Source: FOOTYMAD
A Conveyor Belt Is One Thing - But Do We Have A Line Of Shearer's?
Mike Ashley says he wants to bring through the next Alan Shearer and Peter Beardsley. Fair enough ... but where the hell do you find them? Former Toon boss Glenn Roeder fears the kids could be thrown in at the deep end ... unless Mike Ashley opens the purse strings. Glenn Roeder: “The Academy lads have done very well this year in reaching the latter stages of the FA Youth Cup, like we did in 2006. “It’s great to get that far, but I don’t think that throwing young players in at the deep end is the right thing to do. “The distance in quality between playing for the first team in the Premier League and playing for the youth team is like the distance between the earth and moon. “Yes, you will get exceptions, maybe one or two. But if you start putting in four or five, you can get wiped away. “It can ruin good young players if you put them in a tough position too early. “The Premier League is the hardest in the world. There are so many tough games and nothing comes easy. “Outside the top six and the bottom six, things are extremely close, which means no game is easy. “If you look at the European leagues, there are is a big difference between the top four and bottom and it’s a genuine shock when somebody pulls off a result. “But Burnley were relegated already and they still came back from 2-0 down to beat Spurs, who’d qualified for the Champions League. “I think during my time at Newcastle we put four or five players in the first team from the same promising team that Gazza had won the Youth Cup with in 1985. We were struggling with injuries and form. I think even the senior lads were wondering where the next win was coming from. “But Willie McFaul was forced to throw in a few of the kids and they just sank because the expectation was too much and too early. “It meant that their future Newcastle careers suffered after that because their confidence didn’t recover in time. “It would be dreadful for the supporters if Newcastle United were just prepared to get by and risk the kids. “Why jeopardise your Premier League place? “Especially after all of the blood, sweat and tears everybody went through to get it back. “It is just unthinkable for Newcastle to go back down. “I do understand that clubs must be run financially and in a proper manner. “But to do that at the expense of the team getting relegated again is unthinkable. You don’t want to be back at square one. “The players and the coaching staff have done a phenomenal job in getting the team up as champions. “Newcastle are now in the same league again as the big boys. It won’t be like the season just gone. “If you miss chances in the Premier League and make defensive errors, you’ll be punished.”
