Originally Posted by
thehumblegringo
It's hard to say whether the talent has always been there cos only recently they've introduced competitive football for those age groups.
I'm torn whether it's a good thing or not to be honest. I think it's important to try to get the kid's buying into the winning mentality but often the coaches buy into it more than the kid's and are more focused on winning than player development.
I've been watching the younger age groups for a while and the problem used to be when the kid's switched to 11 a side football.
I don't think this is such an issue these days as there is a bigger focus on shape and game understanding at younger levels.
My fear would be now that we are building teams and not players maybe. If you look at Chelsea and Arsenal at these age groups, very little focus is on winning tournaments and football matches but they encourage individual creativity and expression.
I'm not sure what the right answer is if I'm honest and only time will tell I suppose.
One thing that is a contradiction though is that we have 11 year olds playing football that resembles Barcelona or Spain and then we have our first team playing a brand of football that is totally the opposite. Unless the club as a whole can find a way of becoming more fluid in its vision it will be impossible to ever realise any of the talent currently in the academy.
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