Sporting sold four of their best prospects though. Bruma (for £8.5m with united offering £15m) , Tex and Ilori to liverpool (Ilori having broken through) and Edgar Le to Barca B. They still have Esgaio, Carlos Mane, Joao Mario, Betinho,Felipe Chaby, Medeiros left over on the fringes of the first team. Now, sure, none of them (probably even put together) has made as many appearances as Sterling but I think there is a very valid argument to suggest that he is an exception in such comparisons rather than the norm. Flanagan also has done well. Wisdom and Suso are on the fringes and thats about it really. At best one can add that we made something out of Coady and Robinson. There is a clear difference in numbers reaching the fringes of the first team.
Regarding current crop, I have high hopes but I'm not going to jump the bandwagon and suggest they are one of the best crops in the world. I'll probably judge after the youth league as next gen gave me very good insight into where that particular batch stood compared to others in Europe. That liverpool team was way better than what they showed but still nowhere near the level of Ajax and Sporting.
How is there a clear difference, from that Sporting side, Ilori Bruma and Mane were the only ones to feature constantly. Compared to our side, Flannagan and Sterling our regular starters, and the likes of Suso and Wisodom has made more appearances in our first team, and in top flight football in general than any one of Betinho, Chaby and Joao Mario put together. Since the thrashing to Sporting a couple years ago, we've been just as productive in pushing players through to the first team, all while playing in a better league, with far more competition, they haven't outperformed us despite the convincing defeat we suffered to them a few years ago.
And to be honest this crop of players might be even more talented, its not about jumping on the bandwagon its about realizing the talent we have at our disposal. You don't need a youth league to realize that the likes of Wilson, Kent, Ojo could play for any youth team in the world, in a day and age where we recruit players from all across the world, its pretty easy to gauge just how talented our players are in comparison to our competitors on the continent.
Afterall, both Chirvella and Canos were hailed as two of the best talents in their age group in Spain before they came here, Chirivella actually captaining the Spain u17's, while both being very good talents, they don't blow the likes of Rossiter or Wilson out the water talent wise, put Rossiter and Wilson in Barca or Ajax setup and they still stand out as two of the top talents in each respectable academy, they are that good and just because they're not on the continent doesn't mean we should underrate them.
Looking back at it, when we played them Ajax and Sporting looked much more superior to us, but at the time many people were saying its because their weakest players were better than our weaker players. Years on that looks to be true, Fischer and Klassen have made the step up, but none look any more talented than Suso and Sterling has blown the whole lot of them out of the water, even if we don't produce great results in the youth league, it doesn't mean that our players or any less talented, at the end of the day its about bringing players through and we have been just as successful in doing that as Ajax and Sporting have in the last couple years since we played them, all while playing in a more competitive league.
