Newcastle United’s attitude to the club’s academy has “all been changed”, with academy players now not necessarily being kept apart from the senior squad.
That is according to Sky Sports reporter Keith Downie, who was speaking to This is Futbol about the latest news from St. James’ Park.
Newcastle’s youth set up hasn’t exactly provided the first-team with a plethora of Premier League level talent over the past few years, with Elliot Anderson being the anomaly this season.
Following the club’s takeover from the Saudi Public Investment Fund, one of their main aims is to improve funding and the quality of the club’s academy, so the club can produce more first-team ready players in-house.
And Downie believes that it has been all change at the academy, but that the club don’t have a conveyor belt of exciting attacking talent coming through the ranks.
“I can just think of other clubs I’ve worked at or I’ve been with before where you know, they’re in the same building [senior and youth teams].
“You know, if they do well, they get to train alongside them, they were kind of kept separate from them.
“So that’s all been changed, but that wasn’t due to the money that the players were getting offered compared to other clubs.
“There isn’t really a conveyor belt of them coming through.”
TIF Thoughts on Downie’s comments
Whilst we think that Newcastle fans will be happy to hear that the attitude towards the academy has changed since PIF’s takeover, we’ve no doubt that Magpies fans will be disappointed to hear that there isn’t a multitude of talents that could be first-team candidates.
However, we do think that Anderson could potentially be a success story for the Tyneside club, and believe that the Whitley Bay-born midfielder will be hoping to add to his three Premier League appearances so far this season.
Saying that, we do feel that the club need to improve the quality of their production line in the academy, and it is good to see the club taking the first steps to improve that.