in our first team along with Muamba/Bentley/Pennant/Larsson/Sidwell who have all played in the Premiership to reasonable success (although Bentley's now in the Championship ).

[Mr.Singh]

Implementing a youth policy is a long term thing.....you need to understand only 10 players out of 40 will have a future at the club.....barcas team has only a few la masia cadets.It takes years to develop class players look at united for example, have they produced class players expect the beckham and co.