The FA 'shaking up' football again

A few seasons. Sorry. Makes all the difference

 

I remember the FA saying that the Premier League would bring the best talent from around the world to England and this would have the affect of improving those English players that were good enough to play at the top level.

In other words there was a lot of dross English players who were bringing down the standards of our club football and importing some foreign talent would up our club and national game. Well that worked well.

Having a 9 year old son has opened my eyes to the appalling standard of coaching and facilities in this country. It has barely changed since I was a lad. Get the big lad up front and hoof the ball up to him. The teachers and coaches at youth level don't think much beyond that. If the FA were serious about improving the national team they would invest heavily in youth coaches that coach in the right way and facilities for them to use. They have more all weather football pitches in Australia ffs.

This just sounds like the FA shafting the smaller clubs to keep the PL happy......again.

 

Strange.

So most on here seem to think that the new B Team proposals only help the elite and damage the lower leagues and then Scudamore, on behalf of the Premier League rejects the new plan also saying it harms the lower leagues. The Premier League have suggested an elite B Team competition that ignores the lower leagues altogether, which will obviously make it even more difficult for any club outside this elite to recruit a promising youngster.

I can't work it out

 

One notion we need to dispel is that it will push clubs further down the league ladder.... well yes maybe on paper but the reality of it is that the e.g. the current 72nd ranked club will still be 71 places from being Premier League champions. In theory it will actually be easier to gain promotion from a league that is laden with B teams than not.

 

A Tweet from Accrington Stanley...

 

I can't see how it will make any difference to the chances of a team outside the elite recruiting a promising youngster. The PL teams will keep the monopoly of such players in their B teams whether they compete with the lower league teams or if they just play against each other in their own league.

I suspect that the 'top 6' and FA favour the proposal as a way of extending their brand and raising revenue. As mentioned, there will be some saddos that will fancy seeing their League 1 or 2 team play against Man City B or such like.

I'm not sure how having lumps kicked out of them in the lower leagues is going to 'develop' a 19-20 year old into an elite player anyway. Any decent player of note would be in or around the 1st team by 20 anyway? Will running around on a badly maintained muddy park against players that will make up with physicality what they lack in ability prepare these youngsters for international football? I don't see it.

 

You don't get that people don't want to be promoted easily via league full of B teams. In this case the journey is better and more important than the destination.

 

Imagine it's the last day of the season and our last game of the season is against one of the 'real' teams fighting against relegation. We need to win but our rivals need to lose or draw for us to be promoted. They are playing against Stoke B who have absolutely nothing to play for. Our future would be down to whether a bunch of teenagers can be ar5ed to play their hardest or not. Would that feel right to you?

 

As I have said before, I would think that it would be easier to determine whether a player is not good enough, good enough or too good for the lower division, if he is playing in that division. Less of a risk for a lower league side and will probably prevent a Prem side keeping someone, just in the hope that he'll be a gem. But I'm guessing.

Thanks for calling me a saddo! :dismay:

We can disagree on this as well. The pitches are pretty good down there and I think there is nothing better for a young player than playing against stronger, more experienced players.

 

Because you don't give a hoot about success for the national team I suggest you wind it in, there are plenty of us that do.
The sacrifices that league clubs would have to make are small potatoes compared to the EPPP and this scheme could open up an alternative, as yet there have been no negotiations.

 

The saddo remark was not directed at you. I just can't understand why anyone would be excited by seeing some youngsters play just because they are wearing the same kit as the 'real' top teams.

I agree that some exposure to the lower leagues is good for a youngsters development but this is best done as a loan where it can be a for a short period and properly man managed. I don't think a full season at that level is going to help a kid develop class, he will just develop survival instincts!

The pitches are variable at best. I would be more concerned about the quality of the opposition and style of play. It works in Spain because all the teams, even at the lower levels, play passing controlled football. We don't here. What the FA needs to work out is why our game is so uncultured if they want to improve our national game. And this, I believe, is down to youth couching not about B teams.

 

Yeah wind your neck in Carlos

The sacrifices that league clubs would have to make are small potatoes compared to the damage this could do to Luton Town

 

The B Teams will do nothing to help the national team - it will just be a way of the PL teams keeping and funding a bigger pool of young talent that they can sell in the future for even more money. Its all about £££.

 

Come off it. You have addressed only his first sentence and then completely ignored the rest, which included a few things that he thought could help the situation.

Whereas, across the two threads on the subject, I cannot see even one suggestion of your own. Just criticism of others. Do you not have nothing positive to say?

 

I suppose that's why the PL is against it?

 

It has the support of the 'top 6 teams'. As far as the powers that be are concerned.....that is the Premier League.

 

After listening to Collymore on the way home tonight I have got off the fence.

It's a barmy idea.

 

It is they that face Spanish, German and Italian clubs in the CL, I'm sure they recognise the benefits beyond just selling (minor)players.

 

Exactly. This benefits the elite again by giving them the opportunity to keep and fund more youth players for longer. It does not benefit the national team. If I were an owner or fan of a top 6 club I would be in favour of competitive B teams too. As it is, I think the power base in football is already skewed too much to the top end of town. Use some of that money to make a REAL difference at the grass roots and create players and coaches that will make England competitive again.

 

In which case you're talking 20 years instead of 3 or 4 for any kind of results. Of course football is skewed, we are never going to change that but these B teams will not be blocking anyone's path up the league. And yes it will help develop young England stars, that much is certain.

 

You're probably right about the skew - it is too late. I much prefer the days when there was not a top 6 and any team, even little ol'Watford could get a top 2 finish.

I don't see how this plan is 'certain' to develop young England stars. Perhaps only in the same way that it was certain that the PL would strengthen the national team.

Unfortunately there is no quick fix. By the time players reach 18 they are already 'broken'. They have been indoctrinated by so many bad coaches and bad practices that they will never be the type of cultured player Spain etc produce. Sending them en-masse down to the lower leagues is NOT going to teach them how to play the game to an international standard.

The only hope we have at the moment is when 17-19 year olds make it into the first team of one of the top clubs that has enough foreign class in the team who will show them how to play the game. Even then you can see the England players cannot perform anywhere nearly as well together compared to how they play when they are with their clubs and foreign team mates. Sad but true.

 

The B teams are only going to displace teams that would otherwise be in League 1 and League 2 by taking up places in those leagues. On the whole given the numbers involved (20) that displacement is mainly going to be downwards. Under that model would there be a place for the Stevenage/Rotherham type teams to challenge for the play-offs in League 1?

 

I'm not sure they will but assuming they keep the play-offs they will be contested as if the B teams weren't even there. Displaced clubs will find themselves at a lower level but not relegated beneath clubs that were already below them, then it might even give them the chance to compete. There's also a question of compensation for this 'national' initiative.

If I had my way the new 'fifth tier' would be formed by reducing the size of the leagues rather than including conference teams, 48+ games per season is way too much for most clubs.

 

I think that's an ignorant presumption. I enjoy watching the big prem games, i watch them on Sky. When I watch Watford I'm there to watch my team, I couldn't give a ****e who's on the other side. I'm sure Hartlepool fans would be quite miserable at the prospect of 'competing' with a non-entity reserve team followed by no away fans.

 

Dare I say it but Martin Samuel wrote a very good article on this today in the context of financial fair play. The average league 2 player earns £49k a year. The average reserve team prem player earns between £500k-£1m a year. Does the B team get scrutinised under the same income rules as the L2 team i.e. independent income reconciliation related to their own gate revenues and commercial revenue? Or do they piggy back off the revenues of their 'A' team owners?

I agree with him, on this argument alone it falls apart.

 

You can definitely solve 48 years without a trophy via a 2-year plan involving the weakest tiers of football in the country...

If only the Dutch had thought of this!

 

Having heard Scudamore on TS, I think you are being a little disingenuous claiming he was speaking on behalf of the Premier League. He seemed very much to be speaking for himself only.

 

Whoops! Very sorry, I got you mixed up with another (COYH). My apologies.:redface:

My general point still stands though, I think. Just.

PS. I've corrected my first post.

 

Doesn't matter what level the young players play at really, they're already a long way behind their counterparts abroad by that point in terms of technique and skill. It's much too late by the time they reach an age where they'd be considered for selection even at the B team level. Until the FA spend proper money on grassroots coaching and facilities, the national team will continue to suffer. The big clubs only fill their squads with foreign players because they are better than what they can find at home. Unless our kids are being coached properly from the age of 4, playing games where technique and skill matters more than having a big kid score loads of goals, any efforts such as this will fail because the damage is already done.

 

If B teams are so great why are the Bundasliga clubs moving away from them?

I don't understand how playing in a league where they're getting lumps kicked out of them is going to help produce more technical players. Fans of these B clubs won't care, like fans of actual clubs do and that will transcend onto the performances and give the feel of a friendly game, if they can't get promoted past a certain point, what is the point anyway, surely it's the same as playing in a youth league then? It's obvious that a Manchester city or a Chelsea side would win the league every year (see vitesse success in holland with Chelsea youth) and this would just ruin the football league.

As many have pointed out the real issue isn't playing regular games, players of top clubs who have real talent get this easily by going on loan. The issue is the lack of coaching and development.

I think Greg **** has underestimated the apathy toward the national team. I'd rather the FL kept its tradition and competition, then introducing an idea which probably won't help all that much for a team not all that many people care about. How many people on here could honestly say they'd rather go and watch England than Watford?

 

TBH the gap is coming down rapidly at our elite clubs but even then it's asking a huge amount to expect even the best of these youngsters to be able to compete with the selection of the world best that their bosses import with seeming impunity. However it can be tackled and IMO this scheme would be a massive step in the right direction. Recently Spain have stolen a march but if there's one thing's that's sure, it's that they won't stay at the top forever and it will be much easier for us to catch up than for them to stay ahead if we are doing the right things.

 

Their masters will soon ensure protection of the referees, and that's something they can't do with loanees. But that's a minor point, the major one is competitive experience in meaningful games and keeping them as a group instead of sending them out on random loans. And don't worry they'll soon commandeer the Championship if League 1 isn't enough of a challenge.
Not that I'm worried, to me it's little more than creating two tables for each league they're in, one with and one without and nor will I worry that overall standards of the clubs they face will improve as the other teams strive to match them.
Tradition is for the birds, it is that that got us into this mess in the first place and if England ever win the WC again you will soon see what it means to the fans, including ours!

 

It will mean minor anger but mostly apathy.