Newcastle United are looking to improve in every department under their new owners - and the club's Under-21 set-up definitely has plenty of room to do that.
A day after the defeat at Oakwell, Newcastle announced a new long-term deal for Elliot Anderson, a player who scored his first competitive goal in the EFL Trophy away to Port Vale a few years ago but can anybody follow his example?
Of course, it's a work in progress and as we head to the one-year anniversary of the takeover, it's still early to be expecting a strong flow of quality young players coming through the ranks. However, with injuries in the first-team squad and an ageing bench unable to help the seniors get back to winning ways, producing homegrown talent is still as important as ever.
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The Magpies did OK for an hour against Barnsley last night in the Papa John's Trophy, but were eventually well beaten by what pretty much amounted to a Tykes second string side. In the previous 0-0 draw against Doncaster, coach Elliott Dickman admitted that his side were good up until the final third but last night at Oakwell they barely laid a glove on Barnsley with just two tame shots on target.
The big questions when it comes to the second string are always: Who is coming through? Who is ready to challenge for a first-team squad place? Who is capable of giving Eddie Howe something seriously to think about?
As the travelling media corps left Oakwell last night the debate centred around how many will make it to the first-team stage from the current crop.
Dickman has promising attacking midfielders like Joe White and Jay Turner-Cooke at his disposal. But we've known about Cumbrian White since the early days of Steve Bruce and the 19-year-old really needs a loan and won't learn much more after 33 games in Premier League two and three seasons playing in the EFL Trophy.
Turner-Cooke is regarded as the next young prospect and has been looked at closely by Howe in pre-season. At the moment he is probably the best bet for first-team progression.
There are other younger prospects with 17-year-old Ellis Stanton highly rated and Dylan Stephenson getting goals in the last couple of years but another who requires a loan pretty quickly.
Around the rest of the team, you have Matty Bondswell who is a quick and powerful left-sided player who again has impressed Howe, but needs to be loaned out. The pick of the team last night was arguably the goalkeeper Jude Smith who has arrived from East Fife after being released by Celtic.
For 80 minutes he stood up to everything Barnsley had to throw at Newcastle last night. The EFL Trophy is there to give youngsters experience but for the 11th time in 12 matches a defeat in this competition made for a slightly demoralising night.
Newcastle could be out of the competition before they even kick a ball next at Lincoln if Barnsley get a result at Doncaster on October 11 - a result that would make the clash at Sincil Bank a dead rubber game.
Results aren't important at this level of course, but if Howe watches the game back at Oakwell he will struggle to find more than two or three players that would be capable of starting a Premier League match when it comes to injuries.
Over at Liverpool, Jurgen Klopp was able to throw on a player in Bobby Clark who would be knocking on the door at Newcastle right now while Arsenal fielded a 15-year-old no less in Ethan Nwaneri on Sunday against Brentford. The Clark exit was pre-takeover but it was still a painful one. But why did it happen at all?
In a piece with the Sunday Mirror, his dad Lee said: "I knew things weren't going particularly well at Newcastle. The relationships had broken down a little bit. They think highly of him at Liverpool and there's always a clear pathway for young players at Liverpool."
And that perhaps sums it up. Sean Longstaff is a successful graduate from the Academy to first-team pool but there are few others.
Elliot Anderson has a great chance and his progression is a much-needed feather in the cap for Steve Harper at the Academy. If Newcastle are rising to the upper echelons in the Premier League then the standards in the U21 side will also need to go up.
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