Do we think we are really doing enough to best develop our younger players?

[Ricky Otto]

Without doing lots of research, a couple of differences are that Crewe started theirs when Dario Gradi took over in the 80s, so have a 15-20 year head start on us. They are also a category 2 club, meaning they have better facilities, can spend more time with their players and aren't going to lose players to as many clubs as we are.

They have to raise around £500k a season from player sales to fund this though. With this they are forced to sell whoever comes through that is very good and only have them for 2-3 seasons at best. With that, they are currently bottom of League 1 without a single point.

Sorry perhaps I should have been clearer, I meant in the context of giving the youngsters opportunities in the 1st team.

That last point makes you wonder if that business model is the best when you have Peterborough at the top of the table investing their cash in non league talent and selling for profit.

 

[chapperzUK]

Sorry perhaps I should have been clearer, I meant in the context of giving the youngsters opportunities in the 1st team.

That last point makes you wonder if that business model is the best when you have Peterborough at the top of the table investing their cash in non league talent and selling for profit.

Yes it is quite similar, although some players do developer later than others which is why throwing them in ASAP is not good. There are also 8-10 years of development before they get to the first team.

Peterborough seem to have got the mixture of bringing youth players through, signing from non-league or lower divisions (plenty from league 2) and players released. The fairytale story is to sign a player from non-league or a youth player who then becomes a success, but that doesn't always happen. There are plenty of players released or sold by higher clubs who could succeed.

 

[Drobbo]

I say most players are much of a muchness , with CONFIDENCE being the vital ingredient.....I agree whole heartedly with this. And I go back to the youngsters, how must they feel seeing the football that is being played. ..and with the knowledge that it doesn't matter how bad the first team player in your position is, you're not getting a look in.

Must push their confidence down. ..must say even moreso because they are all on one year contracts, and without being played and seen by other clubs, once they are released, the only way is down.

Better still write to RM and ask him if PB was to throw a few youngsters in and we finish in the bottom half this year, improve a bit the following year and maybe get promotion in year 3 if he would support that policy. What do you think the answer would be ?

At the rate we are going...we'll be doing this with the first team!

 

[Drobbo]

I say most players are much of a muchness , with CONFIDENCE being the vital ingredient.....I agree whole heartedly with this. And I go back to the youngsters, how must they feel seeing the football that is being played. ..and with the knowledge that it doesn't matter how bad the first team player in your position is, you're not getting a look in.

Must push their confidence down. ..must say even moreso because they are all on one year contracts, and without being played and seen by other clubs, once they are released, the only way is down.

Better still write to RM and ask him if PB was to throw a few youngsters in and we finish in the bottom half this year, improve a bit the following year and maybe get promotion in year 3 if he would support that policy. What do you think the answer would be ?

At the rate we are going...we'll be doing this with the first team!

 

[Drobbo]

Apologies for the double post.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

You could argue these players "failed" but i would say they just didnt get enough chances to improve , gain confidence + learn to become pro's .In any career you learn best by doing the job by being thrown in the deep end. You cant tell me Woodyard is any worse than say Deegan or Herd was worse than Straker for example. Crawford has a decent scoring level wherever he played ( + his record for Blues reserves was excellent ). Crawford probably got half a dozen games of around 10 minutes + was written off + released .... look how many minutes we ve given Barny , Coolhirst,Corr + Weston yet are they any better? Debatable. ...Crawford was 100% committed,would run thru brick walls for this club + earnt a tiny fraction of our so called star strikers of this season.

I say most players are much of a muchness , with CONFIDENCE being the vital ingredient that makes the difference between a so called "good player" or a "useless player" ( to quote most shrimperzoners) . Take Gavin Tomlin as an example. The fella looked damn rubbish for around 10 games , like he was a fish out of water. But the manager stuck with him , gave him the confidence + BANG! 1st goal -- then he was possibly our most dangerous striker of the last 7 seasons .

My point ( and i'm getting there !!! ) is that for a club like ours that is losing a million or so a year , why ignore the rich potential youthful talent at our disposal that we have invested in , instead of paying up for so many less hungry pricey players in such a huge squad? We need to Give Youth a chance + in the process balance the books of our club .... We all look in envy at what Crewe have achieved year after year yet we ignore their basic principle.

I get that confidence is a huge factor but you still need the raw materials. Tomlin clearly had speed, trickery and work-rate even when he wasn't producing.

I've only seen Deegan once but he looked several notches better than Woodyard's best performance. His positioning, his composure, his awareness were just so much better. In that one performance he stood out to me more than Woodyard ever did in his dozen or whatever games. Woodyard looked to have to run to stand still at this level.

Similarly I couldn't see anything in Crawford which said professional footballer. He had no one attribute that was better than average with most being below average. Weston has pace, Corr's aerial ability is fantastic, Coulthirst has trickery, Barney has movement etc. Crawford's actually surpassed my expectations to play as much professional football as he did.

Straker is a young player who lacked confidence but at the same time has incredible resilience. Not many would have come back from the reception he was getting from the crowd. He had a lot of upper body strength which made him surprisingly good in the air, he did a lot of intelligent blocks of opposition players when they were trying to make runs off the ball he'd cut off their angle. For his flaws there was a player in there. I didn't see that with Herd. Herd has his long throw and played well against Chelsea but otherwise repeatedly looked out of his depth. He'd get dragged out of position, he'd make bad decisions and look lost.

I agree we need to give the kids a chance but only if they've got something about them - Kane Ferdinand, Franck Moussa, Dan Bentley, Kightly, Roget, etc they may not have always looked ready but you could see early on they all had a little something about them to keep them around. That doesn't always work out (Merrick-Lewis, Auger and Pinnock were ones that I thought had a little something who might have been developed but don't appear to have), but so many of our youth team products don't look to have anything at pro level and it's no surprise when they drop into non-league football, often below even conference.

I'd like to see the likes of Layne/Williams/Bridge/Banton etc given a chance first as sub when we're winning or losing by 2 goals, and if they show a little something then giving them starts when players are injured/suspended. I was disappointed that Auger wasn't given a run when White was injured - and yes I was at Newport and he wasn't nearly as bad as Rob Kiernan that day.

 

[Barry.C]

Has anyone got stats or a stronger angle on my second point in this thread , as to whether we are for some reason taking less opportunity to send younger players out on loan to gain skills and experience. Lots of businesses whether you are old or young do this. .
Some great points mentioned about a reduction in youth team and reserve team leagues. This means more ad hoc fixtures or short notice trial games. Does this bring its own pressure with a smallish squad to push youngsters through more quickly? If this is the case what is wrong with sending our more talented youngsters out on trial?
Jam suggested we cant afford it, although would we pay? Others think maybe the lower leagues , including the conference would harm prospects, although Im not sure how. If we have some genuine prospects why dont we do this more, if first team opportunities are going to be limited?
If anyone can guide me to a not too painstaking way of quickly getting an angle on how many younger/ youth players we have loaned out over the past say 5 years, I dont mind doing the research? Would you rather play for Braintree or wait to see if a reserve game comes up occassionally, especially if youre not going to get 10 minutes on the bench?

By the way thanks for the excellent article Chapperz, very interesting!

 

[Barry.C]

wow, Phil has publicly stated that Jason Williams will be on the bench soon! .Tomorrow?

 

[mrsblue]

wow, Phil has publicly stated that Jason Williams will be on the bench soon! .Tomorrow?

:stunned::stunned::stunned::stunned::stunned::stunned::stunned::stunned:

 

[chapperzUK]

Has anyone got stats or a stronger angle on my second point in this thread , as to whether we are for some reason taking less opportunity to send younger players out on loan to gain skills and experience. Lots of businesses whether you are old or young do this. .
Some great points mentioned about a reduction in youth team and reserve team leagues. This means more ad hoc fixtures or short notice trial games. Does this bring its own pressure with a smallish squad to push youngsters through more quickly? If this is the case what is wrong with sending our more talented youngsters out on trial?
Jam suggested we cant afford it, although would we pay? Others think maybe the lower leagues , including the conference would harm prospects, although Im not sure how. If we have some genuine prospects why dont we do this more, if first team opportunities are going to be limited?
If anyone can guide me to a not too painstaking way of quickly getting an angle on how many younger/ youth players we have loaned out over the past say 5 years, I dont mind doing the research? Would you rather play for Braintree or wait to see if a reserve game comes up occassionally, especially if youre not going to get 10 minutes on the bench?

For the loanees, I'm in agreement with you that it would help and we have done in the past. From the top of my head, Bentley, Luke Chambers, Seedy Njie, Mitch Pinnock and Woodyard have been out on loan and so has Luke Prosser IIRC. The only problem is that we don't really have the scouting network to check up on them and see how they are progressing unlike how we would if we kept them and played them in development fixtures.

For the development fixtures, Coughlan takes charge of those and it seems the priority goes to players who are too old for the under 18s - at the moment being Ted Smith, Jack Bridge, Josh Banton, Ellis Brown, Isaac Layne and Jason Williams - then 1st team players needing to get their match fitness up, and then finally players in the under 18s who are excelling at that level. Some trialists get give a go in these fixtures too.

By the way thanks for the excellent article Chapperz, very interesting!

Thanks, the youth football is something I am interested in. Hopefully I didn't bore too many with the long post!

 

[Barry.C]

It's a brave thing to do to give up your education to some extent to chase the dream, thinking of all our young players on the books including loaners. A dreadfully appalling statistic is that 75% of all professional footballers aged 18 to 21 give up and leave the professional game.Currently 400 eighteen to 21 year olds are trying to make it in the Premier League alone, with another 350 ,16 to 18 year olds. there ain't enough places to go around. At what point would you say Shaq time to move on to Barnsley in your interests and ours, we are swapping you for one of the other 400 or possibly getting in one of Chelsea's current 26 out on loan. Sometimes it comes together at a different club, that little bit of luck, confidence etc, but I strongly take the. Tomlin point about coming good after 15 games and not 7 or there a bouts

 

[chapperzUK]

I believe (99% sure on this but maybe wrong) that some clubs encourage their youths (16-18 year olds) to make sure they have a back-up plan if they fail to have a professional career. Remember that it doesn't just come down to skill, as mentality of the person comes in as you'll have to be pretty brave to be an 18/19 year old making his debut in front of several thousand people who will watch your every move.

Even if you have both of those, then a slice of bad luck and you are gone. I remember a player who was at a Premier league team and tipped to be a future first team player. Played in a reserve game and suffered a horrible injury which he never recovered from. Imagine going from so close to realising your dream that you've worked several years for to being told that you'll never get close. I also believe that player managed to get a decent amount through "loss of earnings", but a League 2 youth player wouldn't get anything.

I remember Clarke Carlisle doing a documentary on Depression and he spoke to a bunch of young people at an academy, they said that their plan A was football with no plan B. Can't remember the exact amount, but he said about 1 in 100 of them would make it in the professional game.

 

[Barry.C]

I believe (99% sure on this but maybe wrong) that some clubs encourage their youths (16-18 year olds) to make sure they have a back-up plan if they fail to have a professional career. Remember that it doesn't just come down to skill, as mentality of the person comes in as you'll have to be pretty brave to be an 18/19 year old making his debut in front of several thousand people who will watch your every move.

Even if you have both of those, then a slice of bad luck and you are gone. I remember a player who was at a Premier league team and tipped to be a future first team player. Played in a reserve game and suffered a horrible injury which he never recovered from. Imagine going from so close to realising your dream that you've worked several years for to being told that you'll never get close. I also believe that player managed to get a decent amount through "loss of earnings", but a League 2 youth player wouldn't get anything.

I remember Clarke Carlisle doing a documentary on Depression and he spoke to a bunch of young people at an academy, they said that their plan A was football with no plan B. Can't remember the exact amount, but he said about 1 in 100 of them would make it in the professional game.

yes, I was just reading a small bit about Rosenoir, .?Lee, he was saying people don't realise just how terrifying it is to step up for the first time in front of a crowd, even if it's, 1500 and that it takes a lot of guts, I suppose it gets to the psychological thing as much as anything and the debate on here at times that understandably mentions aspects of the sink or swim conundrum

 

[Jam_Man]

wow, Phil has publicly stated that Jason Williams will be on the bench soon! .Tomorrow?

Funnily enough Graham Coughlan made a point in the reserve game that he played well. Didnt score, so the fact that he still took the time to single him out says he is now in their thoughts.

 

[Barry.C]

Yep Jam , I saw that and thought that's interesting, Coughlin was really bigging him up with significant praise, suggesting hes nearly there

 

[Barry.C]

Chelsea are the Worlds top loaner outers as I briefly mentioned with 26 out on loan domestically and abroad. They say it is an important part of their plan, if they expect to compete for the biggest prizes and theythink it's the best way to go.. They see it as critical to player development at the age of 18 to 21 especially to get psychological gains as much as physical, alongside more regular competitive games.

Everton like Crewe are noted for their strong development side. They loan out their VERY best development players, even to the point of finishing bottom of the youth league. Their view is that there is not enough at stake at youth league level, where the game is not physical enough

somebody said not long ago , you need to discover the wider world, going out on loan is the best way to learn and it serves people well, you face up to the realities of life away from too much Molly coddling ( Joe Hart) should young Ted Smith be off to the Conference?

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

Chelsea are the Worlds top loaner outers as I briefly mentioned with 26 out on loan domestically and abroad. They say it is an important part of their plan, if they expect to compete for the biggest prizes and theythink it's the best way to go.. They see it as critical to player development at the age of 18 to 21 especially to get psychological gains as much as physical, alongside more regular competitive games.

Everton like Crewe are noted for their strong development side. They loan out their VERY best development players, even to the point of finishing bottom of the youth league. Their view is that there is not enough at stake at youth league level, where the game is not physical enough

somebody said not long ago , you need to discover the wider world, going out on loan is the best way to learn and it serves people well, you face up to the realities of life away from too much Molly coddling ( Joe Hart) should young Ted Smith be off to the Conference?

I think Parma can beat them

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parma_F.C.#Out_on_loan

 

[davewebbsbrain]

Funnily enough Graham Coughlan made a point in the reserve game that he played well. Didnt score, so the fact that he still took the time to single him out says he is now in their thoughts.

#mrsbluelikesthis

 

[mrsblue]

#mrsbluelikesthis

Not half Webby


First Jack now Jason let the yoofs rule!

 

[Barry.C]

Yorkshire you sure youre not hamming it up?