2023/24 Kevin Thelwell

[Bedfordblue]

“From the end of the 2022/23 campaign, our priority was strengthening our attack in terms of goals and assists”
Fair play for fronting up like, but we’ve needed a striker a wee bit longer imo.
Actually think he’s doing a far better job than the previous incumbents, not sure I that equates to a good job overall just yet be seen to going in the right direction. Chermiti is a big question mark for me atm, especially if we’ve paid a premium just to defer any payment to next season.

 

[Eggs]

….at least the Academy teams are showing significant improvement this season

 

[Neiler]

….at least the Academy teams are showing significant improvement this season

To be fair the academy has prob made us about £80 mill in the last 9 months.

Do we want to win youth games or do we want £80 mill…..

 

[Eggs]

To be fair the academy has prob made us about £80 mill in the last 9 months.

Do we want to win youth games or do we want £80 mill…..

….i’d like to think one goes with the other.

 

[Neiler]

….i’d like to think one goes with the other.

I think it’s a hard man that says it doesn’t, we do very well with academy graduates making it to the first team mate, better then most clubs you don’t need me to give you the names.

Whats also a reality is that the biggest clubs need to use their academies to raise funds look at City and Chelsea they use their academies to comply with FFP by selling their youngsters. In modern football your academy has to be a revenue stream. In previous years we’ve kept academy graduates far too long and let them leave for nothing.

You can keep, Simms, Cannon and Broadhead and win all the youth games going like with Penno, Kenny, Garbutt or Galloway until they eventually leave on frees with no decernable return for the club bar winning youth games. Or you can realise the value stay with in the rules and use the capital to reinvest.

Then there is the developmental pathway. Was young Mills development better playing senior football for Oxford and scoring a screamer or was he better off in the youth team winning a game against lads the same age in junior football.

Thelwel has done really well in utilising academy graduates as a revenue stream. As above it’s a model clubs we aspire to progress to structurally do with huge success.

 

[DayL08]

I disagree with him that he thinks we kept the same defensive base as last year. Mina and coady were much better options than Keane and Godfrey. We are weaker there.

Otherwise the rest is fairly stating the obvious.

Mina’s injured again playing for Colombia so can we really count him

 

[Marius57]

Mina’s injured again playing for Colombia so can we really count him

Arguably would have been relegated without him last season. Even though he only played a handful of games.

 

[catcherintherye]

I think it’s a hard man that says it doesn’t, we do very well with academy graduates making it to the first team mate, better then most clubs you don’t need me to give you the names.

Whats also a reality is that the biggest clubs need to use their academies to raise funds look at City and Chelsea they use their academies to comply with FFP by selling their youngsters. In modern football your academy has to be a revenue stream. In previous years we’ve kept academy graduates far too long and let them leave for nothing.

You can keep, Simms, Cannon and Broadhead and win all the youth games going like with Penno, Kenny, Garbutt or Galloway until they eventually leave on frees with no decernable return for the club bar winning youth games. Or you can realise the value stay with in the rules and use the capital to reinvest.

Then there is the developmental pathway. Was young Mills development better playing senior football for Oxford and scoring a screamer or was he better off in the youth team winning a game against lads the same age in junior football.

Thelwel has done really well in utilising academy graduates as a revenue stream. As above it’s a model clubs we aspire to progress to structurally do with huge success.

A case in point was the recent mini derby.

Of outfield players involved, we had 7 under 18's involved, Liverpool had 0. We had zero outfield players over 20, and I think 1 aged above 19. Liverpool had 7 aged 20 or over.

It is literally men against boys, and the same result follows. But we have Warrington, Welch, Mills out on loan, Brainthwaite, Onyango and Dobbin in the first team and have sold Cannon for 8 million. If we included those 7, we probably win comfortably (even though it is the same sort of ages of players LFC had) but we have less money coming in.

We can't have great youth teams in terms of results, pathways, players loaned out and players sold for a profit. We don't have the budget of Liverpool,City, Chelsea etc. But if we have to prioritise, it should be getting first team players, selling players like Gordon to CL teams and then raising the funds we can from those not good enough for the above. Roughly in that order too.

 

[mahermi1]

To be fair the academy has prob made us about £80 mill in the last 9 months.

Do we want to win youth games or do we want £80 mill…..

Don't think much if any of that £80m made it past Moshiri mate.

 

[Neiler]

Don't think much if any of that £80m made it past Moshiri mate.

.

There is a black hole alright mate, whether that cashflow, the ground or Moshiri - to be very fair to him he put another £20 mill of his own money in, in May just gone.

Regardless it shows 80 mill coming into the club and that is mana for our FFP £105 mill three season threshold.

 

[Neiler]

A case in point was the recent mini derby.

Of outfield players involved, we had 7 under 18's involved, Liverpool had 0. We had zero outfield players over 20, and I think 1 aged above 19. Liverpool had 7 aged 20 or over.

It is literally men against boys, and the same result follows. But we have Warrington, Welch, Mills out on loan, Brainthwaite, Onyango and Dobbin in the first team and have sold Cannon for 8 million. If we included those 7, we probably win comfortably (even though it is the same sort of ages of players LFC had) but we have less money coming in.

We can't have great youth teams in terms of results, pathways, players loaned out and players sold for a profit. We don't have the budget of Liverpool,City, Chelsea etc. But if we have to prioritise, it should be getting first team players, selling players like Gordon to CL teams and then raising the funds we can from those not good enough for the above. Roughly in that order too.

I think up to this point the academy was under utilised mate. In terms of a revenue generator and a developmental pathway. We've made a lot of money under Thelwell from the academy. But not only that its the work that went into creating almost selecting the right loan for say Simms, Cannon, Niels etc that vreated a market. Then you have the likes of Branthwaite, Onyango and Dobbin and their developmental pathway are they anywhere near the first team without being on loan last season and playing mens football - i dont think so, i think previously lads like that and the afore mentioned are just waisted.

You look at young Mills yesterday, who seems to be thriving at Oxford, Warrington has a successful loan behind him, Tryer as wel and Welch is having his first g0 - who know they come back and may offer us something like Dobbin, Branthwaite and Onyango or we buked a profile in them at lower league level and they make us money. Its how it has to be - the academy needs to be active as a business as opposed to winning junior football matches.

Thelwell has much improved the model in my opinion, hes made alot of money of lads we would have historically gotten nect to nothing, if not nothing for and added options for the first team through a developmental pathway.

 

[blueblood]

To be fair the academy has prob made us about £80 mill in the last 9 months.

Do we want to win youth games or do we want £80 mill…..

Thelwell is at least moving players on for decent money while they’re still young. We’ve given players new contracts who have no real prospects of breaking through for years. Going back to the likes of Pennington, Kenny and more recently Davies.
We’ve also started sending the more promising youngsters on loan, so Warrington, Mills and Welch are getting better experience than playing u21 football. Mills scored a cracking goal yesterday.

 

[Toffe3m4n]

….at least the Academy teams are showing significant improvement this season

Both squads are looking a bit Frankenstein-esque this season for one reason or another, mainly due to sales/loans and a few early 'promotions' of the really young lids into the respective squads.

Not really sure exactly what Thelwell's long term plan is for them, but the recent gutting of each squad perhaps suggests a bit of a transitional 'overhaul' is being conducted..

 

[Martin Alvito]

I think up to this point the academy was under utilised mate. In terms of a revenue generator and a developmental pathway. We've made a lot of money under Thelwell from the academy. But not only that its the work that went into creating almost selecting the right loan for say Simms, Cannon, Niels etc that vreated a market. Then you have the likes of Branthwaite, Onyango and Dobbin and their developmental pathway are they anywhere near the first team without being on loan last season and playing mens football - i dont think so, i think previously lads like that and the afore mentioned are just waisted.

You look at young Mills yesterday, who seems to be thriving at Oxford, Warrington has a successful loan behind him, Tryer as wel and Welch is having his first g0 - who know they come back and may offer us something like Dobbin, Branthwaite and Onyango or we buked a profile in them at lower league level and they make us money. Its how it has to be - the academy needs to be active as a business as opposed to winning junior football matches.

Thelwell has much improved the model in my opinion, hes made alot of money of lads we would have historically gotten nect to nothing, if not nothing for and added options for the first team through a developmental pathway.

Short version - Thelwell has been doing well given the constraints he operates under, IMO. I don't know that this makes him "better" than Brands, because the situations are different.

I suspect the narrative looks like this: Moshiri trusted Walsh and Koeman to know what they were doing. When it became apparent that they did not, he fired them, brought in Brands and took a more hands-on approach. Since there was still money and FFP headroom, there were options, and Moshiri steered us into some bad ones because he also did not know what he was doing.

With the club in fiscal shackles, options have become very limited and there just isn't room for Moshiri to meddle. He can't say, "No, I don't want you to build the club slowly over time, I want to bring in this expensive manager and buy him the Lego parts he needs to win now," because the club can't afford to do that.

 

[Neiler]

Short version - Thelwell has been doing well under the constraints he operates under, IMO. I don't know that this makes him "better" than Brands, because the situations are different.

I suspect the narrative looks like this: Moshiri trusted Walsh and Koeman to know what they were doing. When it became apparent that they did not, he fired them, brought in Brands and took a more hands-on approach. Since there was still money and FFP headroom, there were options, and Moshiri steered us into some bad ones because he also did not know what he was doing.

With the club in fiscal shackles, options have become very limited and there just isn't room for Moshiri to meddle. He can't say, "No, I don't want you to build the club slowly over time, I want to bring in this expensive manager and buy him the Lego parts he needs to win now," because the club can't afford to do that.

Just don't rate Brands at all mate, he was awful for the club, Emperors new clothes for me and he had his part to play in running this club n to the ground financially, i never buy the whole what could he do with Moshiri narrative (wholly).

Weirdly from a management perspective we are better with no money then with, its drives good decision making, resource management and creativity - because well it has to.

I honestly believe the model we should follow is, is Arsenal and Spurs - self sustainability is and always the only sustainable show in town.