If these young lads are as good as some suggest , and if our development system is not up to standard , surely these lads will shine elsewhere, talent is talent after all ?
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If these young lads are as good as some suggest , and if our development system is not up to standard , surely these lads will shine elsewhere, talent is talent after all ?
I wonder if the problems are not so much about the coaching of these young players, but the initial scouting?
Are the coaches being presented with young players who have something exceptional about them, or is it that the parents of these boys just happen to be very enthusiastic and in the scout's ear?
Ian Wright, in a recent radio interview which was excellent, said that as a kid, it was only his slightly older brother who was stood on the touchline watching him play. He'd troop off to the changing rooms while notable London scouts would be be in deep conversation with parents on the sidelines.
Ian Wright is an exception because he came into football late, think he was about 22 when he signed for Palace, and became phenomenally successful at the top level.
The question I think of after reading your post is - is he an exception because almost all players of his talent are picked up and given a chance, or are there other players with (almost) his talent who have been overlooked by the age of 18 and give up on football and he is a rare example of someone who stuck at it?
Is there a knack to bringing through promising players into the pro ranks? Why are some clubs better than others at doing so?
I'm no expert but from a common sense point of view I'd imagine the better your coaching, facilities, access to games against good opposition the more chance a lad will have. The initial scouting's probably the most important part though, if someone's not good enough all the coaching etc in the world won't help them make the grade. We're poor in this area as well - Ben Cabango was born in Cardiff wasn't he?
Also, and this is going back a bit now but how come Bale wasn't picked up by Cardiff scouts, especially being that he's related to Chris Pike? Obviously we ended up getting the sell on fee anyway but is there a reason he never trained with us? Did we have a set up for 9 year olds?
From my limited viewing of u23 football, i'd say that they all look technically decent but without a great deal of character. They play in a 'coached' kind of way. Sometimes a player needs to express themselves and do the things that made them stand out. It looks to me that these kids are over coached, clone footballers who don't seem to stand out or show glimpses of natural ability that can't be coached, it's just there.
Steve Morison only had a few games as under-23 coach before the season ended at that level so we'll have to wait and see how him and Harris plan to bring the youngsters through. They've both been saying the right things so far but they'll be judged by their actions rather than their intentions, of course. Hopefully, the fact that Harris has been happy to make use of Lee Tomlin this season is a positive sign that he's not going to want the natural ability coached out of players.
I think some coaching and coaches are so caught up with philosophies about how football is played that players are coached and drilled about keeping possession that sometimes eliminates any element that means taking a risk with the ball such as a forward pass or showing any creativity.
The irony is some of these coaches usually spout that players should be thinking for themselves and prepared to be courageous on the ball whilst screaming about not losing possession and maintaining shape.
City’s current set up does seem to produce a number of decent possession like players that don’t progress to the first team and end up in Non league football for a time.
You've got to the heart of the problem there - an Academy which has coached its scholars to play in a certain way for the past fifteen years or more and a first team that for much of that time has played a type of football that has little need for young players coming through the ranks who play in the manner they've been taught to for a decade or more in some cases.
That's overly simplistic though.
I'd suggest instead the club issue has been that it's overestimated the quality.
Tommy O'Sullivan was highly rated for example, didn't Mackay say he was a future club captain? Released, turned out to not be good enough for Colchester. The fact that none has really gone on the set the world alight shows the decisions to release have more or less been correct. Equally, there have been some good players who have been unfortunate in that we've already had numbers of players in the position - for example Ajayi when we already had a number of center backs.
The first team don't play like the academy, and then you've got a disconnect where players can't really drop in. Whether he was the right person to address this, Slade tried to fix this a bit and Warnock's youngest player was Patto. Hopefully Morison's and Harris' relationship addresses this.
For me, it's got to the stage where it's a simple choice, if the club want the first team to keep on playing in the same manner, there seems little point in having an Academy. The two things are incompatible are the moment and I don't think changing the way the Academy team plays would work because you cannot be sure how much more physical development any of the teenagers involved will show. Returning to Sion Spence, I'm not saying anything about whether he deserved to be let go or not, but he hadn't grown a great deal in the last three years or so and I don't think that would have done him any favours when it came to first team selection.
Tomorrow we'll be up against a "successful" product of our youth system - Andrew Hughes was released 13 years ago at the age of 15 for being too small, then worked his way back up. So along with Cabango, Lockyer and Regan Poole, we're actually doing quite well. Just for other teams.
At the time he wasn't first choice, especially after Warnock brought in Bamba, but he was definitely promising and still very young for a centre back. I doubt the wages were too high given that he went to Rotherham after us.
He had plenty to learn still, but you can't learn without playing.
Don't get me wrong, Bamba was excellent for us, but now we have a 35 year old with a couple of years to run on his contract and dodgy at best injury track record, whereas Ajayi will be playing premier league football next year and has his peak years still ahead of him.
You’re right. There’s a massive difference between what the academy coaches are delivering in relation to certain managers needs, wants and expectations.
Different techniques, philosophies and playing styles make the playing side look disjointed.
If anyone remembers Bellamy doing his punditry on Sky Sports and acknowledging City’s play was lacking some football finesse was a shining example of this.
Someone’s mentioned earlier the academy seems to produce players for other clubs.
Perhaps Sion Spence will join Bellamy at Anderlecht, because I heard he rates him highly.