- Aug 22, 2013
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In fairness, the Spanish system with the B teams playing in the lower divisions helps in this regard, as you're still playing proper competitive senior football if you're playing for, say, Barca B.I agree that Ange hasn't been using the Academy players in the way I would have liked too but I can't agree that a player beyond 19 is stale.
The Dutch league is one with little investment and the only way a club can survive is by producing young prospects to sell to the bigger leagues. That is their M.O.
As I indicated earlier in the thread, Spanish players regularly don't make break throughs until they are 22 or 23.
Its very infrequently that players break through at the age you're talking about and that is all clubs. When they do breakthrough it happens at teams that are already winning.
I'm not going to say Ange is doing badly with the Youth but I will say it in 12 month time if we're doing well and we're still seeing the same