£15 million cost of academy failure - we have nothing in reserve

Having witnessed the reserves 3-0 defeat last night against Man.Utd it is evident that Newcastle United have very little by means of emerging talent.

I was sat next to a guy who was in the north east on business and thought he’d come along to watch the game, expecting to see some exciting young talent and a few players on the periphery of the first team. The guy had seen enough by half time and duly didn’t hang around to see the second half performance.

With the exception of Taylor, and possibly Ramage, none of the reserve line up look like making it at any level of professional football, let alone at Newcastle United.

They’re young players and of course will improve, but at 18 or 19 players should be showing more than our lot did last night.

They were weak and unimaginative. Man.Utd out muscled them and were by far more creative and technically more able. Our midfield in particular was out classed. Webster and Howe just weren’t good enough. Up front nothing seemed to stick, O’Brien seemed disinterested and both Finnigan and Walton lacked quality.

It is worrying that our academy appears to have produced another crop of youngsters that will come nowhere near the first team.

Taylor was the pick of the bunch despite a second half error that led to Man.Utd’s third. Ramage, as ever, won a lot of headers and looked composed and Brittain, despite some strong running, showed nothing to justify his brief first team involvement last season.

Two players, Ameobi and Hughes, in five years does not make good reading for the quality production line that is our state of the art academy.

Let us hope that John Carver on his return to youth team affairs can rectify a problem that is costing us dear. You needn’t look further than Ambrose, Milner, Bramble and Jenas to count the £15 million cost of our failure to produce any real talent.