OPINION
The Leeds United rising stars showing the club’s academy is in the rudest health should beware of what Neil Redfearn once confided to David Prutton.
The ex-Leeds manager and long-standing former academy chief told the Sky Sports pundit of his confidence Alex Mowatt was destined for the Premier League.
That prediction proved to be way off the mark as the central midfielder failed to live up to his early United billing and is destined to spend the rest of a career that once promised so much in the lower leagues.
The point is not that Redfearn doesn’t know his onions – his judgement and knowledge of what it takes for young players to make it at the highest level is excellent – but that youth team stars don’t always become established ones.
There are just so many variables involved, as Prutton explained in a column hailing how Kalvin Phillips has now leapfrogged fellow academy products Sam Byram, Charlie Taylor, Mowatt and, even, Lewis Cook.
“You never can tell with academy players,” the former Leeds midfielder wrote in his latest Yorkshire Evening Post column. “Neil Redfearn once told me that he believed Alex Mowatt would play in the Premier League and he wasn’t alone there.
“Mowatt drifted away fairly quickly but Phillips is still there at Leeds and more integral than ever.”
Mowatt is actually having a very decent season at Barnsley, the club he joined in January 2017 from Leeds.
He has started all 31 of the second-placed League One club’s matches and scored five goals, as well as supplied six assists, from central midfield.
But, the likes of Bailey Peacock-Farrell, Leif Davis, Robbie Gotts, Jamie Shackleton, Jordan Stevens and, even, the feted Jack Clarke, who have graduated from the academy to the first team over the past year should be aware of the 24-year-old’s story.
Mowatt could well be playing against them in the Championship next season, but it’s very unlikely he will become the Premier League star he was once seemingly destined to be.