If Bouldie's Boys add a cup to go with a league then you'd have to say so, certainly since we've had an academy worth speaking about. Having said that, the ultimate proof can only be in the pudding. When we won it last in 2001 members of that team included Svard (various lower league), Thomas (Charlton), Nicky Nicolau (Southend). Only Moritz Volz and Aliadiere really went on to make an impact.
Its amazing just how many of these kids will fall into obscurity. It's ok saying Arsenal have a bright future, as it was saying Liverpool have a great future when we won it twice on the bounce a couple of years back. In reality, only one or even two of these players will achieve anything of note in the game.
I'm sure Ste Bould or any other coach in his position would much rather have just one player cement a first team place than win the youth cup or league 10 times in a row.
Thing is this isn't the average talented youth team, this is the result of the work of Wenger from ten years ago. Way back when he took over the club he set up our new youth set up we have today but he knew it would take ten years to start churning out the quality we are at the moment most of those lads have played together since they 9 or 10+ and have been coached the arsenal way, this is the first set of lads coming through and we even have youngsters that are even younger that wenger says technically they have nothing to learn Wenger may not be a good tactition but when it comes to our Youth system, what he has done to it, absolute genius
I hope you're right, would be nice to see a youth set-up to compare to the Ajax's, etc of the world, here in England. Just the other week we grabbed a superb coach in Jose Segura, to oversee our own academy. He has a superb CV and has brought through players like Iniesta, Bojan, etc. So maybe in a few years time, we'll be rivalling you . I know Rafa thinks a lot about the academy and has brought in a lot of talent since he joined. Before Rafa, our youth system had been neglected and was pretty shite. Since he's been here, we've won the youth cup twice, a further final appearance this year and a couple of reserve league wins.
That's not the point. In any case even then I doubt it and each player would only be in the team for 2, at most 3 years anyway, many players have been in teams that successful at youth level and not even made it into professional football. Success as a team means very little at youth level. One of Westlife has won a feckin youth cup for gods sake.
Yes when Leeds deservedly won it for the first time, it was the runners up that had the best players ultimately (or at the end of the day as people prefer to say these days) like Phil Neville, Gary Neville, Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes and David Beckham. When Leeds won it under Paul Hart again they had better individuals this time like Paul Robinson, Jonathan Woodgate and Harry Kewell (he was outstanding at one time and up to 18 months before he left Leeds)
A team can have top players in it without even getting to the final of course. Man U went out in the first round with Ravel Morrison, Danny Welbeck and the Itie in the starting line up.
Pretty shite performance from the lads so far, with the exception of Kacaniklic, who has been fairly impressive. Bouzanis has a style remarkably similar to that of Reina's. Arsenal have had it comfortably without being overly impressive, Lansbury has played very well. The Arsenal team look noticeably more powerful and athletic than ours.
As of the first game, the best team won. Our midfield again got over run, the central defenders far too slow. Dalla Valle scored a cracker, which was our highlight of the game. Amoo for me was our best player on the night. Well done Arsenal deserving winners.
I went the game tonight and fair play to Arsenal they where the better side in both legs, So Well done Arsenal. But i got to say size of some of them kidz in Arsenal team Very tall
