Over the weekend, Newcastle United gave 14-year-old academy talent Sam Alabi his U18 Premier League debut, less than a year after he signed from Oldham Athletic.
At surface level, it’s a testament to Sam’s talent and hard work, but when you look deeper, it highlights the success of Newcastle United’s new academy strategy that has allowed it to recruit top talents such as Trevan Sanusi, Alfie Harrison and Leo Shahar.
Newcastle U21s team is a prime example of the academy’s unique selling point, with Steve Harper recently stating the “U21s team will be 16, 17 and 18-year-olds”, affirming that the club could “clog” it with 21-year-olds and compete at the top of Premier League 2, but would prefer accelerated learning for younger players.
Giving opportunities younger is guaranteed to appeal to the country’s top talents, particularly those who feel they are ahead of their peers and want to take next step.
This strategy exposes younger players to some tough experiences, as evidenced by the U21s recently losing 7-1 to Chelsea U21s at home. Newcastle first team manager Eddie Howe asked Steve Harper about this loss, with Harper responding that they’d had a “tough one” but these tough experiences “build resillience”. Eddie Howe responded by saying, “I’m 100 percent behind that.”
This unique selling point and the club’s recent move to a full-time training model has allowed the academy to recruit top talents such as Sam Alabi, Trevan Sanusi, Alfie Harrison, Michael Mills, Sammy Pinnington and Kacey Wooster.
Although you might not know their names now, some of these players will go on to be part of Newcastle United’s future.
We are light years behind some other clubs on youth development and that’s not all down to Ashley.
Sir John Hall restructured the club to focus all major funds going to the first team squad under KK meaning we lost young players like Michael Carrick to WHU as he didn’t see a path to first team football with NUFC.
That lack of infrastructure & catch net for local talented kids continued under Ashley of course meaning we lost the likes of Bobby Clark to Liverpool – and also Chris Rigg to Sunderland.
He’s a lad that WAS with NUFC and is from a family of NUFC supporters, but left for Sunderland because he saw more opportunity for development there than at NUFC – now we are trying to buy the lad back.
We are absolutely on the right path looking for gems & giving them competitive football at a young age – but that HAS to be with a path into the first team squad coz no young un grows up dreams of playing PL2 football.
Hopefully Lewis Miley is that beacon for both young players behind him but also for those mapping the future of the club.
Yes we need to spend on quality players for the first team to keep the club competing – but long term success comes from within imo.
Sharpy17(Quote)