This is an interesting debate.
Firstly, the question is not whether the academy is good enough. It has to be. High pedigree, A-list material, up there with the best in the country, breeding some top-class talent. Two words, Wayne Rooney. Always had one top-class lid coming through in at least every other age group. Has been a source of income, helped keep the books balanced through sales of Jeffers, Rodwell, Rooney, what have you.
So, the next question is if we were so bad we released someone who went on to be better. Well, no. That has to go down as a big plus in our book and probably one of the big pros of Moyes' youth tactic - which i will argue was just a bit too cautious. This cautiousness made sure we didn't drop the ball on talent, but it might have made some talents drop their balls.
Point in case is Jose Baxter. Obviously a frustrated man. George Green might rap about boats n hoes but he does at least eat his veggies (with less green) with a good outlook on his future, hoping for good times and the like. Baxter got his chance, belated, and didn't really get enough of it. He missed it, and it went downhill from there. Of course his attitude kinda broke him but being so heavily chastised for it, and for not performing in situations where he really couldn't be asked to do so (remember the abject Bolton game where we slumped to a depressing defeat, he got 5 minutes as if he could save something, much less even savour the chance, that day) might just have been a bit too much hard love.
No case to be made by him other than that he's buzzing through the ranks of jarg football league teams. Oh, and hes reached further than us in the FA cup this year.
Another thing i didn't get is why we won't loan out our talents to other PL teams, or top-tier teams elsewhere. Lots of the biggest talents in England have had loan spells. Wilshere, Cleverley, Moses, even Lukaku. Why wouldn't we let Baxter, or Duffy or Mustafi for that matter, have a go at Hull or wherever?
