The Bluebirds Academy and DVP thread...

[Blue in the Face]

Some real good debates going on in here along with the thread on the FAW Welsh cup final.

I've been told that Rhys Abbruzzese has been released which would explain why he didn't feature on Tuesday in Swansea.

I agree with Loramski's point earlier in one of the threads that though Warnock has done a fantastic job in almost every way since he's taken over, it really is hard to see where all this is going long term.

We have seen at Stoke how hard it has been to convert Pulis style into something more 'pleasing on the eye'.

Stoke have splashed substantial amounts of cash to get where they are now on top European players yet they seem to caught between the old and the new.

The biggest long term problem I see is that every academy tends to bring kids up playing attractive football on 3g or bowling green surfaces. Cardiff are trying to implement a Spanish philosophy where possession is paramount amd when you contrast this with the first team then the issue becomes clear.

I see people calling for us to sign Ryan Woods from Brentford this summer if we go up but I cannot for the life of me envisage Woods slotting into our team.

Emyr Huws is a perfect example. He was a midfielder who would come to the ball and would tend to play horizontally rather than vertically and therefore didn't get a sniff under Warnock.

If you watch players like Spence, Waite and Bowen on a regular basis then you will see a similar issue in the way these kids have been nurtured and the way the first team play.

I often wonder if the kids are being kept in the u18s to protect themselves or to protect Bellamy as results at that level would boost his profile, however if Warnock wants the 23s to be more like the 1st team then maybe it's for the good of the kids.

One thing is sure, if the club wants to move forward they need to establish a clear vision of what they are about. You cannot have such a contrast between the 1st team and what is coming through and expect them to seamlessly slot in.

I'd be dissapointed if Abbruzzese has been cut. He is still a current Wales u21 and hasn't looked out of place playing at that level. I think his absence from the FAW cup could perhaps be due to age? Think the rules are u19 for last September. If he has been let go, I hope a league side that plays a technical game take a look at him.

There is clearly a dilema bringing the styles of the DVP to the seniors. But I'm not certain in my mind that Neil is specifically against a more technical game over the directness we've had in the second half of this season. I think he would take a Woods if it was affordable, though not a Huws. Though Neil does have a track record of having big specimens in the spine of his teams. I think what Warnock has brought to Cardiff is pure pragmatism. Points on the board with little money to spend. If we were to win on Sunday. He will have money to spend on wages and I'm sure wouldn't be surprised to see more technical types arrivals over the summer to make us more adaptable. Perhaps we will promotion or not. But sure, he's always gonna want a couple of heavyweights in the mix and it's easy to understand why.

Does our success highlight a problem we have with our catchment area? Wales, for whatever reason just doesn't seem to produce big specemins who also happen to be technically capable of playing for an upper championship side. There haven't been many players in the Welsh squad over 6ft in recent years. Barely any capable of the highest levels of the game. So our DVP team does need supplementing. Though us digging around other teams trash all season seems like a desperate act to me.

There's another problem for us. Maybe a problem unique to us and the few upper championship clubs with level 2 academy status. Academy 2 seems to be a very useful grade for league one clubs or below. They can turn decent prospects and late bloomers in to pros and make up a decent percentage of their squad with home grown players, with the odd one maybe having potential to make a higher level. The problem we have is that we are generally bound to players in our catchment area because of the 2 status. We have not able to so much poaching of players who might fill in deficiencies that the youth teams and catchment area may have, which mainly seems to be physical and yet capable players.

The academy system seems like a winner take all system at present. Is level 2 any use for our level as an upper championship club? If we had a Rambo now, what's to stop him from being poached by Arsenal for a simple trubunal fee? Would we even have gotten to the stage where we could have comanced the measly 4.9m? If if if, we were to go up, my hope is getting us to a level 1 academy would be top of the priority list. My worry is it might be too much of a long term improvement for the powers that be. I just hope an argument can be made that the size of the investment needed would be in line with an increase in the club's asset value as a consequence.

But perhaps it might take another Ramsay-esque break through to get people enthused for academy investement again?