The Bluebirds Academy and DVP thread...

[Loramski]

I've always promoted the idea of giving youth a chance on here and I still think Russell Slade is the worst Cardiff City manager I've seen when it comes to youth development. However, he is just one of a trio of our most recent managers who have, rightly or wrongly, believed that our Academy is not doing a good enough job when it comes to developing young players and the fact of the matter is that it is a long time since I've seen a player in our Under 18 side who I've thought could go straight into the first team and not let anyone down.

Contrast that to the noughties when I'd see at least one player a season - my hunches weren't always right, but I honestly wasn't surprised to see Jerome, Ledley, Blake, Gunter and Ramsey do well when given a chance.

Of the current crop, I like the full backs Coxe and Abbruzzese and the midfielders Veale, Waite and Spence are all nice footballers, Mark Harris shows flashes of quality and Isaak Davies looks like he may be the very rare animal a good quality home produced striker, but I'd only say Coxe might be able to step into the first team and do well and he's too old for the Under 19s now.

With so few nineteen and twenty year olds who have come up through the ranks here pushing for a place, it's not really surprising that we are looking elsewhere - Brown seems a worthwhile punt to me, but, like you, I'm not wholly convinced by Obi and the way his career has developed makes it obvious that, for whatever reason, he has not lived up to all the hype of four or five years ago. However, I have to ask, where is the youth product striker who is going to do better than Obi for us? Davies is too young and I'm not sure Harris will ever be a regular goalscorer, even if he makes a decent career for himself in the game.

Incidentally, I learned yesterday that Tommy O'Sullivan, the player who more than anyone else exemplifies the failure of the Academy in recent years, has joined bottom of the Conference Torquay on loan after failing to break into the team at Colchester. O'Sullivan was definitely talented and I wonder how he would have turned out if he had come up through the Academy at a club like Forest - they may be lower in the league than us, but I was definitely jealous of them when I heard they had five Academy products in the side that beat Arsenal.

And the fact that Warnock wasn't even prepared to risk one against Mansfield speaks volumes, especially considering how short we were on numbers. The big question is, how much of the problem is the shortage of talent we're bringing into the Academy and how much is how we're developing them once they're here? Personally I believe it's much more to do with the former. I'm certainly not claiming we've helped players like O'Sullivan but it's hard to believe he'd be a regular at Championship level if we'd treated him differently. We seem to be looking for a quicker rotation of players now to stop players like him and Wharton treading water here for years which is a good thing but I'm not sure of the logic of replacing 20-year-olds who aren't good enough for us with 20-year-olds who aren't good enough for other teams.

Of course we should be on the lookout for talent that's slipped the net but we've always done that (and I'm sure all clubs do) without making a big song and dance about it. I would've thought the emphasis should be put on bringing in 15-17 year olds with potential rather than relying on players who've already failed elsewhere. It's too small a sample to generalise from but, as I said before, Ralls, Healey and Harris have worked out better for us than Ajayi, Kennedy and Barnum-Bobb in recent years. I'm wary of criticising Warnock though, hopefully he'll pull a rabbit or two out of the hat for us.

You mentioning O'Sullivan reminds me to say that Tom James is finally getting a run of starts at Yeovil, he seems to be playing at right back. A home tie with Man Utd in the cup coming up, good luck to him.

[the other bob wilson]

And the fact that Warnock wasn't even prepared to risk one against Mansfield speaks volumes, especially considering how short we were on numbers. The big question is, how much of the problem is the shortage of talent we're bringing into the Academy and how much is how we're developing them once they're here? Personally I believe it's much more to do with the former. I'm certainly not claiming we've helped players like O'Sullivan but it's hard to believe he'd be a regular at Championship level if we'd treated him differently. We seem to be looking for a quicker rotation of players now to stop players like him and Wharton treading water here for years which is a good thing but I'm not sure of the logic of replacing 20-year-olds who aren't good enough for us with 20-year-olds who aren't good enough for other teams.

Of course we should be on the lookout for talent that's slipped the net but we've always done that (and I'm sure all clubs do) without making a big song and dance about it. I would've thought the emphasis should be put on bringing in 15-17 year olds with potential rather than relying on players who've already failed elsewhere. It's too small a sample to generalise from but, as I said before, Ralls, Healey and Harris have worked out better for us than Ajayi, Kennedy and Barnum-Bobb in recent years. I'm wary of criticising Warnock though, hopefully he'll pull a rabbit or two out of the hat for us.

You mentioning O'Sullivan reminds me to say that Tom James is finally getting a run of starts at Yeovil, he seems to be playing at right back. A home tie with Man Utd in the cup coming up, good luck to him.

I agree that the danger with our new policy is that we will be replacing one group of players who had been here for years that were going nowhere with us in their early twenties, with another group of the same age who we'd picked up from other clubs who were doing the same.

That said, signing twenty year olds who've been released as twenty year olds by Premier League teams is not quite the same thing as ones of that age who were deemed not good enough for us because the higher standard involved means that it would certainly be possible for a Premier League "reject" at nineteen or twenty to become a regular in a Championship side a year or two later.

As for younger players at the club, I think it's really hard under the current structure to see how they could break into the first team even if they were playing superbly every week. For me, the current Development team set up just hasn't worked (I mean nationally, not just at City) and, based on some of his comments, Neil Warnock feels the same way. While it is possible for senior players with league experience to use Under 23 games to either prove their fitness after injury or work their way back into contention with some good performances, the widespread perception that the matches are too unlike what they are likely to face in first team football can lead to a situation whereby a lad of say, 17, who was playing really well for the Under 23s every week would probably still not be able to get into first team consideration because it would be felt that what are the closest thing we have now to the old style reserve team games do not ask the right questions of him.

Yes, it's good to see Tom James (who I always thought was good enough to get by in quite easily in League Two) nailing down a place in the Yeovil team - the Man United game should represent a great opportunity for all of the young Yeovil players.

[Blue in the Face]

...
Of the current crop, I like the full backs Coxe and Abbruzzese and the midfielders Veale, Waite and Spence are all nice footballers, Mark Harris shows flashes of quality and Isaak Davies looks like he may be the very rare animal a good quality home produced striker, but I'd only say Coxe might be able to step into the first team and do well and he's too old for the Under 19s now....

Funny reading this as these were my thoughts exactly. Harris is a funny one. He does show flashes of tremendous quality, but he also has the tendency to drift out of games. I'm not sure what a coach should be saying to him? Hunt for the ball more?

Always like the look of Coxe's boldness and he seems to have a big influence from positions which aren't typically influential. Think Coxe can make it to league one level at least.

I haven't seen enough from highlight reels, but Bowen seems to take a very cultured set piece also.

[Loramski]

I agree that the danger with our new policy is that we will be replacing one group of players who had been here for years that were going nowhere with us in their early twenties, with another group of the same age who we'd picked up from other clubs who were doing the same.

That said, signing twenty year olds who've been released as twenty year olds by Premier League teams is not quite the same thing as ones of that age who were deemed not good enough for us because the higher standard involved means that it would certainly be possible for a Premier League "reject" at nineteen or twenty to become a regular in a Championship side a year or two later.

As for younger players at the club, I think it's really hard under the current structure to see how they could break into the first team even if they were playing superbly every week. For me, the current Development team set up just hasn't worked (I mean nationally, not just at City) and, based on some of his comments, Neil Warnock feels the same way. While it is possible for senior players with league experience to use Under 23 games to either prove their fitness after injury or work their way back into contention with some good performances, the widespread perception that the matches are too unlike what they are likely to face in first team football can lead to a situation whereby a lad of say, 17, who was playing really well for the Under 23s every week would probably still not be able to get into first team consideration because it would be felt that what are the closest thing we have now to the old style reserve team games do not ask the right questions of him.

Yes, it's good to see Tom James (who I always thought was good enough to get by in quite easily in League Two) nailing down a place in the Yeovil team - the Man United game should represent a great opportunity for all of the young Yeovil players.

I don't want to tar Warnock with the same brush as Slade but isn't he a part of the issue here, just as Malky was before? Our Academy is producing a certain kind of footballer but our first team is looking for something else altogether. You said Veale, Waite and Spence are 'nice' footballers but I'm sure Warnock would see that as damning them with faint praise. If that's right that Ralls dropped out late from Saturday's game, wouldn't it have been logical to put Veale in there rather than Paterson? If he was going to move Paterson there then Abbruzzese or Coxe could have covered at full back but he brought Bennett in, even though the plan was to give him a game off. If he doesn't trust these guys at home against a League 2 side in the middle of an injury/illness crisis then the writing is very much on the wall for them.

I agree that the DVP system is failing overall. The plan was probably to encourage an increase in technically gifted footballers, youngsters could continue to hone their skills for longer in an environment where it was encouraged above anything else. As you say, the problem is that it's not asking the right questions of the youngsters a lot of the time. We can carry on producing overlapping full backs, footballing centre halves & 'nice' central midfielders for as long as we want but I can't see Warnock being interested. With the emphasis more and more being on either surviving in the Premiership or grinding out results in the Championship, I doubt he's the only one.

As I said, I think there has been a lack of real talent coming through here in the last few years which doesn't help. There hasn't been another Ramsey so it's impossible to say whether he'd make it here now or not. From what I've seen of Matondo, I think Warnock might have wanted to fast-track him but we'll never know now.

[the other bob wilson]

I don't want to tar Warnock with the same brush as Slade but isn't he a part of the issue here, just as Malky was before? Our Academy is producing a certain kind of footballer but our first team is looking for something else altogether. You said Veale, Waite and Spence are 'nice' footballers but I'm sure Warnock would see that as damning them with faint praise. If that's right that Ralls dropped out late from Saturday's game, wouldn't it have been logical to put Veale in there rather than Paterson? If he was going to move Paterson there then Abbruzzese or Coxe could have covered at full back but he brought Bennett in, even though the plan was to give him a game off. If he doesn't trust these guys at home against a League 2 side in the middle of an injury/illness crisis then the writing is very much on the wall for them.

I agree that the DVP system is failing overall. The plan was probably to encourage an increase in technically gifted footballers, youngsters could continue to hone their skills for longer in an environment where it was encouraged above anything else. As you say, the problem is that it's not asking the right questions of the youngsters a lot of the time. We can carry on producing overlapping full backs, footballing centre halves & 'nice' central midfielders for as long as we want but I can't see Warnock being interested. With the emphasis more and more being on either surviving in the Premiership or grinding out results in the Championship, I doubt he's the only one.

As I said, I think there has been a lack of real talent coming through here in the last few years which doesn't help. There hasn't been another Ramsey so it's impossible to say whether he'd make it here now or not. From what I've seen of Matondo, I think Warnock might have wanted to fast-track him but we'll never know now.

I tend to agree with you. Although we had the brief, and completely unsuccessful, Trollope interlude, I'm not sure we've had a first team playing in the manner that the Academy has been trying to produce players for a decade or more. We played good passing football under Lennie Lawrence in the last season before the Academy came into being and Dave Jones' sides, as well as Malky Mackays, were capable of playing what I would call passing football on occasions at times, but, for me, you can go back all the way to the late 60s with the Clark/Toshack pairing and we've predominantly been a get the ball forward quickly to the big man/men team - the first time I saw the term "route one" used was in describing Richie Morgan's team that had Stevens and Moore as twin strikers in the late seventies.

I always think it is best to try to teach kids good technique and encourage their skills, because I feel it's easier to get talented, technical players to adapt to a more direct, power based game than it is the other way around, but, you're dead right in my view - players like Veale (who I believe is injured and so couldn't have played on Saturday even if our manager was minded to use him), Waite and Spence are not what I call typical Warnock players - they'd all need to grow a few inches and fill out a bit more to stand a chance of being that.

I can remember Malky Mackay playing a lot of youngsters when he first took over at Watford and Neil Warnock bringing a Palace side full of kids (including a fifteen year old John Bostock) to Ninian Park during our FA Cup Final season, but I think both of them have subsequently shown that they were forced into such actions by finance and/or injury concerns, rather than an inherent desire to give youth a bigger chance than most of their managerial colleagues are prepared to do.

We have had Cameron Coxe making a first team debut this season and I thought he did pretty well - I was hoping he would be involved against Mansfield, but the manager's comment about how Bennett was, essentially, forced into playing was very revealing. As for Ramsey, I'd be very surprised if he would be playing as many games for us now as a seventeen year old as he was doing ten years ago and I'd add that it is too easy to just dismiss the lack of opportunities given to young players these days by saying our youngsters just aren't good enough - priorities seem to have changed at the club and I find that strange in these days of FFP where you would have thought the benefits of a well run, productive youth were obvious.

[the other bob wilson]

Funny reading this as these were my thoughts exactly. Harris is a funny one. He does show flashes of tremendous quality, but he also has the tendency to drift out of games. I'm not sure what a coach should be saying to him? Hunt for the ball more?

Always like the look of Coxe's boldness and he seems to have a big influence from positions which aren't typically influential. Think Coxe can make it to league one level at least.

I haven't seen enough from highlight reels, but Bowen seems to take a very cultured set piece also.

My attitude with Coxe is that, if we aren't going to use him at this stage, then let him go out on loan somewhere.

Bowen is another good footballer, but I don't think of him in terms of the first team yet because he's still only fifteen or sixteen I believe.

[ccfc_is_my_life]

My attitude with Coxe is that, if we aren't going to use him at this stage, then let him go out on loan somewhere.

Bowen is another good footballer, but I don't think of him in terms of the first team yet because he's still only fifteen or sixteen I believe.

To loan Coxe out we need a club wanting to take him on loan.

[Blue in the Face]

To loan Coxe out we need a club wanting to take him on loan.

He's had good exposure with the Welsh u20s/21s. I'm optimistic that we could find league football for him. Would leave another hole in the DVP team, but that cannot be priority.

[Blue in the Face]

My attitude with Coxe is that, if we aren't going to use him at this stage, then let him go out on loan somewhere.

Bowen is another good footballer, but I don't think of him in terms of the first team yet because he's still only fifteen or sixteen I believe.

I didn't realise Bowen was that young. Look forward to seeing him to develop.

[ccfc_is_my_life]

He's had good exposure with the Welsh u20s/21s. I'm optimistic that we could find league football for him. Would leave another hole in the DVP team, but that cannot be priority.

We've had players with similar exposure unable to be loaned out to a league team.

[the other bob wilson]

A Development team featuring Lee Camp and recent signings Brown and Obi was beaten 1-0 at Watford this afternoon - Paul McKay had also graduated from "Trialist" to McKay on the club's Twitter feed, so I assume he has signed for us as well now - nos. seven, eight and nine were all called Trialist today.

[cardiff55]

Is Paul McKay the young lad who played once for Leeds?

[ccfc_is_my_life]

Is Paul McKay the young lad who played once for Leeds?

Yes.

[Blue in the Face]

A Development team featuring Lee Camp and recent signings Brown and Obi was beaten 1-0 at Watford this afternoon - Paul McKay had also graduated from "Trialist" to McKay on the club's Twitter feed, so I assume he has signed for us as well now - nos. seven, eight and nine were all called Trialist today.

Hopefully one of them comes good. It feels a bit like the positional deficiencies at senior level are mirrored a bit at DVP level. This rumour about this Scottish centre mid from Hamilton keep persisting so maybe there's something to it.

[Loramski]

The under-23s won 1-0 at Coventry today, Ibrahim Meite with the goal. Rhys Healey and Lee Camp played too.

[Blue in the Face]

Think the u18s beat the wurzels away 1-0 a couple of days ago too.

[Loramski]

Think the u18s beat the wurzels away 1-0 a couple of days ago too.

TOBW said in another thread that the u-18s and the u-16s both won 2-1 down there.

[the other bob wilson]

TOBW said in another thread that the u-18s and the u-16s both won 2-1 down there.

https://www.cardiffcityfc.co.uk/news...-cardiff-city/

[Loramski]

https://www.cardiffcityfc.co.uk/news...-cardiff-city/

Thanks. Here's the under-23s report. Lloyd Humphries is back playing.

https://www.cardiffcityfc.co.uk/news...-cardiff-city/

[Blue in the Face]

TOBW said in another thread that the u-18s and the u-16s both won 2-1 down there.

My booboo. Couldn't find the article to confirm the score.

Thanks for the match report link

[the other bob wilson]

Lunchtime football at Cardiff City Stadium today as the Under 23s take on Watford in a Premier Cup game - kick off is at 1 o clock and admission is free.

[the other bob wilson]

If anyone was planning on going today's match they should note that it has been "put forward" (???) to 1.15 - the previous tweet confirmed the original kick off time of 1 o clock.

[Loramski]

Lunchtime football at Cardiff City Stadium today as the Under 23s take on Watford in a Premier Cup game - kick off is at 1 o clock and admission is free.

Kick off at 1.15 now. Long queues I guess.

[emjayblue]

Obi with his first goal for the club. 1 nil 75th min.

[bluethrough]

Obi with his first goal for the club. 1 nil 75th min.

Forever known as Obi 1