U18s beat Champions Derby County

The other newbie starting was Reece Welch, a centre-back who's played for England U16, only seen a picture of him, tall and gangly and still a schoolboy apparently. So if he started as centre-back alongside Dylan Thompson then you'd have to say he was highly rated.

Off the bench were Harry Hagan, a centre-back who's also played for England U16, and Rafael Garcia, who we got from Fulham and is supposedly highly rated.

I think the whole structure of the Academy needs a complete overall, starting with the coaches all the way down from the U23 level. There are too many ex -Everton players in charge. New coaches with fresh ideas on coaching the teams are needed.

I'm surprised there haven't been any change in the way the Academy is run since Brands took over. Maybe he is still assessing the scheme or has been too busy on the transfer scene. He has done a great deal of work there and has done a very good job up to now.

Our main key issue is the transition from youth to first-team, which is still a huge stumbling block. Something goes wrong between the ages of 19 and 22, when a lot seem to stall.

David Unsworth's teams while winning silverware are mostly built on defensive abilities, they are not an attractive team to watch, don't score a great deal of goals and the real success of these younger teams is bringing through players to play in the premier league.

That few come through to eventually get a regular place in the senior team might rest with the players themselves,although I'm hopeful Kenny and Davies might do this, alongside players who were bought from other clubs like Calvert-Lewin and Gibson from Newcastle.

Maybe your view that the coaches could be a mixture of some of the present staff and some fresh coaches with new ideas might be better for the young lads coming in to try and make a career out of football.

I guess the odds are hard but you look around and see United with Rashford, Greenword etc, Arsenal with Iwobi, Nelson, Maitland-Niles etc Chelsea with Mount, Abraham, Hudson-Odoi and it seems like we have not had players of that calibre come through for a good few years. (Maybe the last one was Barkley?)