Academy And Under-23s

Discussion in 'The Team Bus' started by wfc78, Aug 14, 2012.

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  1. Smudger

    Smudger Messi's Mad Coach Staff Member

    We should be concerned that we are failing to address this. It can be done. With the right attitude and work to put the structures and people into place there should be no issue in becoming a club that aims to develop as many of it's own players as possible.
     
  2. hornetboy1

    hornetboy1 First Team Captain

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  3. The Recluse

    The Recluse Reservist

    Whether he was ever going to be good enough or not, after spending a lot of the season training with the first team and travelling to away games with them it's a bit of a surprise to see him released.
    (https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/sport/18634398.watford-not-offered-callum-whelan-new-contract/)

    Looked one of the better central midfield U23 players when he played but obviously not good enough.
     
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  4. Hogg-DEENEY!!!

    Hogg-DEENEY!!! Squad Player

    Should be easier in the Championship you'd think, even if we're nowhere near as tinpot as we were pre-Pozzo (it seems as if we'll need one player developed by the club per matchday squad). Here's hoping the previously fruitful academy starts producing again!
     
  5. Hogg-DEENEY!!!

    Hogg-DEENEY!!! Squad Player

    Bit of a surprise, maybe we could have loaned him out, but good luck to him in finding a new club where he'll hopefully play more, he's at an age where he can't really be ******* around too much
     
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  6. Markoa$

    Markoa$ Squad Player

    He will end up playing for a league 1 club this upcoming season. Then after having a great season, a championship team will buy him the following season. After 2 extraordinary seasons in the championship he makes a big money move to Spurs. He then gets called up to the England squad and brings it home.

    In all reality, he’s not getting in our team next season.

    Depending on who stays and who goes, but right now he’s not ahead of Doucoure, Capoue, Hughes, Chalobah, Cleverley, Dele-Bashiru.

    Even with Doucoure and probably Capoue being sold, he’s still 5th choice at best. Knowing us we will sign at least 1 CDM in the mold of Eustace/Behrami as we need one for the championship season, so he’s never going to play for us.
     
  7. Steve Leo Beleck

    Steve Leo Beleck Squad Player

    Looked like a little kid that had won a competition to play with professional footballers when he played against Tranmere. Neat and tidy but will just get steamrollered by big ugly brutes in the Football League.
     
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  8. IRB

    IRB THe artist formally know as ImRonBurgundy?

    I saw Whelan live against Tranmere and he was hopeless. Even amongst the other youth teamers he stood out as particularly out of his depth
     
  9. GoingDown

    GoingDown "The Stability"

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  10. lowerrous

    lowerrous First Team

    Penaranda to be 69.
     
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  11. The Recluse

    The Recluse Reservist

    Yet they've seen fit to give Henry Wise another year!? Far less about him than Whelan.

    And he (Whelan) really was one of the better central midfielders for the U23s last season.
    Can everyone now realise why nobody is being blooded from the U23s?

    Bar Dan Phillips, they really do lack a physical presence. Cassidy looks like he's hit the gym but it's been a major problem for years for the vast majority of players coming through.

    Looking at the list of players released since the Pozzo's took over, remember how excited we were with Sean Murray in his first season? But that's as good as he ever got. That's the level the better players are still at for the U23s. Good enough technique but just a bit too slow and a bit too weak and, it has to be said, so often just too one dimensional. There's no lack of effort from the vast majority of them during matches but it's just not there for them to push on at this club. Be it a lack of natural talent or substandard coaching, something is missing for them to develop to anything better than League 2 or down, discounting the exception of George Byers at Swansea.

    The same can be said for the sides I've seen them play against as well. So often I'd watch two evenly matched sides slowly knock the ball around until a simple mistake or a moment of panic would mean the ball got turned over. Sometimes one of the teams would gel nicely and run out easy winners but as individuals there were rarely stand-out performers week in week out.

    It really does look like any talent at academy or age-level football is hoovered up by the Category 1 level sides.
     
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  12. lowerrous

    lowerrous First Team

    Speak for yourself, I genuinely never rated him. I remember watching him in the FA Youth Cup vs Chelsea and he looked overweight and lethargic; that never changed. He could strike a set-piece but that was it, otherwise he was way off the pace.
     
  13. lowerrous

    lowerrous First Team

    That's the crux of it, from an age way before anyone will have started to hear about them.
     
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  14. The Recluse

    The Recluse Reservist

    He had something about him and given the opportunities he had at first team level he should have progressed more than he did. But again, in recent memory anyway, it seems a lack of professionalism off the field hampered his ability on it.
     
  15. The Recluse

    The Recluse Reservist

    So what do the club do?

    Trundle along hoping to find a player who develops late and comes good in the 12 or 18 months he's at the club after they've picked him up from a Category 1 club, or spend an absolute fortune to compete with the elite (& Burnley!), only to have them poached for next to nothing anyway by the successful EPL sides? Now the likes of Dortmund and Bayern are poaching from Manchester City, what hope do we have in ever producing and keeping any real talent.
     
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  16. Markoa$

    Markoa$ Squad Player

    They really should just change the rule.

    All academy players have to stay at that club until 18.

    At 18, just like any other transfer, it doesn’t go to tribunal, but the price is set by the selling club.

    It’s ridiculous that we got screwed out of the Sancho deal. Everyone could see the talent he was, but we couldn’t set the price. That rule needs to be disbanded all together.

    Either that, or when an academy player is stolen from a smaller club, there is an immediate 30% sell on fee for 3 transactions of the player.
     
  17. The Recluse

    The Recluse Reservist

    None of that will happen though. The clubs with a major say in the way the Premier League is run won't sanction something they'll lose out from.
     
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  18. Markoa$

    Markoa$ Squad Player

    I know it won’t, but it just makes it ridiculous that a club can invest and pour into a hot prospect, only to see them stolen for pennies by a big club. Makes a joke of the system.
     
  19. luke_golden

    luke_golden Space Cadet

    I agree that smaller clubs need more protection from the vultures, but forcing kids to stay with a club until they are 18 isn’t the answer. Development works both ways, and if a young player believes another club will do a better job of preparing them to make a career in football, they absolutely have the right to pursue that.
     
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  20. NathWFC

    NathWFC First Team

    We have an academy?
     
  21. nornironhorn

    nornironhorn Administrator Staff Member

    We also seem to be pretty crap at picking up released players from the 'big' clubs. Hinds, Whelan, Sinclair (not released but same story). Who knows what Dele-Bashiru will turn out like.
     
  22. The Recluse

    The Recluse Reservist

    We've got an inflatable hot air dome with some astroturf in it and two portacabins bolted together with 'Academy' painted on the side. Can't believe we're not Category 1 yet.
     
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  23. GoingDown

    GoingDown "The Stability"

    This is just a continued excuse to justify the lack of any progression of any young players in the squad for years. It's spoken like it's a default that any good young player will automatically want to join one of those clubs but as we've seen over recent years there is a change of attitude in some young players where going to a big club isn't in their interest.

    There are also plenty of examples of youth players not joining a big club and going on to play in that team.

    Also, Dortmund are buying young English players for big money not poaching them.
     
  24. The Recluse

    The Recluse Reservist

    Wasn't it one of the excuses given to dropping the academy down a level soon after the Pozzo's came? The cost of running a high end academy far outweighed the benefits in their eyes.

    Maybe if we had owners who put their faith in a head coach who could develop young players over time it would be good to invest money into the youth set-up. Watford prefer to buy players for the first team because they're the apparent masters of the transfer market.

    As for Dortmund paying big money for kids, I don't think they'll be paying City much when Jamie Bynoe-Gittens(15) goes to Germany soon. A lot of British 15/16-year olds are now leaving to go to Europe because, supposedly, there's more chance of playing first team football sooner. Bayern Munich are taking two young Scottish kids to their academy, Aaron Hickey & Barry Hepburn. No big money transfers these due to their ages.
     
  25. GoingDown

    GoingDown "The Stability"

    I wasn't aware of those youngsters moving to Germany, thought you were referring to Bellingham etc.

    But in a way, you're answering your own points. Young players want the opportunity to play these days. Not all of them will be happy sitting on a bench or not getting anywhere at a big club.

    If anything, now is the absolute best time to be upgrading our academy.
     
  26. reids

    reids First Team

    I've said it a few times now, but it really makes no sense for us to have an academy anymore. Just do the Brentford (and now Huddersfield among others have started to adopt a similar approach) of scrapping the academy and implementing a B team model.
     
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  27. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    That's fair enough. They are Scottish so will turn out to be ****.
     
  28. The Recluse

    The Recluse Reservist

    The thing with going down the academy route is the extortionate costs involved. I'm sure you have to have a wage bill of £1m set aside for coaches alone at Category 1 status. Again, the stipulations favour the elite few (& Burnley).

    As Reids has said, the other way is scrapping the academy altogether and going down the B team route. We were going to do that when Andy Scott came here, ironically via Brentford, but just as with the Head Coach position the academy set-up is also guilty of a high turnover of staff at the top end. With that comes different ideas and ways of implementing them.

    I kind of get the Head Coach approach, it's as frustrating as **** at times but it is what it is, but at youth level there really does need to be some consistency with coaches, coaching and the leading hand.
     
  29. GoingDown

    GoingDown "The Stability"

    According to this article - https://trainingground.guru/articles/six-clubs-bidding-for-academy-promotion-await-fate - there are 24 clubs with category 1 status. Plenty in the Championship. Hardly just an area for elite clubs.

    As for the finances, after 5 years in the PL, £1m a year on coaching should be nothing. We could have funded it forever with the money wasted.
     
  30. The Recluse

    The Recluse Reservist

    It's a bit more nuanced than that though isn't it?

    The elite and clubs with seriously wealthy owners can run the best academy, afford to buy in young talent and still compete at the top end of the transfer market.
    Then there are those like Southampton who have an excellent academy and spend well enough through EPL longevity and player sales.
    Below them will be the likes of Burnley and those championship clubs who will be able to fund a very good academy but not be able to spend in the main transfer market.

    The Pozzo's have never gone down the academy route in this way. They were the forerunners of manipulating the transfer market and continue to seek out value that way.

    Sadly the rest of the world has cottoned on to their way so the transfer market is too competitive now for them to use it as successfully. They need to adapt their approach. There will always be bargains but I think they now have to seriously look at other ways of finding first team players.

    As for spending £1m a year on coaches, yes it's pretty small when you consider what comes in through EPL TV money. But the cost of setting up an academy is huge and I wonder if there is even space at London Colney to implement all that is needed.

    It's also time consuming. Leeds set out a five year plan and managed to do it in three. I think if Watford were to ever go down the academy path then being in the Premiership stopped it due to the continual spend on players to try and stay there. Burnley under Dyche were happy enough to accept relegation while they built the club up from the bottom. I don't think the Pozzo's have that kind of patience or outlook.
     
  31. Smudger

    Smudger Messi's Mad Coach Staff Member

    What I mean to say HD is that we need a plan to bring in very young players scouring Hertfordshire as a base and work on those with ability to develop their football skills. Ball control and technique primarily. Then integrate them into a seamless path of club age division teams coupled with education of course so by the time they have reached eighteen we have several candidates available for the first team. It's not pie in the sky. It is long term planning and thinking but with the right people, investment it can be done.
     
  32. Smudger

    Smudger Messi's Mad Coach Staff Member

    As opposed to Brentford. The only decent kid we picked up from Arsenal was Tommie Hoban.
     
  33. nornironhorn

    nornironhorn Administrator Staff Member

  34. The Recluse

    The Recluse Reservist

    It looks like they want to get a few others out on loan as well.
    Nice to read they see Phillips as either on the fringes of the 1st team or playing somewhere else on loan. A big season for him.

    Good work by @DrewH who told us of the Cassidy loan a few days ago.
     
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  35. Steve Leo Beleck

    Steve Leo Beleck Squad Player

    Would love a couple of players to make the step up.

    The difference is obviously huge between youth and senior football. Players like Jakubiak and Folivi were prolific at lower age groups but will do very well to have any kind of professional career.
     

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