Alfie Harrison to leave Newcastle United this summer

Signing young players rarely works out how you expect it to, especially when a youngster arrives on a wave of hype.

Newcastle United have signed some young players backed by endless hype since the takeover, as part of the PIF's vision is to build an academy to rival the likes of Manchester City.

That won't happen overnight, and one way to accelerate that is to go out and find talented young players elsewhere and bring them into the club and develop.

Since the takeover, we have unearthed young talent such as Garang Kuol, Antonio Cordero, Trevan Sanusi and Park Seung-soo, to name a few. All have produced or are producing mixed results.

Alfie Harrison's time at Newcastle is up

One player who arrived surrounded by a lot of praise was Alfie Harrison from Manchester City. He was seen as one of the brightest prospects in City's academy when Newcastle moved to bring him to Tyneside.

At the time, it felt like a huge coup, stealing one of Man City's hottest prospects from under them, but it now feels like City played a blinder.

For whatever reason, it just hasn't clicked for Harrison, and the Daily Mail’s Craig Hope has confirmed that his time at Newcastle will come to an end when his contract expires at the end of the season.

Harrison was never sent out on loan and spent his time playing in the Under 21s, and despite all of the hype, he's going to end his time on Tyneside having never made a senior appearance.

Harrison didn't quite make the cut

Not all young stars fulfil their potential, although the 20-year-old can easily move elsewhere and kickstart his career, it just wasn't meant to be at Newcastle.

That's Kuol and Harrison, who we can write off as failures, with Cordero already teetering after just one season. We can probably add Harrison Ashby to the failed list, too. 

We've still got some good prospects, though, so we shouldn't be too downhearted. Plus, our South American scouts are finding exciting young talent every day. The future is bright.

Good luck to Alfie, wherever your journey takes him.