3 English teams reached the quarter finals of the UEFA Youth League. All were knocked out. Chelsea lost 3-1 at home to Schalke on Sunday, John Swift scoring the goal. Arsenal lost 4-2 away to Barca earlier with Akpom scoring one of the goals and Man City have just lost 2-1 at home to Benfica.
Interesting comment from Niall Quinn about Wickham today - after he signed for Sunderland they expected him to work really hard on his game to improve but for the first year or so he was last in training and first out. Thinking he had already made it. A tale we often hear about English youngsters.
Your right but at least it looks like the penny has finally dropped with him and he is starting to make the most of his potential and surly that is the most important thing
Arsenal with 1 English player in their 18 tonight. And that's Jenkinson on the bench. Newcastle not much better.
Obviously Gibbs, Wilshere, Walcott and Chamberlain are normally involved so credit there. Who from the academy looks like stepping up at all? Arsenal players are also fairly rare in England's youth squads too in comparison to other teams e.g. Chelsea, Man Utd.
I read somewhere that he's the most promising full back in Europe. I would hope Shaw has something to say about that though.
I know stats aren't everything, but he didn't score in any of his 10 games on loan in League One, half of them were starts.
I never saw any of his games while he was on loan so I can't judge how well he played, but I still think he has potential, but I don't think he is as good as your player James Wilson who I really think could be a top player
There's too many players that have world class potential for England not to have a world class team in the next 10 years, surely? We will lose some along the way as they don't live up to their promise but with Hart and Forster still being fairly young for keepers, then Woodman in the lower age groups, we should be set for keepers (Butland too). Shaw could soon be the best left back in the world and should be a world class left back for the next 10-15 years. In terms of centre-backs I can't think of any that supposedly have world class potential but Smalling, Jones, Caulker, Keane, Dier, Stones should be solid enough. Calum Chambers at right-back, then there's Moore and Kenny from the under-17s. If Wilson, Solanke and Armstrong carry on like they are then we should be set for strikers for the next 10 years. There's too many midfield options to name so I'll probably miss some but Wilshere, Barkley, Morrison, Hughes, Ward-Prowse, Carroll, Powell, Baker, Ibe, Loftus-Cheek, Pearson, Rothwell, Crowley, Colkett, Onomah, Cook, Roberts and Edwards we only need 3-4 of them to truly make it and we will have an amazing team.
I honestly don't see many, if any, potentially world class players in there. Certainly none that I would be confident of reaching that level anyway. It's all well and good to list who we have, but it has to be looked at in the context of who everyone else has too. We laud our U21's, yet even a country like Italy that isn't know for giving youth a chance still has players like Verratti, El Shaarawy, Balotelli, De Sciglio, Insigne, Florenzi and the like to throw into the mix. We're still well behind most big football countries, and I think it'll be at least 10-15 years before we're top team. What I will say on Stones though, is that I post fairly regularly on an English speaking Barca forum, where most fans are not English, and they talk about him very highly. Quite a few have said he's someone they'd like Barca to sign. Him and Dier I think could both have high ceilings.
don't agree, barkley has all the potential to be one of the best in Europe, sterling also. I am pretty excited about stones, good cultured defender
At the ages of 18 and 20, Shaw and Barkley are already top performers in the Premier League. There's absolutely nothing to suggest they won't be able to become world class.
Apart from injury and with those two also there next club move is important because playing for the right manager who can get the best out of them is vital to there progression as players