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Academy General Topic


mikeyp102

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What I have been saying for ages seems to have finally hit home. For years pundits up and down the country have been talking about our 'Excellent Academy' or 'one of the most admired academies in the country' - Well that Myth is well and truly blown now ....

Of all the players on display today - I didn't see one who suggested in any way shape size or form that they are of prem quality....

Seems like if we want a decent team - we are going to have to buy one after all

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The whole point of an academy is to use them as squad players with the better players slowly breaking through. Not making a while first team from them!

Agree...

On a hunch and IMO - I feel that Randy and PL have beleived the propaganda about our academy -they think that a great team can rise from these youngsters - if that was possible every club would do it.

The premier attracts the best players from around the globe - your not going to stumble on 8 or 9 such players in your youth set up.

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It's a big ask to throw so many players, not too long out of the reserves/academy, into the Premier League.

Our Academy has proven it's worth by winning the divisions and cups that it's teams enter into. What more can it do?

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Depends what you expect of an academy. Few teams are able to consistently produce large numbers of players able to do it at the top level. I can only really think of Everton in the Prem who are able to produce anything like that, and even they are only producing one every couple of years (if that, really) that goes on to be a proper major part of their team.

If you want an academy to consistently produce assets that can be sold to perform at a decent level (not just the top of the game) then ours is pretty good, most of our academy players go to make decent players at the level they find.

Unfortunately that's not a huge deal as far as we the fans might be concerned.

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I don't think most of them would look massively out of place if they were put individually into another PL side at our level. The problem is we're playing 5 of them at once in a team which has been dysfunctional for the past 2 years.

Take Baker, for example. He's a CB being put at LB in a defence with a brand new central pairing and an inexperienced RB, with a player in front of him who provides no cover. What chance does he really have of looking good in that situation?

Or Clark finally gets put at CB but again, he's got an inexperienced non-LB one side of him and someone brand new to the league alongside him. He has not impressed, but this is hardly ideal circumstances. You don't see anyone else in the league ever putting out a defence as lacking in experience as ours was today.

Compare someone like Spurs. They have some good young players, but if you simultaneously put Walker, Caulker, Naughton in their back 4 and Livermore, Townsend, Rose elsewhere in their XI I think they'd also struggle with the lack of experience around them.

We go from one extreme to the other. O'Neill kept the same XI as much as possible and rarely played youth, now we're at a point where we play 4-5 homegrown players every match. Neither is ideal.

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Depends what you expect of an academy. Few teams are able to consistently produce large numbers of players able to do it at the top level. I can only really think of Everton in the Prem who are able to produce anything like that, and even they are only producing one every couple of years (if that, really) that goes on to be a proper major part of their team.

If you want an academy to consistently produce assets that can be sold to perform at a decent level (not just the top of the game) then ours is pretty good, most of our academy players go to make decent players at the level they find.

Unfortunately that's not a huge deal as far as we the fans might be concerned.

Thats a good point. W eve produced Gabby and Cahill in recent years - thats a reasonable output for an academy. It just winds me up when once more I hear 'aston villa have some of the brightest youth prospects around' - We don't. We have a bunch of reserves - Perhaps 1 or 2 can do a job short term - but you can't just project 6 of them into the prem - and hope they perform.

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The whole point of an academy is to use them as squad players with the better players slowly breaking through. Not making a while first team from them!

Agreed. You need a mixture of youth and experience, and you introduce players slowly. Throwing them all in at the deep end at the same time and relying on them for results isnt good for anybody. Putting that kind of pressure on youth team players will probably ruin them.

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The academy players are no worse than any of our other players. Senior players like Bent, Zog, Ireland etc. are just as shite at the moment. When PL actually gets his team up and running then you can decide whether the Academy a load of rubbish or not.

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There is only one team in a football club " The First team"

The academy ( ideally)is there to find exceptional players to enter that first team.

We produce decent academy " Teams " that go on to win prizes, but rarely produce those exceptional players required for the first team.

We have it the wrong way around IMO.

PS I don't see the Cowans, Shaws, Littles, Barry's anymore, not to mention the yorkes and Grays.... these were the exceptionals we used to breed or buy young.

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Was going to start a similar thread.

Our youth players are just not good enough. A youth policy only works when the youth are Premier League quality. Sorry but Bodymoor Heath is not La Masia. It's ridiculous that nearly half our squad are academy products. It speaks more about how cheap we have been in the last few years than the quality of our academy. It seems like we're all living on that one amazing 2nd half performance against ManU when the kids looked like world beaters. Other than Gary Cahill our youth system has not recently produced a player that is good enough of to play for a Champions League side.

When it comes to youth Everton, WestHam or even Southampton we are not. We pretty much produce Championship level players like Gary Gardner, Ridgewell, Whittingham, etc. When you have youth in the squad, you tend to give them the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately I think it has blinded our coaches and management about how weak the squad really is.

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I think if you have great players in the first team you can produce better academy players. For example the man utd youngsters who came through had Hughes, Cantona Schmeichel, Keane and Andy Cole. All winners.

Any youth players coming in would shine with those people around them. If they can break into the team of course.

Unfortunatly when you come into the team at Villa and have a load of journey men pro's.

Lee Hendrie came through when we had winners in the squad like kevin richardson and Dean Saunders.

I think The people around you make a massive difference to how you develop

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Our youth COULD have been more than good enough, but they have been totally mishandled.

Spurs send their youth to League1 and Championship clubs and then if they do ok, they go to smaller PL teams who play them, train them and return them to Spurs fully rounded PL players. Kyle walker being a prime example.

our youth have had to play PL games because the squad isn't good or deep enough. hence the shit we find ourselves in now.

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Again not been impressed with Clark, doesn't look ready and if he's not ready now, probably is never going to. Baker could be ok, Herd has raw physical ability but should be nowhere near the starting 11. Lichaj is a funny one and I'm still out on him, could yet be ok.

Bannan can go.

Albrighton has a big season ahead of him on return from injury, probably last chance to make it in prem.

But none of these (minus Allbrighton) have forced their way into the side through performances, more necessity and that's not good enough for Villa.

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