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Aston Villa Academy 2012/13


AndyClarke

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According to James Horncastle on twitter, the club have approached Gubbio for Simone Farina. However this would be as a non playing role as he is considering ending his playing career early.

"Farina was named a FIFA Fair-Play ambassador after he reported an attempt to fix a Coppa Italia game between Cesena + Gubbio "

"Gazzetta claim that Villa want to add Farina to their youth set-up + get him to teach youngsters about fair-play/morality etc"

https://twitter.com/JamesHorncastle

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Danny O'Brien with 2 goals in 2 games for England U17 in the Nordic tournament.

Daniel Crowley has been called up by England U17 for the next squad.

Manchester tournament today, Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs along with Villa. Sounds like some good matches in there!

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Who is your number one tip for the top?

Some really good lads in the academy at the moment. Jordan Graham, Jack Grealish, Callum Robinson all have a good chance if they can adapt physically to senior football. Ability will not be a problem for any of those three. Josh Webb is also impressive at right back.

Daniel Crowley is the star man in the U16s (he has just turned 15), he has just been called up to England U17 squad. Foday Nabay (if he has signed) is highly thought of and would be a major coup.

Below that Easah Suliman (central defender) and Rushian Hepburn-Murphy (striker) who are both 14 have been called up to train with the England squad for Victory Shield selection.

Overall, I'd like to say Jordan Graham, who I believe could go on to become an absolutely fantastic winger. As I have said before though, he is on a knife edge as to whether he is going to be able to compete physically in senior football. He also needs to learn to move the ball on more quickly at times. In terms of ability on the ball, he is amongst the best I have seen with the ball at his feet.

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Who is your number one tip for the top?

Some really good lads in the academy at the moment. Jordan Graham, Jack Grealish, Callum Robinson all have a good chance if they can adapt physically to senior football. Ability will not be a problem for any of those three. Josh Webb is also impressive at right back.

Daniel Crowley is the star man in the U16s (he has just turned 15), he has just been called up to England U17 squad. Foday Nabay (if he has signed) is highly thought of and would be a major coup.

Below that Easah Suliman (central defender) and Rushian Hepburn-Murphy (striker) who are both 14 have been called up to train with the England squad for Victory Shield selection.

Overall, I'd like to say Jordan Graham, who I believe could go on to become an absolutely fantastic winger. As I have said before though, he is on a knife edge as to whether he is going to be able to compete physically in senior football. He also needs to learn to move the ball on more quickly at times. In terms of ability on the ball, he is amongst the best I have seen with the ball at his feet.

Thanks for the great reply.

I'll look out for them, hope they make it.

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watched some footage of nobay - have to say he looks like a passenger - decent when he has the ball but not interested if he hasnt

Yes, I think that's a problem with a majority of youth players and indeed young people playing football.

Hopefully the coaching teaches him to focus.

Although, I can think of a few adult professionals who are guilty of that, I've seen Andy Carroll in interviews talk about how coaches still that to him.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Looks like Foday Nabay is staying with Birmingham City. He retweeted:

"bcfcacademy ‏@bcfcacademy

The Academy is delighted to see @FodayNabay8 re-sign with the Academy this weekend. Great news for everyone involved."

Not sure what happened with that, based on what I found a few weeks ago, he must have spent some time with Villa. As to whether he was on trial and we didn't want him, or if he chose Blues over us I have no idea.

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Question:

Since i live in Sweden i have little or no possibilty to follow the academy side, so i wonder. Is there any red line through the club in terms of what kind of football the teams play?

In my experience many of the clubs that have sucessfull youth systems (Barca, Ajax, Arsenal, Santos and so on...) play the same kind of football all through the diffrent teams in the club. This makes it easier for any young player to take the step from youth to senior football. Something our players seem to struggle with.

Not that we've had any kind of consistency in terms of style of play during the last few years...

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There is very much an emphasis on playing football the right way within the academy, on the deck, with players who are good on the ball. This is not easy to translate into senior football which is why players don't make it or have to change their playing style.

Some clubs, Leicester City (easy example) are far more aggressive than Villa on the academy pitch, they are very successful at youth level but have had relatively few players step up to senior level. They play more direct and there is more emphasis on physical players moulded into footballers than at Villa (which may be Sid's influence) where size is unimportant if you can play.

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Ok thanks

So in theory the players should be more familiar to the type of football Lambert is trying to introduce than to the type of football that MON or especially the anti football McLeish used.

Good to hear

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The step up from academy football to Premier league football is so huge that I would say that it is almost irrelevant. Most academy teams try to play the right way, most of the bigger clubs have a majority of players that they pull in from all over the place because they think that they have a Premier league player on their hands, most of these players don't make it.

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Ok thanks

So in theory the players should be more familiar to the type of football Lambert is trying to introduce than to the type of football that MON or especially the anti football McLeish used.

Good to hear

this could be crucial.

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