Kids probably play a lot more organised football and do training, but less of the spontaneous stuff in the park.
Kids footy has been monetised and professionalised cos all these daft parents think theirs is the next big thing.
Kids footy has been monetised and professionalised cos all these daft parents think theirs is the next big thing.
NeilMorepies
Player Valuation: £40m
We’ve had to sell anyone as he’s me grown talent to satisfy PSR (which other clubs seemed to have just ignored).
It means young players don’t bother with us as they know they will end up at another team as soon as they get to the first team.
Perhaps changed now, but will take some time to have any effect.
It means young players don’t bother with us as they know they will end up at another team as soon as they get to the first team.
Perhaps changed now, but will take some time to have any effect.
Not that it changes the overall conversation in an Everton sense but minutes played isn't really a great way of analysing it, you could have 3 or 4 players who are getting regular minutes but be lower in the table than a team who've just got one player who plays all the time and nothing else in the pipeline.
A year is very short snapshot we've had loads over recent years, made the club a lot of money, begs the question the purpose of the academy to produce for the first team or as a revenue generator.
Marcus Kendall
Player Valuation: £35m
Our academy was right up there at the end of the 90's and early noughties but we had Walter 'i don't trust youth' Smith in charge so the chance to have a bedrock and foundations of a successful side was lost. The likes of Michael Ball, Richard Dunne, Gavin McCann, Leon Osman, Tony Hibbert, Danny Cadamarteri, Michael Branch, Tony Grant, Billy Kenny, Franny Jeffers and of course the jewel in the crown Wayne Rooney if all moulded together properly could of given us a side to compete at the sharp end potentially with the right ownership and management structure but alas it wasn't meant to be 
A lot of it is down to the parents too.
They get tapped up by shyster agents and haven`t got the intelligence or are just downright greedy and can`t see that the agents are snake oil salesmen, who are only interested in lining their own pockets by hoovering up kids and punting them on.
Is Branthwaite not an academy graduate i know we signed him from Carlisle but he was in the academy before going to Blackburn and PSV.
If we are including younger players recruited then City and Chelsea numbers would be off also.
If we are including younger players recruited then City and Chelsea numbers would be off also.
Marcus Kendall
Player Valuation: £35m
Nah he's similar to Calvert Lewin in a bit of good scouting of another clubs prospect
There aren't less kids playing football, there are just less kids playing football in the street outside people's houses. From memory last time I looked Sport England data suggested somewhere around 70% of school aged boys played football at least once a week, I doubt the figures would have been significantly higher than that when you were a kid.
Yeh I’d say it’s probably more braggy to be down the pub saying your little lad is at City rather than Everton.
Signed at 17 though mate...….its proabably why the debate is a bit nuaced..........as we have clearly developed him through underage team/s, even if he had been playing Senior at Carlisle.
We signed Braidan Graham - does that make him not an academy graduate.
Equally didnt we get say Simms from City.
I agree, there`s way more organised footy for kids now.
Virtually every park in Liverpool, has got some kind of organised kids footy going on Saturday and Sunday.
At the weekend, you can`t get parked anywhere near the park facing us from 8.30 to noon, as there`s that many kids games and that`s even with a big car park for the astro pitches too.
Parents are much more involved now too, as in days gone past you`d never have hordes of parents at kids games, it just didn`t happen.
As a teenager, I played for a team that pretty much won everything year after year and not one dad ever came to watch, even the cup games.
It`s just the way it was, your dad was either in work, or in bed having a lie in and couldn`t be arsed at getting up to watch his lad.
The only games were you saw parents, was the school boys and cup finals, that was it.
The scouts would go to the team manager, who in turn would contact the parents.
Marcus Kendall
Player Valuation: £35m
I'd say it depends if you sign them before they can sign professionally, if they are already professionals then they aren't academy graduates
Is an academy that produces Anthony Gordon and Harrison Armstrong for the first team within a couple of years of each other really doing that bad of a job.
Academy footie should be like Mighty Ducks. If you live in certain postcodes you have to go to that academy.
