HolteEndRob Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 Lichaj and Weimann I'd be happy to keep. The rest should either be sold and/or out on loan because at this moment in time they are not good enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 This football malarkey is easy. Buy a club, spend on a load on new players to give the youth players a chance to develop into top quality (as that is obviously going to happen) , they won't demand as high wages as the players you have bought but that's ok because you can sell the bought ones for more money, as they will have increased their value and you will then be left with all the excellent youth players who will have learned off the better players you bought , they will not be on much in wages and you can also flog one or two of them for loads of money to be truly self sustainable Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FamousHolteUnion Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 As mentioned already we could easily have blooded these kids younger and in a better way. Giving Clark a run of games at CB with one of Herd/Bannan/Gardner in midfield. Later on possibly giving Baker some games at CB with another midfielder and gradually giving more games to the ones who outperform expectations. Throwing Clark, Baker, Lichaj, Herd, Bannan, Albrighton, Gardner, Carruthers and Weimann into situations where the club is relying on them performing beyond expectations for relatively young players in their first season-or-so in the premier league is whats ruining not only our club but also their careers. Our squad is so poor we currently miss not having 18 yr old Carruthers in the squad to give us a wide outlet. Thats how bad it's gotten. Carruthers should be a Capitol-One Cup player and maybe getting the odd few minutes, however we find ourself in a position of (presuming we dont buy a winger) praying the kid comes back from injury quickly. tl;dr: We need investment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Villarocker Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 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. Excellent post! Lambert completely cocked up the positions of Baker, Herd & Bannan yesterday. I couldn't believe the way they lined up on the pitch. I said to my Dad and Uncle that our midfield was going to get destroyed. Lambert got a 0/10 from me for that team selection yesterday. Why pick Delfouneso over Weimann? Why drop Ireland and Holman yet leave N'Zogbia in? Why have Bannan sat so deep in a position where he would up against Fellaini, who is about a foot taller than him? He played Herd on the wing instead of DM and Baker at LB instead of CB which is his natural position. So many errors were made by Lambert yesterday and I hope he and those around him realise that quickly, otherwise we are going to be well and truly fixed near the bottom of the League for the rest of the season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FamousHolteUnion Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 i.e. The 'kids' are good enough individually to play in the Premier league, put one of them in Fulham's team, one in Norwich, one at Stoke's, one in our's etc etc, they'd get playing time, look like good prospects and maybe make a career at Premier League level. Throw them all together and expect them to finish Top 10 and your going to be severely dissappointed and more of those players aren't going to make it, as they are still playing alongside their Reserves Friends, they arent learning from experienced professionals like they should be. (and the experienced players we have are dog awful too) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Villarocker Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 This football malarkey is easy. Buy a club, spend on a load on new players to give the youth players a chance to develop into top quality (as that is obviously going to happen) , they won't demand as high wages as the players you have bought but that's ok because you can sell the bought ones for more money, as they will have increased their value and you will then be left with all the excellent youth players who will have learned off the better players you bought , they will not be on much in wages and you can also flog one or two of them for loads of money to be truly self sustainable I am totally in agreement with you now Rich! Lerner doesn't have the know-how to make Villa a success again. I don't think we will ever see any kind of decent player investment from him again and I wouldn't be surprised if he's not looking for a buyer right now! Like I said yesterday; the only reason I think he isn't getting a tougher time from the fans is because he isn't as gobby as Ellis was. Lerner keeps his head down and avoids any flak that may be pointing at him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVFCAM Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 We do have an excellent academy, we produce some really talented ACADEMY level players. The problem is, most of our academy players are small and lightweight (Bannan, Albrighton) and never make the step up from boy to man so to speak. I would flourish for our academy, well, apart from being shit at football, but I'm 5'8 and quite small. Look at Wayne Rooney as an example, although he has grown a lot since he started in the PL at 16, he was already built bigger than our "academy graduates" are now. I remember reading a lads mag years ago, possibly Loaded, they were talking about "the next big thing" in everything. In football, it was Ciaran Clark, he was tipped as the next England captain (pre-ROI choice), tracked closely by Man Yoo and Chelsea and really rated by all who commented on the article. Since then, Clark hasn't really stepped up properly, he still looks like the young lad who first broke into the first team a few years ago. Whereas when you look at the other lads who have broken through in the Prem recently, Phil Jones is heavier set than Clark by some way and looks more like a PL quality centre back than an Academy player stepping up. Although Jones still has some glaring faults to his games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Pangloss Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 The academy has had good success at youth level football. It IS producing players for the first team. I believe it is producing good squad players for us, players which will save us spending the odd £2-3m on squad filler. What our academy hasn't produced in a while is any real quality, i.e. players that will become important first teamers for us. I do feel that some of the academy graduates have been over-burdened over the past two seasons, being forced to play 'important' roles in failing sides. I don't think it has aided the development of the likes of Clark, Albrighton and Bannan. Perhaps loan moves without pressure would have suited them better. Hard to say. One things for sure is that a crop of them are turning 23 this year, in footballing years that means they are very far from being kids and really ought to be establishing themselves by now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gilbertoAVFC Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 Totally disagree with OP. Mismanagement at board and team level has not brought the best out these players and real judgement is very difficult to make. Look at Baker - out of position and playing in arguably our worst squad since the turn of the millennium. How is he expected to perform to the best of his ability? As has been pointed out, these players need to be gradually integrated, not to become first team regulars by default because we can't afford to buy anybody else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacketspuds Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 Our youth team was great at beating other teams youth squads. However, how many players from other teams youth systems have made the breakthrough in recent years? Maybe our players looked so good because others were so bad? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leemond2008 Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 you don't win anything with kids Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pas5898 Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 Sorry to be blunt but this a stupid thread. All kids have to be "blooded" the correct way. As someone else pointed out, take Spurs. Livermore, Caulker, Walker, Naughton, Rose and Townsend. Most agree those will become fine Premier League players. If spurs week in and week out had a back 4 consisting of Caulker, Naughton and Walker they wouldn't do much better than ours. Would we bury those players as having no future. Most PL teams will have 1 or 2 young players with 9 or 10 experienced. We are the other way round. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pelle Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 Some really good posts in this thread, IMO. There's nothing wrong with our academy, just that the young players have been overused all at the same time. They need experience around them. Injuries and a thin squad are the two main problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adbo9 Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 The only plus side from the academy is most of the lads that come through will be sold on for decent money and have a career in the game at a good level. We'll never produce an Owen, Gerrard, Rooney etc......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houlston Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 We'll never produce an Owen, Gerrard, Rooney etc......... Course we might, fantastic players like them have come from lesser clubs than ourselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeyp102 Posted August 26, 2012 Author Share Posted August 26, 2012 The only plus side from the academy is most of the lads that come through will be sold on for decent money and have a career in the game at a good level. We'll never produce an Owen, Gerrard, Rooney etc......... How can you possibly know that? We may not have done that yet, but world class players have to come from somewhere, got just as much possibly of coming from ours than anywhere else in the uk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 Gary Cahill is doing o.k for himself at the moment. Worth bearing in mind the last time we had so many youngsters in our team was 05/06 when Ridgewell, Davis, Luke Moore, Gabby, Cahill, Craig Gardner and Whittingham all played a decent number of games. Currently Ridgewell has matured into a decent enough premier league LB (position I never thought he'd be any good in) Davis has started well Southampton and played really well at Rangers albeit in the SPL, Cahill we all know about and it's been done to death, Gardner is an established premier league midfielder and Whittingham is one of the best central midfielders in the championship. Only Luke Moore can count himself fortunate to still be in the premier league, warming the bench at Swansea. I think that was a good point earlier about bunging them all in together as o.k the players above aren't world beaters but most have gone off to different clubs and become solid players at their levels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVFCforever1991 Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 Need to start producing better youth players, I mean Bannan? Really. Thats the best we can do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 another thread by OP slating the academy starting to think he was rejected Of course Villa has one of best academies in country look at amount of players in top 2 divisions that came from Villa just cause people think not good enough for us doesnt mean the academy has failed plus players like Cahill, Davis, Gardner, Whittingham and Ridgewell would probably walk into our team now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McGregor1888 Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 Sorry to be blunt but this a stupid thread. All kids have to be "blooded" the correct way. As someone else pointed out, take Spurs. Livermore, Caulker, Walker, Naughton, Rose and Townsend. Most agree those will become fine Premier League players. If spurs week in and week out had a back 4 consisting of Caulker, Naughton and Walker they wouldn't do much better than ours. Would we bury those players as having no future. Most PL teams will have 1 or 2 young players with 9 or 10 experienced. We are the other way round. A relief to see some common sense. Our youngsters are as good as any out there (and far better than most) - we do need extra bodies in to support them, though. Hopefully we will get those extra bodies in this week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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