N/A Sonny Blu Lo-everton

Being released according to Leventhal. Shame as he looks a decent player but I guess being in and out of the Yeovil team shows he's a long way off contributing for us.

 

Sad end after what sounded like a promising start to his career with us.

 

Many a slip twixt cup and lip.

 

Year in year our academy prospects get released without given a chance. Not saying it’s the wrong choice but give the guys a chance, especially the hot prospects, who knows how they would perform in the first team squad. Half the academy greats in our history would have been released by now, but they got given the chance to prove themselves with us. It makes Watford even more undesirable to youth talent if they know there is 0% chance of them progressing.

 

Unbelievably believable. The 'Watford Way'.

 

Its tough to give prospects a chance in the first 11 when every point won or lost could make the difference between promotion and relegation. If he barely got any minutes for Yeovil in the National League, it's very unlikely he would have set the prem or champ alight. Back in the pre-Pozzo days, when we were just trying to survive in the champ, we had no option but to blood youngsters like Hodson, R Jenkins (little Ross, not big Ross), Marvin S etc as had no money to buy players and no links to a friendly overseas source of middling players. Some sank, some swam, but none turned out to be champ or prem standard despite Sordell's initial promise (and fee !).

 

We can be proud at how many have gone on to have careers in the football league. Unfortunately only Assombalonga and Yiadom have made it to a consistent Championship level - while Ashley Young stands alone at the peak.

The real superstars just get taken away from us mid-teens in the most unfair system in football.

 

It is a huge problem, but unless Watford decide to become a Cat One academy, then nothing will change. Watford will never produce its own talent. If the hierarchy say different, then it's just dreaming without a grasp of reality. We will lose the top talent and the rest will never be good enough. The percentage that could be used by Watford but will not be poached by bigger clubs is incredibly small. Maybe one player per decade if we're lucky.

 

I'm not going to try and claim youth development is some sort of positive under Pozzo. In fact it's been left to wither on the vine and that's pretty inexcusable given 6 years of PL revenue in the last 7. But it's hardly like anyone has been released from our academy and gone on to hit the heights either. The lack of investment means we've been producing players of L1 standard at best for the best part of half a decade. There's nothing to be gained from throwing them into PL football other than ruining them.

 

But isn't the cost of cat 1 huge, and can't the big boys still take our better players and just pay us a little more for the privilege ?

 

He can't get in a non league side, why on earth do you think we should give him a chance. That literally makes no sense at all

 

I think this loan killed any chance of him making it with us. Last season at Wealdstone he looked a real talent when being played as either a 10 or an 8, this season he's been heavily used as a winger, as well as consistently being used up front (as a 5"7 youngster in the National League!) as well as in his more favoured postions. He's looked fine when played again as an 8 or 10 but sadly game-time in those positions has been hard to come by.

 

Think I read somewhere yesterday that Cukur is also off this summer to Besiktas?

Would be nice to see one or two youth players make the grade!

 

It's a question of what the club want to do. Pay large agent fees to sign some run-of-the-mill players or produce their own academy, with players feeding through to the first team. Watford certainly have money to run a Cat One academy. Currently, there are a number of Championship clubs and a League One club who run a Cat One academy. Reading, Birmingham, Derby, Stoke, Sunderland, Middlesbrough and West Brom all run Cat One academies. So why not Watford? We can afford to do it, but choose not to. That has to change if we are serious about producing our own players.

When I hear SD claim we're investing in the academy and the aim is to have 3 players in next season's first team squad, that may well happen, but these won't be regular first teamers. I'm sure he'll claim Asprilla as being one of those too, which is a bit of a cheat. Hungbo another. The only one really from the academy is Shaq Forde and I believe he'll experience first team football at various stages this season, but doubt he'll start a league match.

If Watford are truly serious and ambitious then Cat One status has to be a priority this season. If not, then I don't believe the club are serious about it. It's all lip-service as usual.

 

...but my main point was that can't the big boys still pinch our best players under cat 1 and pay us peanuts, maybe more peanuts, but still relatively peanuts vs what they are worth ?

 

It's true, your players can still be pinched, but the compensation is more. But the main thing is kudos. Selling Watford to parents with gifted young footballers. We are now a Championship club. We don't have a good track record of promoting youth, we are not a Cat One club. If I were to put Watford against a club like Reading, you'd choose Reading. They are Cat One with a plan for promoting youth.

Now, if you upgrade Watford to Cat One, and state there is a real intention to promote youth, parents would probably consider Watford a better club than Reading in terms of stature, so we would then be in a good position. Cat One isn't just a meaningless label. It ensures young players get the best coaches, education, and play in competitive matches, against big clubs. Also, Watford raising to Cat One is a serious statement of intent. Remaining as a Cat Two club, may save money upfront, but is so short sighted. Look at Watford now, from the outside, it looks like we're a club heading in the wrong direction. I think we need to do things which demonstrates we want to change all that, and becoming one of the best academies around is a very positive step in the right direction.

 

Imagine he'll be going to play for their youth team rather than being in their first team!

 

What actual difference to the players' development does us being Cat 1 to Cat 2 actually make though?

One of the main reasons I've seen cited for why our youth players jump ship early is because they get paid more at the academies of larger Premier League clubs, not necessarily anything to do with the supposed academy Category.

I suspect us offering to pay more to our top young prospects might be a more worthwhile use of funds in terms of keeping them than changing our Category.

 

Depends what the parents' aims are. While the pathway to our first team is broken, we can legitimately point at offering a staging post for young talented players to show their abilities before a big club swoops in and takes them. It's not like every player who enters our youth setup never emerges... they just don't do anything for our first team. That's a failing in itself but I can't imagine every parent is concerned about that.

 

If he was already definitely on the way out I doubt we'd have bothered to put him on the bench at the weekend (even if he didn't get minutes).

Of course it wouldn't surprise me if he left given he didn't really do well on loan this season.

Besiktas? Who knows? But if the source was a Turkish journalist we've seen quite a few times in recent years that a lot of random transfer links get made up for Turkish clubs.

 

Pumping tens of millions to agents, unrestrained operating costs and extending garbage veteran player contracts costs a huge amount of money also. Pozzo makes his choices.

 

My quick take on it.

For those wanting a Cat.1 academy, can we actually afford to operate it season upon season?
I posted the other day, a report from 10 years ago showed a minimum recommended spend of £2.3m per year was needed. I've not found (and am no longer looking) for an up to date figure but I'll bet you any amount it's increased a decent amount since 2012.

I think what may hinder any chance of going down that route even further is spending the necessary amount to bring the current academy facilities up to the standard needed. A certain amount & standard of pitches, a higher level of physio, analytical, perhaps educational and even changing rooms would all need to be built. It costs ££millions to set up. Is there even the space at London Colney?

As Jumbolina says, Gino decides to pump millions in the direction of agents so unless he has some kind of internal revelation or is somehow advised otherwise, I just don't see the club being able to afford to go Cat.1, especially with the debt the club is currently carrying and also being in the Championship.

As for the players we're currently attracting and producing;

From the clubs perspective we do poach players from bigger clubs in the younger age groups and, personally, I think the type and standard of player coming through is improving year on year. Where the club fails miserably is the short term thinking and a lack of backing for the 1st team manager/head coach. While being in the top two divisions and results (+ being in the EPL) being the most important thing, unless an academy player is of outstanding ability there is no way the man in charge of the 1st team is going to try and blood a player who may come good. Give someone short term goals and he'll think in the same way.

So while the club is producing a decent standard of player up to and including those around 16 or 17, a number of factors will mean they won't progress.

Firstly, other clubs will poach a large % of the top talent we produce. It happens no matter what category academy a club has, it just happens more as you work down the academy ladder.

Secondly, a major upside in both progression as a player and also attracting the very best from other clubs is who we play week in week out. Cat.2 and we're up against the likes of Colchester, Millwall and Bristol City. There isn't too much glamour there and neither are we playing against the best youth players. So not being tested against the best means a certain amount of stagnation with a players progression. Cat.1 and you're playing against some of the best youth players/teams in Europe in competitions every week. A player will have to improve to stay in the side.

I can't say how exactly because I'm not privy to such information but a large amount of restructuring has occurred at academy level during Gino's ownership. Some of it won't have benefitted the club, some will. But as I said earlier, the quality and type of players coming through now are better than even 2 or 3 years ago.

The problem is they're not ready to step into EFL or EPL sides. The u23s have been mismanaged as a stepping stone, but hopefully going back to playing a lot of 17 or 18 year olds will help in some small way with that. Good teenagers need to be constantly tested so even playing against Cat.2 19, 20 & 21 year olds will have some benefit.

Sonny Blu Lo-Everton though is a perfect example of where the academy currently stands.
He stood out head & shoulders for the u18s when he burst onto the academy scene as a, I think, 16 year old, even better or as good as players he was up against from higher academies in the u18 cup games I saw. But when pushed into the u23s he struggled to control games the way he did before. So while the club is good at producing exciting prospects, the mismanagement of the 1st team and the u23s means the likelihood is the best we produce will stagnate and fall by the wayside.

I presume that was acted upon when Richard Johnson & Jimmy Gilligan came in and we saw a plethora of loans activated. It pushes the best of the academy into mens football which the club cannot provide itself and hopefully provides that platform to show they can play or, at the very least, show progression towards being able to play at a level the club currently is.

Not such a quick take then, sorry about that.

As a summery, I don't think the current owners can afford to run a productive academy as supporters see it, ie. constantly producing 1st team players. Neither do I think Gino Pozzo knows how to run a wholly successful academy. As it stands, the academy is successful up to u16 level and, at a push, the u18s. Past that, there just isn't the infrastructure from the 1st team down to aid the young players coming through.

 

I’m not on about him making the first team, but give them a chance in and around the 1st team. Why is it that Penaranda, Sinclair and god knows how many others can have multiple loans in the hope they come good and a home grown prospect gets cast away. Yes, the in-contract players may command a higher loan fee but it’s heavily biased away from our own youth development. I just want youth to get more of a chance before being cast off. Sean Murray didn’t go on to do too much at a higher level, but he sure lit the pitch up for us when he made his debut.

 

I agree. To have a category 1 academy we’d need new owners. Pozzo has other priorities and business associates he prefers to continually engage so we can’t afford it even when we had premier league income. We definitely can’t afford it right now given the financial state Pozzo has left us in with his business practices.

 

Great post. I agree that the annual cost of running cat A, probably nearer £3m a year by now, and the fact that the best prospects are still stolen, means it's unlikely this will happen any time soon.

 

Yeah, I agree with this.

I think there are things within our control that could be done if developing young players is a priority.

As you say, better pay might be part of it. Another aspect that would sell us to young players/parents better would be a clear and obvious route to first team opportunities. Harder when you’re competing in the top leagues, but not necessarily impossible. I think there’s also value to be found in creating an environment where parents are comfortable their kids will be cared for, and developed as both players and young adults.

Would it stop all of the best kids being poached? Probably not, but in the long run, being properly dedicated to doing more with what we do have would surely improve our chances of holding onto more talent, or attracting better talent.

 

I don't think that's fair, after all, kids will always want to sign for the big clubs with the best facilities, and the hope that one day they'll make it at one of the biggest clubs in the world, but as long as kids want to move to bigger clubs, their original club should damn right be entitled to a big chunk in sell-on fees