VillaAlex Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyClarke Posted August 8, 2012 Author Share Posted August 8, 2012 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! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyClarke Posted August 8, 2012 Author Share Posted August 8, 2012 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted August 8, 2012 Moderator Share Posted August 8, 2012 How has Josh Barton progressed? He seemingly has that uncoachable asset of blistering speed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyClarke Posted August 8, 2012 Author Share Posted August 8, 2012 He is quite quick, been shunted to fullback which is never a good sign. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomaszk Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Any idea where or what this tourn is? Wouldn't mind going to have a look. Struggling to find anything on Google. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyClarke Posted August 8, 2012 Author Share Posted August 8, 2012 Tournament is in Manchester, part of preseason so I doubt you will find very much, if anything about it. U16s beat Fulham 4-2 today, Harry McKirdy with 2, Dean Waldron and A.Trialist bagged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomaszk Posted August 8, 2012 Share Posted August 8, 2012 Behind closed doors affair then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyClarke Posted August 8, 2012 Author Share Posted August 8, 2012 I would imagine it is at Carrington. Arsenal and Chelsea today, Man Utd and Tottenham tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8pints Posted August 9, 2012 Share Posted August 9, 2012 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nycVILLA Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 It would be great to have more Academy coverage, AndyClarke your review was great. Please keep us informed like that if you can? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8pints Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 It would be great to have more Academy coverage, AndyClarke your review was great. Please keep us informed like that if you can? Yes, it was cracking! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashingqwerty Posted August 10, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted August 10, 2012 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8pints Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyClarke Posted August 26, 2012 Author Share Posted August 26, 2012 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 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... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyClarke Posted August 26, 2012 Author Share Posted August 26, 2012 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted August 26, 2012 Share Posted August 26, 2012 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyClarke Posted August 26, 2012 Author Share Posted August 26, 2012 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8pints Posted August 28, 2012 Share Posted August 28, 2012 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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