The Bluebirds Academy and DVP thread...

[surge]

Re: The Bluebirds Academy and DVP thread...

Another youngster leaves, this time for Sheffield Wednesday - I thought he was playing really well in the couple of months before Christmas.

http://www.swfc.co.uk/news/article/2...d-3532638.aspx

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/cardiff-citys-20-best-players-9295093

He pops up in this 20/05/2015 article about 20 to watch from our youth team. It's always strange to create an article like this when the route to first team football is such a long one with so many potential distractions and road-blocks, and now it's popped on here I half expect (as is usually the point of creating the original) WalesOnline will follow it up with a "what are they doing now?" article.

Sheffield Wednesday also signed (Welsh) Morgan Fox this January. That's been kept rather quiet and I don't think he's troubled the first team yet.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: The Bluebirds Academy and DVP thread...

The Development team were beaten 2-0 up at Sunderland in a Group game in that new fangled cup competition - they were as good as out of the competition beforehand and this result just makes it official I'd say. The only info I could find on the match was on the Sunderland Twitter feed, so I've no idea what sort of team we put out.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: The Bluebirds Academy and DVP thread...

That text makes it sound as if Millwall had the better of the first 20 minutes and the entire second-half. It finished 1-1.

Yes, I had a quick look at it when I got in from the Burton match and it reads like the second half was one way traffic with keeper Scott Coughlin performing heroics for us, but I hope we get to see the goal Isaak Davies (who looks a fine prospect based on what I've seen of him so far) scored to put us 1-0 up in the first half, because it sounded like it was something well worth watching.

[Loramski]

Re: The Bluebirds Academy and DVP thread...

The Development team were beaten 2-0 up at Sunderland in a Group game in that new fangled cup competition - they were as good as out of the competition beforehand and this result just makes it official I'd say. The only info I could find on the match was on the Sunderland Twitter feed, so I've no idea what sort of team we put out.

Sounded like one-way traffic. The team is at the bottom of this report, Meite got 90 minutes and it looks like Jamie Bird is back.

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/match-reports/sunderland-u23-2-0-cardiff-12490226

[Sloop_Jon_Bee]

Re: The Bluebirds Academy and DVP thread...

To be fair to Slade, I saw him quite often at Development team matches at Leckwith and the Vale (even had a conversation with him once if thanking him for allowing me to get past him qualifies as one), so I take the point about it being hypercritical to criticise Slade and say nothing about Warnock. However, I will cut Warnock some slack for;-
1. Acting so quickly on an Academy and Development team system that wasn't working. The proof of the pudding will be in the results it produces of course, but the moving on of players in their early twenties who were stuck in a limbo between youth and first team football and the appointment of someone to oversee age group football at the club in the same way as Brian Flynn used to for Wales, seem like good moves to me - especially as the new appointee is someone like Craig Bellamy.
2. Less than three months into his time at Cardiff and Warnock has already done what Slade never did in almost two full season at the club - give an Academy graduate (in fact, Mark Harris is still eligible for our Under 18s this season) a first team debut.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: The Bluebirds Academy and DVP thread...

Interesting story in the Daily Star of all places this morning where it names the top ten Championship sides this season when it comes to using players produced by their Academies. Almost entirely down to Joe Ralls, we are rated tenth. which is seven or eight places higher than I thought we'd be, but our figure in terms of number of minutes played by former youth players at the club is about a third of that of the team at the top, Leeds, who have also done very well when it comes to getting the sorts of fees that enabled them to build the type of team they have this season.

That's where we really fall down I feel - say what you like about Peter Ridsdale, but we were able to build very competitive sides in this division through signings made off the proceeds of the sale of one or two players every summer for seven figure sums - since we were relegated, we've almost completely lost the knack of finding players we could make a profit on when they left us.

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/581383/Championship-best-academies-most-minute-homegrown-players-sportgalleries

[Blue in the Face]

Re: The Bluebirds Academy and DVP thread...

Interesting story in the Daily Star of all places this morning where it names the top ten Championship sides this season when it comes to using players produced by their Academies. Almost entirely down to Joe Ralls, we are rated tenth. which is seven or eight places higher than I thought we'd be, but our figure in terms of number of minutes played by former youth players at the club is about a third of that of the team at the top, Leeds, who have also done very well when it comes to getting the sorts of fees that enabled them to build the type of team they have this season.

That's where we really fall down I feel - say what you like about Peter Ridsdale, but we were able to build very competitive sides in this division through signings made off the proceeds of the sale of one or two players every summer for seven figure sums - since we were relegated, we've almost completely lost the knack of finding players we could make a profit on when they left us.

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/foo...sportgalleries

We've cheated that one a bit I feel. To an extent Ralls, Kadeem, Ben Wilson, Kennedy and Rhys Healy are all transfers to our club really and aren't full on academy products as they arrived at a late age. Mark Harris and Declan definately count though.

[surge]

Re: The Bluebirds Academy and DVP thread...

Interesting story in the Daily Star of all places this morning where it names the top ten Championship sides this season when it comes to using players produced by their Academies. Almost entirely down to Joe Ralls, we are rated tenth. which is seven or eight places higher than I thought we'd be, but our figure in terms of number of minutes played by former youth players at the club is about a third of that of the team at the top, Leeds, who have also done very well when it comes to getting the sorts of fees that enabled them to build the type of team they have this season.

That's where we really fall down I feel - say what you like about Peter Ridsdale, but we were able to build very competitive sides in this division through signings made off the proceeds of the sale of one or two players every summer for seven figure sums - since we were relegated, we've almost completely lost the knack of finding players we could make a profit on when they left us.

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/foo...sportgalleries

Huddersfield said they were going to plan around finding good youngsters who they could sell on and have done pretty well this season. It definitely can be done and generally is for all teams not in the top 6 of the premier league.

[Loramski]

Re: The Bluebirds Academy and DVP thread...

Encouraging report on Lloyd Humphries here as he extends his loan at Weston till the end of the season.

http://www.footballconference.co.uk/news/details.php?news_id=19868

[Loramski]

Re: The Bluebirds Academy and DVP thread...

Here's the James Waite goal against Ipswich that TOBW eulogised about at the time. 40 passes from the second half kick off to the goal itself, superb stuff. They don't play music during DVP games by the way, that's been added on.

http://www.cardiffcityfc.co.uk/news/article/2016-17/u23dvp-40-passes-1-superb-goal-3540844.aspx

[the other bob wilson]

Re: The Bluebirds Academy and DVP thread...

Here's the James Waite goal against Ipswich that TOBW eulogised about at the time. 40 passes from the second half kick off to the goal itself, superb stuff. They don't play music during DVP games by the way, that's been added on.

http://www.cardiffcityfc.co.uk/news/...l-3540844.aspx

Strange as to why it took them nearly a fortnight to realise what an outstanding goal it was.

Credit to the club though for releasing that video for all fans to see and, it turns out that the goal was even better than I thought it was at the time.

The Under 23s don't always manage to play football like that and I wouldn't expect anything like it on the pitch at Leckwith on Monday afternoon, but their games are usually entertaining.

Anyway, I've done another blog piece about the goal if anyone is interested.

http://mauveandyellowarmy.net/

[Blue in the Face]

Re: The Bluebirds Academy and DVP thread...

Here's the James Waite goal against Ipswich that TOBW eulogised about at the time. 40 passes from the second half kick off to the goal itself, superb stuff. They don't play music during DVP games by the way, that's been added on.

http://www.cardiffcityfc.co.uk/news/...l-3540844.aspx

Holy cow

http://mauveandyellowarmy.net/

Great to use the example of that goal to say something bigger. I was left pretty gutted the way the Paul Trollope/Welsh Way thing fell at the first hurdle. But you've made some great points here as to why this kind of football is so great to watch, even if it is very difficult to adopt this style and turn it into winning football.

[Loramski]

Re: The Bluebirds Academy and DVP thread...

Strange as to why it took them nearly a fortnight to realise what an outstanding goal it was.

Credit to the club though for releasing that video for all fans to see and, it turns out that the goal was even better than I thought it was at the time.

The Under 23s don't always manage to play football like that and I wouldn't expect anything like it on the pitch at Leckwith on Monday afternoon, but their games are usually entertaining.

Anyway, I've done another blog piece about the goal if anyone is interested.

http://mauveandyellowarmy.net/

Good stuff. As Blue in the Face says, it certainly won't be easy to evolve to this style of play at first team level but at least Warnock is showing some flexibility with systems and personnel which doesn't rule it out entirely, even if he's here for a while. It will be interesting to see what happens when he feels he can start to relax his obsession with 'no-nonsense' defending. The build up to Waite's goal shows the extra attacking options that a ball playing centre-half and a full back pushing on can give you (even a full back as seemingly limited as Halford). On that theme, it was encouraging to see Declan John on the bench yesterday.

I see Luke O'Reilly has joined Redditch. Those guys are going out thick and fast, it's a shame we haven't found it so easy to offload some of our first team squad.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: The Bluebirds Academy and DVP thread...

Good stuff. As Blue in the Face says, it certainly won't be easy to evolve to this style of play at first team level but at least Warnock is showing some flexibility with systems and personnel which doesn't rule it out entirely, even if he's here for a while. It will be interesting to see what happens when he feels he can start to relax his obsession with 'no-nonsense' defending. The build up to Waite's goal shows the extra attacking options that a ball playing centre-half and a full back pushing on can give you (even a full back as seemingly limited as Halford). On that theme, it was encouraging to see Declan John on the bench yesterday.

I see Luke O'Reilly has joined Redditch. Those guys are going out thick and fast, it's a shame we haven't found it so easy to offload some of our first team squad.

Not sure Warnock will ever relax his obsession with no nonsense defending and, although I think he represents an extreme end of this argument, I'm with him to the extent that I'd take a good defender with limitations on the ball over someone who is good on the ball, but defensively suspect.

I think O'Reilly is a very good "line" keeper - I did read that he's gone to Redditch on loan didn't I?

One other thing, the average age of the Under 18 team seems to go down week by week lately, but that didn't stop them winning 1-0 at Colchester yesterday thanks to another goal by Isaak Davies, who I would expect to see getting some experience in the Development side fairly soon.

[Loramski]

Re: The Bluebirds Academy and DVP thread...

Not sure Warnock will ever relax his obsession with no nonsense defending and, although I think he represents an extreme end of this argument, I'm with him to the extent that I'd take a good defender with limitations on the ball over someone who is good on the ball, but defensively suspect.

I think O'Reilly is a very good "line" keeper - I did read that he's gone to Redditch on loan didn't I?

One other thing, the average age of the Under 18 team seems to go down week by week lately, but that didn't stop them winning 1-0 at Colchester yesterday thanks to another goal by Isaak Davies, who I would expect to see getting some experience in the Development side fairly soon.

I take your point about out-and-out defenders, of course, but I reckon playing five of them is probably over-egging the pudding a bit. Even playing four at home seems a bit over the top at times but, like you say, that's Warnock's way. If he feels Gunnarsson and Ralls are strong enough to mind the fort then we may see our full backs creeping over the halfway line at some point but it's probably best that I don't get ahead of myself on that one.

I saw Redditch saying they'd signed O'Reilly on a temporary basis, which could mean a short-term contract or a loan I suppose. I haven't seen him tested enough to make up my mind about him yet but overall I'm happy with the restructuring at that level so I'll go along with whatever decisions are being made while hoping that we're not throwing the baby out with the bath water somewhere along the line.