U23s lose 4-3 to Man City at Goodison

Markelo had a very hard time with their speedy winger and his fellow full-back. Foulds was also slow on the turn although, if he catches up, he can tackle. Man City had some excellent players, their two goalscorers played at a higher level than everybody else.

That's true!

We are too reliant on this Under 23s system and actually not producing the goods as a Premier League football club anymore.

It's a system that sees a ton of chaff fall by the wayside for that one kernel of wheat only for us to sell him on at the earliest opportunity (Rooney). Or put him through the hell of the 'local kid' microscope (Barkley).

Is making money overall from selling on Academy and reserve players sufficient justification for its continued existence? We've seen a change recently, with Everton starting to pay good money to pilfer talented youngsters from other clubs... but the destiny seems pretty much the same: exemplified by John Stones at one extreme and George Green at the other.

Part of the philosophy seems to be that you have to do it for the vanishingly small probability of a star coming through – you wouldn't want another club or your closest rivals from benefiting instead, would you?

Chelsea seem to have taken that to a different extreme, the soccer puppy mill hoovering up young talent from all over the world, then farming a large number of them out on loan to lesser clubs for real first-team experience, thus denying their talent to clubs (like us) that want to compete with them but can't attract the players.

I've tracked our lot on here now for many years... maybe it is an obsession. A bit like supporting Everton!

Someone has said on here, Southampton must have sold a team full of local lads who have gone on to do well and anyone who has come through the Barcelona set up seem to be well regarded even if they rarely if ever played for their 1st XI. We may also have lost prospects like Vaughan to injury.

My point I suppose is that we could be finding the likes of Stones and Holgate before Barnsley and while I don't know where we find youngsters at 9 or 10 years of age; we used to source a lot from the North-East but at a later age and usually after playing for their local schoolboy representative sides. It does raise a smile though when you read that Arsenal let Harry Kane go at the age of 8 was it? Perhaps the question isn't whether we should have an Academy but if it needs remodeling and a stronger competition to test the older players rather than the loan system.

In general clubs shouldn't be buying or running academies for players under 15, It borders on child abuse, clubs treating minors as commodities isn't right.

We are getting to the point that even the U23s doesn't contain many scousers.

In context; Man City have one of the strongest U23 teams in the country. We have one of the other ones, so a 4-3 loss is hardly grounds to write them all off entirely.

It all comes back to an age old debate about the state of youth teams in the UK. It is a demonstrable fact (based on performances of England youth teams against their international opponents) that England produces plenty of footballing talent. The crucial part is developing them beyond the age of 19/20 when they often find first-team opportunities in the Premier League hard to come by.

When you have a manager who would rather give game time to utterly repugnant characters like Schneiderlin over prospects like Baningime, then you could well ask why bother having a youth team.

It does not have to be that way though.

Might as well sack this lot off and buy in some established players like Afellay, Carroll, Nahki Wells and Williams.

When you look around the country, you see that hardly anyone English plays for the top 10 sides now, and an actual local lad is a rarity. Someone mentioned Southampton above, but is any of their noted young talents actually a "local lad"? Most like Bale, Walcott, and Shaw are actually brought in from further afield.

It was noted at the end of last season, that most of the PL2 champions would move on, either to the first team (like Jonjoe), or out on loan (Dowell), and we would have expected a few to leave (but not Walsh). It was of interest to see how Unsworth would rebuild the side, particularly as the age group below had been a lot worse in terms of success.

Steve Walsh seemed to recognise this and splashed the cash on kids from home and abroad. The Dutch defender, the French striker, the QPR winger, the Newcastle defender, Fulham midfielder were all examples of this. Yet, and it is very early days, only young Gibson looks like money well spent, and are perhaps another black mark against our much maligned Director of Football. I would hope that Unsworth was consulted on the domestic players, particularly if reports are right that he identified Calvert-Lewin.

Youth Football is always great, because you always see someone special. Be it an obvious guy like Wayne Rooney, or someone who comes out of nowhere like Harry Kane. Trying to identify the next superstar is half the fun.

When you look at the substandard players in our first team, namely Williams, Martina, Schneiderlin, Klaassen, or Niasse, to name just a few, do you really think that throwing in a youth or two would actually be much worse? Would we have lost any more games playing Baningime than Schneiderlin? Or Holgate instead of Williams? Or Robinson (yes I know he's been on loan) instead of Martina (at left back)? The elite foreign players have made our league much better, but is there really a need for the bog average or less-than-average player like Martina? Should we not use one of our own instead?

I think so, and for me the Youth team, and the ability to watch a team in blue with the majority of lads from Liverpool, will always be of interest to me.

Other than that I agree entirely and would rather see local lads sweat for the shirt than expensive cast-offs bimble about.

Consider for example Jonjoe Kenny. Breaks into the first team this season and involved in 20 consecutive Premier League games (24 out of 25 in all, except the Apollon dead rubber). Then he's dropped by Fat Sam at the end of February.

Does he play in any of the U23 games during March? Hell, no! He's a first-team player now...

Not too dissimilar for Beni Baningime: he has played fewer first-team games this season and more sporadically during October to December but has been played in the Premier League just (as a sub) once in 2018... during which time he has played also just one U23 game – in three months!!

I really don't get it.

And that is exactly what I don't understand about this system. If it is designed to develop talent for the first team, then why are the players pushing for the first team not playing in that side?

And just to respond to someone else trying to say how Barcelona use it, Spain is completely separate from how this Under-23 league is set up. They have a B team that competes in the lower division, just not able to win promotion. If our B team was competing in the Championship that would be different. But it's not, and to Michael's point, our best players around that level don't even compete in the Under-23s. Instead, they sit on the bench for months.

Clubs like Chelsea have been buying up youth prospects from all over the world for years and loaning them out. It's been very well publicized. That's also completely different to what we are doing and this Under-23s system as a whole.

It's as if it doesn't know what it wants to be, a youth team or a reserves team. You can have up to a limited number of senior players involved. But we only recently finally gave Klaassen a game. Why?? Please tell me why they are not sending out a team that includes Kenny, Baningime, Klaassen, Calvert-Lewin( after Tosun arrived) and Vlasic?