Good post, but we have form with missed-boats regarding young players who end up being world-class.
We let go of Eric Harrison who famously ended up discovering & coaching Man Utd's 90's golden generation.
When we did finally have a world-class young lad in the first-team (Rooney) we sell him off at the earliest opportunity.
Binning off Haaland is one more to add to the pile.
Cuz you're looking at us - Arsenal have the same series of flops (if not worse - rejected Gullit, Zlatan, Harry Kane etc.) and the fact someone discovered and coached a golden generation doesn't mean the same thing happens here - we had a brilliant and sought after DoF who made Leicester profitable (and also champions lol ) but we didn't let him work. Also for a golden generation you also need the players to sign for your team like lol Probably a reason why he left, and also Fergie has as much of a hand in those players' development as Harrison after all.
FWIW wasn't Harrison with us for about a decade of not a lot of youths coming through (or at least not to that level, there were some quality players obviously)? Some would say he wasn't without a chance to do that...
Taking a punt on any youngster (or all we're offered) is unnecessary, and saying we missed a player because he was on trial when he was 14-15 for a grand total of 4 days is nonsense.
Would you say Kane was good before he actually started shining for Spurs? Nah, he was crap, he didn't score goals, he got rejected - it made sense at the time. However, at Arsenal's academy he was told he's not gonna make it and moved on. Not every player's progress is linear - it depends where you are, how much you try, etc., just like any walk of life. It's great to say we've missed things with the benefit of hindsight 5-10 years on, but it's whataboutism defined.
Agree on Rooney though, but we were also skint lol