Manchester has a title at last!!!!!!!!!!!

[highwaystar101]

kowenicki said:

highwaystar101 said:

Carl2291 said:
Apparently, Man U's starting 11 in the last 3 games cost more than Man City's.

Ive not done the maths though... But people putting City down for spending mobey are silly.

Rooney.
Young
Ferdinand.
Nani
Smalling
Evra
De Gea
Evans
Carrick
Valencia
Hernandez

Thats just off the top of my head... City arent the only ones who spend Millions upon Millions.

Yes, but to be fair, Manchester United were only able to buy those players due to the success they had with homegrown talent in the 90s, with players such as Beckham, Giggs, Scholes, the Nevilles, Brown, Butt, etc... As well as some later players like Fletcher, Evans, Welbeck, O'shea and so on.

this is pretty naive im afraid.  How many of those "homegrown" players were stolen or tempted from other academies by fair means or foul?

I'll tell you...  lots! 

I know of three cases of compensation paid by Man u for "illegal approaches" to players that were in that youth team they developed, two payments were made to my club.

Its never as clear cut as you imagine. Most of those youth players were bought.  Most of the big clubs are guilty of bribery in this, they will flout the 50 mile rule by moving families and providing employment for parents in the locality.

City are also guilty of it too... they always hold Micah Richards up as a homegrown talent... yet he was at Oldhams academy and indeed Oldham have a 25% sell on clause.  At least City did it legitimately in that case.

Of those players I've listed, 8 have been part of the Manchester Utd youth set-up since the start of their career (probably scouted from under-12 teams, which is fair) - one (Giggs) came from another youth set-up within 90km, where Manchester Utd is by far and away the better career choice  - one came from another country (O'Shea) - and the other (Beckham) came from Tottenham.

I'm sorry, but I fail to see how this qualifies as 'lots' of other successful players poached from other youth set-ups. Being generous, it's probably about 30%. That is far lower than some clubs I can think of.

I'm not going to pretend that every signing Man Utd has made has been clear cut and on the level, but most of the talent that has come through has  flourished  due to the hard work and resources invested by Man Utd anyway. Man Utd clearly understand the quality that youth players bring to the club and see them as a backbone. That adds a lot of value to the club.