Academy And Under-23s

Fine - Sarr has not been pulling up trees. Rotate him. Point remains. You can't not give youth prospects any meaningful chances and then wail when they decide to move clubs.

 

Is it Gino Pozzo's fault that Rob Edwards, Slaven Bilic and Chris Wilder have decided to play Sema/Martins/Kalu/Sarr over Blake? They all get to see him in training every day.

They got to see Manaj/Bayo/Assombalonga/Adeyemo every day, and they get to make their judgement as to who would be a better option for the team.

One day people will realise the actual jump in level between playing Colchester U23s and playing an average Championship side, and will stop getting over excited when they score a couple of goals against kids.

We've had however-many managers in the last decade, all of which are better judges of a player's ability than anyone on this forum, and all get to watch them up close and personal every day. None of them have seen fit to give an extended run to any academy player. And none of them have been proven wrong by an academy player's future career.

Could it be that any that *are* potentially good enough, have long since been hoovered up by big clubs thanks to a rigged system? No, it must be the ownership, actively and intentionally losing out on future player sales and big profit for...reasons.

 

No the point doesn't remain - he's even more raw than Asprilla. He's not yet ready to even be an impact player off the bench in the Championship.

It'd be a different story if he wasn't yet getting minutes towards the end of next season. If he's still not being given minutes at that point then I'd consider he's perhaps being misused, or that he's maybe not all that.

 

Could it possibly be because Pozzo fires 3 managers every single season? And a manager knows there is zero appetite for 12 months building rather let alone a 3 year plan.

Just maybe it’s the culture of the club instilled by the owner? Of course it can’t be that. Not in your head.

Do you ever wonder why Pozzo culture is incapable of producing a single meaningful youth player in the first team? And other teams can? No? Didn’t think so.

 

Fair points, but I think it’s also worth considering that none of our managers have any incentive to pay much attention to youth players, given the fact they are expected to win instantly and will be replaced after 6 months. That culture is surely not conducive to young players being given opportunities to play through their development cycle and be afforded the chance to work through growing pains that come with exposure to a higher level.

This culture that abandons long-term development in favor of short-term *success* (firefighting would be more appropriate) has impacted the development of genuinely talented players of all ages. How many players have come through our club in the last 5 years and actually improved?

 

JP, Morris and Asprilla have of the current team.

Amass must have done considering he was at the club from 9 and just been signed by Utd.

 

Did they come through when we gave out longer term deals and were less trigger happy? Did any come through with Zola/QSF/Gracia? No?

How many have similar clubs to us in similar positions produced, really? I doubt it's a significant amount.

But surely when we've sent these youngsters out to play first team football, if there was a potential PL/Championship player in the making, they would have made a significant impact at their retrospective non-league clubs?

They simply haven't been good enough, and every manager has agreed. If they have been good enough, age hasn't been an issue - as referenced by LR.

 

No doubt Amass and Blake show promise, but that is literally all it is at this point.

Amass was on the bench this season, and has to dislodge James Morris to get into the side. I suspect the fact he'll be handed a £5k+ a week contract elsewhere is the sole reason he'll leave.

Ultimately the best never join our academy in the first place, and anyone picked up at this point are cheap punts for Category 1 sides. I doubt either player is viewed as a future superstar by any of the interested teams

 

I guess it COULD be argued by those players that they knew they were good enough to get promoted through the age groups quickly - and then saw the club bring in James Morris from Southampton.

 

Forgot about the Mazzarri season. He had a whole year (what a treat for a Watford HC), had the 2nd worst injury crisis I've seen, and still didn't see fit to give extended runs to any academy players.

Seeing as Walter must have been given clear directive from the ownership to not play youth players under any circumstances (Mario Suarez has a bigger resale potential - apparently), let's see just how poor that judgement from Mazzarri (Gino) was:

Academy prospects cruelly and unfairly shunned, and where they are now:

Charlie Rowan - Oxford City (6th tier)
Brandon Mason - Crawley Town (League 2)
Andrew Eleftheriou - Hemel Hempstead (6th tier)
Carl Stewart - Northwood FC (7th tier)
Dion Pereira - Luton Town (currently making no impact at Bradford City - League 2)
Michael Folivi - Chelmsford City (6th tier)

For shame.

 

Agreed. His chances of first team football would be much higher at a club like MU .

 

James Morris joined Watford shortly after Tomas Galvez had left the club so the signing of Morris is irrelevant to that possible argument,

Harry Amass was only 14 years old when James Morris joined. I think that he is probably intelligent enough to realize that potentially he has a higher ceiling than Morris, who had been released by Southampton before he joined Watford,. Amass must realize that he would have had a good chance of breaking into the first team in the next couple of years. Amass has played 3 times for England U-15 team and 11 times for the England U-16 team (including winning the UEFA Development Tournament in Cyprus) whereas Morris has never played for any England youth team.

According to his grandfather, the family are Watford supporters and are very pleased with the way in which the Watford youth coaches have developed Amass as a player. He was given a scholarship one year in advance and, although he was only 15 years old, he was included in Watford's squad for the F.A. Cup game at Reading. He was offered a two year professional contract by Watford, but he did not sign because the wage was little more than he was getting as a scholar and the family (who knew about the interest from PL clubs) were unhappy with the offer because he is highly regarded in the Academy.

 

https://twitter.com/fabrizioromano/status/1646475582295662592?s=46&t=_sjSOIy6MZT-CHAfpZ98sA

Sounds like Blake is off.

 

Well, what a surprise.

 

Hearing provincial Italian club Cudinese Alcio are offering him a fat salary

 

No surprise Blake is leaving, but it'd be pretty odd if he ends up at Utd considering they already have Garnacho in his position who is a fantastic talent and only a year older than him.

 

Certainly looks that way judging by his twitter profile pics of him playing for us.

https://twitter.com/lakentorres?lang=en

Seems he was Chesterfield's Academy Player of the Year last year and scored practically a goal a game.

Makes a change us nicking the best academy products from other clubs for a change, albeit only from a Conference club, and where his coaches there described him as:
“Laken is what I would call a ‘street footballer’. He has all the skills but is not quite the finished article. We look forward to nurturing him as he looks to make further progress.”

https://chesterfield-fc.co.uk/club-news/laken-torres-academy-player-of-the-year

Anyway, here's a highlights vid from his previous season, not much to go on but seems decent in it none the less:

 

Amass starts for the u21s this afternoon. No Blake or Adeyemo so assume they'll be involved in some capacity tomorrow.

 

Evan Cadwallader from Newport County on trial:

https://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/sport/23455332.newport-countys-evan-cadwallader-trial-watford/

 

Weird.

 

Getting rid of Ammas and signing this lad instead purely for financial reasons as the cost of his name on the back of a shirt is about £200. The concern in that is that we may sign Assombolonga on a longer deal!

 

I thought he had gone?

 

They're probably hoping Amass can pick up an injury !

 

Even if he's not leaving until the summer, as suggested above, we shouldn't be playing him - give the minutes instead to another player who's not bu55ering off to Man Utd.

 

Anybody go. Just interested who the trialists were? Obviously one is the lad from Newport.

 

If he does bid farewell, I hope at least the traitorous little lamb remembers who made thee.

 

He is meek, and He is mild, He was our little child.

 

Saw all I needed to see from Blake when he decided to shush the one and only camera at some random youth cup game earlier in the season after scoring

The lad thinks he's class, and he probably is at the level he's playing. I think it's fairly telling though that neither Wilder nor Bilic have used him, despite it being an area we're incredibly lacking

 

I saw him at Reading and I know it's only one game but I wasn't sure what he was supposed to be good at. Andrews came in and looked as though he could play at this level. Blake may end up being a superstar but first impressions were not great. He also has a crap haircut