Academy Development Thread - sponsored by BryanRoy!

Souvik

Souvik

First Team Squad
Was on the bench, not surprising since he had only joined the day before but ended up coming on and playing 43 mins
 
GreeksBearingGifts

GreeksBearingGifts

Stuart Pearce
The lack of an academy producing players ready for the first team, and the whole City Ground reconstruction saga are the two weak areas in EM's tenure so far. Those and Strummer's dream of a good cup of coffee, in my opinion.
 
Statto

Statto

Free Kick Specialist
GreeksBearingGifts said:
The lack of an academy producing players ready for the first team, and the whole City Ground reconstruction saga are the two weak areas in EM's tenure so far. Those and Strummer's dream of a good cup of coffee, in my opinion.
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Don't forget an 18 year old academy player would have only been 14 when we had our promotion season - but they often join a lot younger. Ryan Yates has been at the club since he was nine and a player who was that age when we were promoted in 2022 would be born in 2013 and barely in their teens yet.

Most of these lads joined with the club in the Championship, often treading water and not challenging for promotion. A kid who joined in 2017 when Marinakis bought the club at the age of 9 would be born '08 and so about sixteen.

If we're going to see an improvement, it would be either in about 5 years time, or if we manage to get some players from other clubs or who didn't make it and played for other academies (see also: Matty Cash, Ben Brereton). Quite a few of the Hart group (including Williams, Prutton, Foy, Roche, Reid, Jenas) followed him from Leeds or were signed from irish sides.
 
GreeksBearingGifts

GreeksBearingGifts

Stuart Pearce
5 years is a lot of time in football. In our case, despite a shitload of money spent on the academy facilities by EM ever since he acquired the club in 2010, the production line was OK, but not good enough; it took José Anigo (whom no fan rated when he was hired) less than 3 years to transform the academy from a good to an exceptional player production machine.

You need to do better than what you're doing, notwithstanding the first team's pressure stemming from needing to win every game (which is a pressure we are very familiar with).
 
forzagaribaldi

forzagaribaldi

Youth Team
I’ve been watching, we’ve looked decent, ripped through them a few times. If I’d have known this was on I probably could have made it along to the ground. Oh well. And it is funny watching Antonio appearing in this!
 
alabamared

alabamared

Stuart Pearce
Decent game. Solid defending.
 
T

T Francis

First Team Squad
This happened at the weekend as well, surprised we didn’t make more of it

IMG_6133.png
 
R

Red Dog in a Dinghy

Geoff Thomas
It looks like Moreira, Berry and Bindon could make the step-up after a few loans. Abbott and Bott more than a couple of years away.

Then McDonnell who will need a loan in the future. Then Sinclair and Whitehall after that.

Then it’s the unknowns such as Sillah and Yaya (from Rio Ave this summer).

Is that about right, or am I missing a few out?
 
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