allani Posted August 25, 2023 Share Posted August 25, 2023 12 hours ago, AvonVillain said: 100%. Means absolutely everything to fans of any club to nurture, persist and develop local talent. Jack Grealish was once considered a luxury player by many, even seasoned, well respected journalists like Pat Murphy. Speaking of both journo's and JG, Man City's Champions League win was correctly described as soulless apart from one important factor: Jack Grealish. This is exactly what we are trading in my opinion—the soul of the club. Disagree. A team of young players who came through the academy struggling in the middle of the Championship or a team competing in the top 6, getting to cup finals and playing in Europe with maybe 1 "one of our own" players. I take the latter every day of the week. The chances of being able to do the latter with a group of players that have come through the academy together so that it is closer to 5 "one of our own" players is so remote that only Man Utd have achieved it and that was a whole generation ago. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fun Factory Posted August 25, 2023 Share Posted August 25, 2023 I am just trying to readjust in my head the whole premise of the academy. It is now designed to develop players with a view to selling on to meet FFP requirements.The romance of football. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaJ100 Posted August 25, 2023 Share Posted August 25, 2023 1 minute ago, The Fun Factory said: I am just trying to readjust in my head the whole premise of the academy. It is now designed to develop players with a view to selling on to meet FFP requirements.The romance of football. It depends what the academy's job is. If it's to produce professional footballers, then it does a good job. If it's to produce players who are good enough to play for Aston Villa then on a numbers point of view it does a poor job, maybe one player of first team standard every 5-8 years, but that's quite in line with a lot of other premier league academies. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turvontour Posted August 25, 2023 Share Posted August 25, 2023 12 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said: I am just trying to readjust in my head the whole premise of the academy. It is now designed to develop players with a view to selling on to meet FFP requirements.The romance of football. But if they're good enough to play at the top end of the premier league then we keep them. For most of the last fifteen years, Archer, Ramsey, Bidace would be in and around our first team, starting a lot of games. But that would have been because the first team would have generally been championship or prem bottom half level. Hence their moves to Sheff U, Burnley and Hull. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaParkAvenue Posted August 25, 2023 Share Posted August 25, 2023 2 minutes ago, turvontour said: But if they're good enough to play at the top end of the premier league then we keep them. For most of the last fifteen years, Archer, Ramsey, Bidace would be in and around our first team, starting a lot of games. But that would have been because the first team would have generally been championship or prem bottom half level. Hence their moves to Sheff U, Burnley and Hull. They will never be good enough to play at the top end of the Prem right away, there's always an adapation period. If Jacob Ramsey had been a couple of years younger and come through the academy now, he'd have been sold too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Albrighton Posted August 25, 2023 VT Supporter Share Posted August 25, 2023 Unfortunately a lot of players from the academy ultimately don’t go on to have a successful career here. It’s been the case for a while. Difference is now we’re receiving significant fees for them. It’s preferable to them just drifting by here and being released after several years. But I get why people feel a bit cold about it. There’s something kinda calculating about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisvilla4 Posted August 25, 2023 Share Posted August 25, 2023 Sadly, this is modern football. I love the romance of the local boy done good and is a hero, Jack was that generational talent and villa fan and got us 100m when sold, he wanted success over loyalty and we did well in terms of a fee. Hopefully JJ will emulate this but more importantly can stay with us and win things. If we are wanting to break into the elite we have to make decisions with our head and not our heart. Ultimately if these players do come good and we have a buy back in place, it's the best situation for all concerned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted August 25, 2023 Share Posted August 25, 2023 The current academy has only been in place since after NSWE took over, by academy standards that's a very short period of time, because it's about developing and scouting players from a very early age, I've read that when putting a new academy structure in place it can take up to ten years to get going, so of course it's going to take a while to see the full benefits of everything that's been put in place by the new set-up, the people in charge of the academy now can't be blamed for it's past failures, before Mark Harrison was put in charge it was a mess, you had top local talent who were Villa fans but preferred to go to Albion because their set-up was so much better than ours, we still produced the odd decent player, but then so do small heath. Those running the academy as it is now haven't been there long enough to have produced a stream of first team players, they couldn't have just magically turned the current U18s as they were then into world beaters when they arrived, they did well to bring in top class staff to help nurture some of the better players we already had - Aaron Ramsey, Chukwuemeka, Kesler-Hayden and so on, and also our scouting has been excellent, Bogarde, Iroegbunam, Feeney, Wilson, Kellyman, Burgess and so on, and obviously the owners have put the money in to back that up. As it stands we've got one of the best academies in the country, not many others if any at all had as many as we did doing well in the Championship last season, now two of those are going to be sold to Premier League clubs, Emery has said he likes them and wants control over their futures, so they aren't being completely discarded, if we didn't rate them at all we wouldn't include the buy-backs in the sales, Aaron Ramsey at least I think has a good chance of returning, and Philogene I can see doing well enough that he's at least worth buying back even if just to sell on for a profit And lets see how Archer does too, our academy and mostly he have done incredibly well to become a player that's worth eighteen million to a Premier League club One of the main ways the FA judges an academy is actually on how many England youth internationals they produce, and by that definition we're in the top six in the country, that was nowhere near the case before Harrison came in, but the widescale improvements have made a big difference. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StanBalaban Posted August 25, 2023 Share Posted August 25, 2023 (edited) 22 minutes ago, chrisvilla4 said: Sadly, this is modern football. I love the romance of the local boy done good and is a hero, Jack was that generational talent and villa fan and got us 100m when sold, he wanted success over loyalty and we did well in terms of a fee. Hopefully JJ will emulate this but more importantly can stay with us and win things. If we are wanting to break into the elite we have to make decisions with our head and not our heart. Ultimately if these players do come good and we have a buy back in place, it's the best situation for all concerned. I don't think it's as much of a modern day football thing, but more so that we've not been a good team for quite some time. The better we become, the fewer academy players will make the grade unfortunately. Jack and JJ are the exception, not the norm. Look back at when Delfouneso, Chris Herd, Ciaran Clark, Liam Ridgewell, Gary Gardner were all good enough to get into the first team squads. Edited August 25, 2023 by StanBalaban 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StanBalaban Posted August 25, 2023 Share Posted August 25, 2023 39 minutes ago, VillaParkAvenue said: They will never be good enough to play at the top end of the Prem right away, there's always an adapation period. If Jacob Ramsey had been a couple of years younger and come through the academy now, he'd have been sold too. He may indeed have been sold, due to us being a better team with better players ahead of him stalling his opportunity to get minutes. However, seeing how he's blossomed, he would also be in-line to come back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted August 25, 2023 Share Posted August 25, 2023 (edited) Its like that rubden shaspoke. He came with a big reputation but didnt play a game and was released picked up by west brom Edited August 25, 2023 by Demitri_C 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted August 25, 2023 Share Posted August 25, 2023 It *is* depressing, but if we consider our peer group to be the best sides in the league, then a maximum of 1-2 academy players being prominent in the first team squad is the norm: Man Utd: 2 - Rashford, Garnacho Man City: 1.5 - Foden, Palmer though he's apparently being sold Chelsea: 1 - James Arsenal: 1 - Saka Liverpool: 1 main one in TAA, they do have a few others (Jones, Bajcetic etc) but they're not starters in the strongest sides Newcastle: 2 - Anderson, Longstaff, but neither start in their strongest XI Spurs: 0 now that Kane is gone We have 1. It's not out of step with the others. Having 3 or 4 would be the weird thing. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam2003 Posted August 25, 2023 Share Posted August 25, 2023 1 hour ago, VillaParkAvenue said: They will never be good enough to play at the top end of the Prem right away, there's always an adapation period. If Jacob Ramsey had been a couple of years younger and come through the academy now, he'd have been sold too. This is my issue. Everyone will say “the buy back clause covers it” and maybe we will see that happen, but part of the joy of being a football fan is seeing players like Ramsey, Douglas Luiz etc who are (were) raw with obvious potential spend a season or so learning the ropes and improving right in front of our eyes. But hey, these things are cyclical and I’m sure in a year or two it’ll look different anyway. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pez1974 Posted August 25, 2023 Share Posted August 25, 2023 2 hours ago, The Fun Factory said: I am just trying to readjust in my head the whole premise of the academy. It is now designed to develop players with a view to selling on to meet FFP requirements.The romance of football. No. The priority is that they develop first team players. But the chances of us repeating the Man Utd "Class of 92" is just about zero. If we can get 1 a year on average into the first team squad we're doing well. Secondly, if they don't make it into a (hopefully) top 6 premier league squad - we maximise our return for the good of the club. We aren't a charity, so the cost of the academy needs to be covered. And in this regard, we should ensure we take our duty of care seriously. There is lots of noise about what happens when players don't make it - well, we'll put them out on loan appropriately so they have the best chance of developing to their potential, and by doing so we maximise our return. And by doing this, we make our academy more attractive, because we do things right by the player. As a result - the whole premise of the academy is to make sure the players develop to their maximum potential. Some play for us for a long time, others move on and have good careers, and some leave football altogether. This has never changed, it's just that FFP brings it into focus. Don't forget, there are 100s of players at lower age groups who we are trying to develop - it isn't just about the U23s taking the last massive step. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ogen Posted August 25, 2023 Share Posted August 25, 2023 2 hours ago, The Fun Factory said: I am just trying to readjust in my head the whole premise of the academy. It is now designed to develop players with a view to selling on to meet FFP requirements.The romance of football. It's designed to try and produce a small group of professional footballers each year, that the group aren't at the level of the top half of the strongest league in the world level isn't a inditement on the academy. City have Foden and potentially Palmer currently. United have Rashford and McTomminay Liverpool have Trent and Jones This isn't a Villa being ruthless thing it's the reality of trying to bring a child from potential to playing at the highest level on earth, the ones that won't make that step will find their level and we're lucky this year that it includes a group of players who aren't far from that level and we can make some money on them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a-k Posted August 25, 2023 Share Posted August 25, 2023 I think we all want to see Academy players come through and become First XI stars. But the reality is that we are getting ~40mil for these players. As someone mentioned above, we probably wouldn't be paying 18mil for Archer from a Championship club. If he succeeds at Sheffield, we can bring him back. If we loaned him to Sheffield and he doesn't succeed and next year we don't have a place for him, we're not getting 18mil then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chine Posted August 25, 2023 Share Posted August 25, 2023 The work that’s been done in the Academy in recent years has been nothing short of fantastic and is going from strength to strength, as others have said we are getting top money for good prospects with possible buy backs if deemed to our level. These players need game time and experience which they will not currently get quick enough by keeping them here . 1 or 2 Academy players around the first team at all times whilst at the same time selling others for millions is a great achievement and how a great club like ours should and will be run . Lots more high level players coming through that will add to the first team selection or sale process . UTV ! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MWARLEY2 Posted August 25, 2023 Share Posted August 25, 2023 9 hours ago, Chine said: The work that’s been done in the Academy in recent years has been nothing short of fantastic and is going from strength to strength, as others have said we are getting top money for good prospects with possible buy backs if deemed to our level. These players need game time and experience which they will not currently get quick enough by keeping them here . 1 or 2 Academy players around the first team at all times whilst at the same time selling others for millions is a great achievement and how a great club like ours should and will be run . Lots more high level players coming through that will add to the first team selection or sale process . UTV ! My personal belief is that there will be an avalanche of quality in the coming years. Our owners have restructured the academy top to bottom . And every time a parent watches players like Cam AJ and Philogene getting good moves to good clubs they will be more likely to push their kids towards our academy. This years academy intake has 8 current youth internationals out of the 14 or 15 we have taken on. And now our academy is rated so highly again i expect another 2 or 3 of the 15 to get capped while on our books. Progressively better players in our academy getting better coaching will mean more make it and be more valuable, and then hopefully one or 2 will be that good they make it at Villa despite our ultra high aims as a club Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adman Posted August 26, 2023 Share Posted August 26, 2023 9 hours ago, MWARLEY2 said: My personal belief is that there will be an avalanche of quality in the coming years. Our owners have restructured the academy top to bottom . And every time a parent watches players like Cam AJ and Philogene getting good moves to good clubs they will be more likely to push their kids towards our academy. This years academy intake has 8 current youth internationals out of the 14 or 15 we have taken on. And now our academy is rated so highly again i expect another 2 or 3 of the 15 to get capped while on our books. Progressively better players in our academy getting better coaching will mean more make it and be more valuable, and then hopefully one or 2 will be that good they make it at Villa despite our ultra high aims as a club Agreed. And the higher the collective quality of the academy, the higher the probability that the cream that rises to the top will have first team potential Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCJonah Posted August 26, 2023 Share Posted August 26, 2023 20 hours ago, Adam2003 said: This is my issue. Everyone will say “the buy back clause covers it” and maybe we will see that happen, but part of the joy of being a football fan is seeing players like Ramsey, Douglas Luiz etc who are (were) raw with obvious potential spend a season or so learning the ropes and improving right in front of our eyes. But hey, these things are cyclical and I’m sure in a year or two it’ll look different anyway. That works for a bottom half team or a team aiming to just survive. It's what we've been. That doesn't work for a team like us trying to break into that top 5. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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