And then there were five - Jacopo Sala and Gokhan Tore join the list of those youngsters exiting stage right, or wrong, dependent upon your assessment of my earlier topic, where Backbiter made a perceptive comment that has prompted this follow-up piece. His remark offered a devil’s advocate (appropriate really) defence of United’s youth team approach and it went as follows… “But to be fair to Fergie, he is using the team to develop players as much as a playing style, and if you've got a powerful lad like Pogba you are going to use that power to your advantage.†…and it is this overlapping of ideals, acquiring style and adapting substance, that either dictates the process itself or merely shapes to suit it.

In Paul Pogba’s case, here’s a lad ManU snatched in much the same way we did Gael Kakuta and [more acrimoniously] Mikel, but it’s already clear that he’s going to be the tail wagging United’s future dogged midfield, as opposed to him fitting in with any blueprint directional change Ferguson hinted at making after those humbling Barca master classes. Indeed, a glance at both defence and attack in their burly youth team confirms a complete lack of acknowledgement of what’s needed these days at the sharp end of European competition. Many will say ’why should he alter things?’ after last season’s performances, but that’s surely missing the main point of pursuing youth development - to develop a youngster’s play and understanding of the game and, if everything is moving in a certain direction, move with it.

Carrying this theme further, the general consensus is that Barcelona adopt a different style of game to the rest, a sort of keep-ball that frustrates, allowing you to break with convention by safely playing Mascherano at centre back whilst never launching a corner straight into the opponent’s box yourself. Such is the Barca aura, you kinda knew a Peter Crouch or an Andy Carroll wouldn’t have made any difference to United’s impotency, even if they had managed to win a corner, which they didn’t. And all the while at the other end of the pitch Ferdinand and Vidic stood like self-conscious pogo-ists at an Amish party, purely because Barcelona don’t like giving the ball away and hoofing it in the air only increases that risk. Their way is to cut you to ribbons on the deck, as do the Brazilians, and this brings us full circle to Roman’s way and in particular his perceived [i think] way forward for the young players coming through the Academy.

Premiership football will always flourish in its hustle-bustle, up-and-at-‘em, set-piece goals aplenty fashion and players like Didier will have their day, but he, along with the Crouchs’ of this world, have been forever penalised in a Champions League that is now seeing a withdrawn central striker’s role favoured by most of the top teams. Yet, somewhat ironically and veering in the opposite direction, we now have Arsene Wenger bemoaning a lack of height in his team and he seems set on a change of direction no doubt forced on him by baying hordes of fans desperate to see some silverware. At first sight, Arsenal’s obvious failure to stamp a Barca-lite imprint on the Premiership hardly bodes well for our attempts to bring the Academy kids into a brave new world of keep-it-on-the-deck football, but therein lies the best kept secret of the Roman evolution to date….

Unhindered by a disinterested media’s lack of scrutiny, the Chelsea Academy has quietly gone about its business for a good few years now and the grounding has been of such quality that clubs across Europe are prepared to part with realistic sums of money to pick up those players that are not going to make it here. We simply haven’t seen that happening at Arsenal and the myth that they have the major production line in the country for kids playing the game the right way has proved to be just that. One step away from the bottom of the Fairplay table (we all know who came top) only serves to emphasise the real reason why Wenger’s perennial youths can’t cut it in the Premiership, nor in Europe, and it’s all to do with the pace of their game compared to the team they try to emulate.

One touch, precious little dribbling, as it slows the tempo, even the most myopic of critics can‘t fail to see why tackles are missed or often deemed late in such an environment. Jeez, English style tackling would never survive a complete season if it was given a good airing throughout the European leagues, so who is surprised when Wenger’s attempt to mix-and-match aggression with a slower brand of tippy-tappy ends in failure both at home and abroad? The future lies with the young, size-don’t-matter, fast-movers and shakers in every department of the game and we can but hope that Roman is looking at the likes of Modric, Neymar, Aguero and Sanchez to supplement the emergence of McEachran, Bertrand, van Aanholt and Sturridge. Quality half-pints with pace, yes please, slowdown half measures, no thank you….unless it involves potential and equates to an 18year-old Lukaku as replacement for the Drog, which isn’t that bad a call for future Premiership campaigns.

agree wiv some of that, somehow the 25man squad needs to be flexible enuf to compete/win the PL and beat the best in europe

so there must e room for some biguns to compete wv the 'competitve' style PL teams, and some littleuns wiv plenty skill to compete wiv the footballing teams and the home games

our reserve team by no means big players, but plenty tacklers and ball players - sort of fits the bill doesn't it

without wishing to go on about last season (again), biggest problem was shot conversion rate - drogs had 100+ shots, hit the woodwork 8 times and scored 13 goals - not picking on him just an example, so hopefully we can fix that

in CL our squad looks good enuf on paper - well nearly, so maybe tactics & system need a tweak

fergie has evolved his squad wiv plenty smaller players and only barca better? wenger has a real problem cos his footballing team arnt winning so he has to change his strategy

for our team, we need a clear strategy, to evolve our squad to replace the older players and blend in some skillful maybe smaller players wiv high energy rate

barca as a model wil be hard to do quickly but some elements can be copied -

work rate & pressing

movement

tactical variations

players freedom to go off script

running wiv the ball out of defence

pace in certain positions (but not all of em)

varied set pieces

thats a good start - even wiv out the world class stars - there are weaknesses in that team too - ask Jose