Have we produced some terrific talent though? I mean - where are they?
If you go back a couple of years, Dan Cleary and Alex O'Hanlon both scored for Liverpool in the UEFA Youth League; Cleary went on to make the bench in a Europa League tie. Now they're at Solihull Moors and St Pat's. Fiacre Kelleher (5 years at Celtic) is at Solihull too.
Here's a random foot thread from a while back - an under-21s squad from 2013. These players should be starting to impose themselves on the senior team now. Shane Duffy is the only one who's been capped - and he's played fewer than 10 Premiership games. Matt Doherty at Wolves - you could make a case he should be in the squad, but even then, he's a second flight player. But mostly, they're now at Colchester, Woking, St Johnstone, the bench at Ross County, Bury.
None of that stacks up with the notion that we're producing "terrific", "outstanding" or "fabulous" players.
We have fewer players in the Premiership than ever before. The vast majority of the 21s squad - 10 of 13 with wiki articles - are English-born; nothing against 2G players - but clearly there's issues with the game here if there's so few Irish-born players coming through.
There's no point playing blind to this any more and thinking we're about to turn the corner.
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