I’m not suggesting for a second that a 15-year-old should be playing first-team football right now. The point is what he’ll be seeing around him every day.
He’ll see players like Nelson and Braybrooke having to wait years for opportunities, while Alves still hasn’t been given a genuine chance despite the state of the team. He’ll see Monga get dropped while Stephy started virtually every game despite being one of the poorest performers in the Championship. He’ll see Page looking promising, only to be replaced by a loanee who, after a decent start, struggled badly himself. He’ll see Aluko barely getting a look in while our full-backs consistently underperformed. He’ll see Evans still waiting for opportunities. And he’ll see all of this in a team that could barely score goals and was one of the worst sides in the division.
Even after relegation, when there was less to lose and a perfect opportunity to start building for the future, the approach didn’t really change.
My point isn’t about Motsi specifically. It’s about perception. Young players will look at what’s happening under multiple managers and ask themselves a simple question: where is the pathway? Because from the outside, there doesn’t appear to be a clear, consistent route from the academy to the first team.
If you’re a top young prospect and you don’t see players ahead of you getting opportunities even when the team is struggling badly, why would you believe your chances will be any different? At that point, you may as well go somewhere like Liverpool.
