stretford blue
Player Valuation: £35m
Shame really looked to have all the attributes left back left sided centre back ,
EFC_FRANCIS
Player Valuation: £40m
I don't think mins are the greatest metric for this
ISS hasn’t really progressed, on the bench and unused yesterday.
At least 5 Academy graduates playing in Championship yesterday,Isaac Price for WBA , Broadhead coming on for Wrexham , Cannon scoring for Sheff Utd, Dobbin assist and Small playing for PNE, Simms starting for Coventry. As has been said, some sold to help PSR, all decent Championship players , good luck to them but none would be featuring in the PL for us this season.
Another one who (eventually) had a solid professional career - now 31, I see, and still playing for Bradford City in League One.
This is swayed by the narrowing the criteria to the PL, whereas we have a fair few academy graduates playing tier two to tier four as @Connor mentioned.
For a fair few years our academy was decimated due to lack of investment, whilst other Cat 1 academies invested heavily in staff and in scope.
I know of academy coaches who moved from us to City or United because the money was better, plus private 1:1 coaching pays significantly more.
When it comes to signing at U9, this can play a big part alongside the scope of the academy: how many players signed; opportunities such as trips abroad.
Yet, in recent years, here has been a reversal (or at least the beginning of one), where more money is being put into the academy to fund the above.
We are signing some excellent players at youth level. Still, it does come back to the whole aspect of PL appearances being the barometer of success.
That ain't the way the system works, because in reality the number of gems (who will go on to succeed in the PL) will always be relatively low - one or two.
Unless you're going to sell these players, the academy system isn't financially sustainable, so the club measures itself on a number of levels.
If you get a player(s) who succeeds in the PL, that's the top tier; the main measure is if you have players who are good enough to sell for a profit.
These don't have to be PL standard players, yet rather a relatively sizeable fee for a few Championship players will more than help fund the academy.
Some people mentioned Unsworth and winning PL2, and at the time this was heralded, but in reality it means nothing if these players don't bring in income.
It's great that the club are now focusing on the academy, although we will not see fruit of this for many years: City and Chelsea are top as they funded it.
Timbucktoo
Player Valuation: £30m
We seem to have an academy that produces plenty of players that end up finding their level in League one or two. There are the odd exception like Gordon that we get a good fee for, but what`s the point in having the expense of running an academy when there`s little or no chance that any first team players will come from it, especially with a manager like we have at the moment who likes his players to have plenty of experience under their belt, even if they lack a lot of footballing ability.
John from Bootle
Player Valuation: £25m
We must have raked in about £150 million from academy player sales this century? Pretty confident it more than pays for itself.
….not sure what point you’re making, Joey, except I agree he looks a real talent. Can’t remember a LB being involved in so many of the goals, not to mention being brought down for a pen in open play by the opposition CB.
City have struggled at LB, not surprising they brought him straight in.
We struggle in a few key positions but we send g
we struggle in a few positions good young players like HA out on loan ....
…still going on about that
. CM is certainly an area we don’t ’struggle’ in, I’d like to think it’s not a priority at all.Not a big fan of sending our best ones on loan but it’s a positive sign, especially if they develop like Armstrong. It does indicate a stronger squad but be under no illusion, the Manager will keep the ones here wants to use.
….i would advise not to have such a fixed view, over the years I’ve repeatedly argued (in the on-loan thread) that it was a bad sign when we sent a promising youngster on loan as the vast majority end up moving on at the end of their contract.
Armstrong was different, it was plain to see from his stint at Derby. The dilemma was, how much game time would he get ahead of Garner, Gueye, Iroegbunam, KDH and Rohl or was he better having an opportunity to play more elsewhere. Understandable decision made, especially when the lad was brought back when Gueye was at AFCON and has remained here since.
Our youth system needs overhauling different era etc but young players need the encouragement to come through to the first team imo
….these statements mean little, they have to be very special to play at the top level. You can’t play Academy players in the first team just because they’re young.
The very, very good ones will get opportunities. We actually have a very good mix of young players in and around the first team.
