We had a track record, we don’t have a proven pathway at this point. We don’t give chances to youth or we don’t have a very good academy. One of those is true. At the moment we seem to be selling ours for percentage points and buying city’s for 10 million so I’m going with our academy isn’t very good anymore.
Rear and sell isn't a bad strategy as long as you get good money for them. But that only happens if they've grown their value by impressing in mens football, whether at Saints or on loan. Investing 10 years in someone like Doyle to sell him before breaking through is not profitable.
We have given Dibling a chance? 5 minutes against Gillingham. 14 minutes against Walsall. 2 minutes against Wednesday. 21 total minutes across all comps in six months is a chance...?
edited my post to add something along those lines. I don’t think the academy is in a strong position any longer. We haven’t produced any superstars and we haven’t delivered a first teamer since JWP, meanwhile other academies are raking in big bucks for untried youth players or giving them stellar debuts. Good but not great might be the perception now. If we don’t play them and let them develop and prove themselves that perception won’t change. Brighton will get the credit now for a player who has been at saints since he was in nappies - if he’s any good of course.
Right. And Dibling is only 17 ffs. Its not like he's 20. SAA is even younger than Dibling. Doyle and Ballard both made their debuts at 17 last season. Amo was only 16. Not sure what the club should do. Start playing 15 year olds?
When we’re fighting for promotion, yes. And a little bit of understanding of that from the people around these kids would go a long way. He’s not in any way going to play more minutes at Brighton, so it’s a thin excuse, come on.
It's not like we've let any 'superstars' slip through our fingers though. And Brighton are doing exactly the same as us. They poach youngsters from other academies rather than bring through their own. Evan Ferguson is not their own. Adingra is not their own. Caicedo was not their own. I think its only Hinshelwood who is their own actual academy player.
We don't know that. JJM & Doyle could go on to be top, top players, or they could be complete flops - only time will tell. But your point that all clubs do it is completely valid. 2 of the the 3 youngsters with the most first XI minutes this season are Meghoma & SAA, we took both of them from Spurs academy a little over a year ago. In a perfect world you have your cake and eat - i.e, attract top talent from other academies and retain your own, But the only way to do that is if you have deep pockets to pay above average wages for 16 year olds (Chelsea for example) or build a philosophy around playing youth (Dortmund). Neither of which are currently viable for Saints, although we seem to be trying to push for the Dortmund model with the signings of Edozie, Bazunu, Tino, Charles etc.
Sure. But what I mean is, it's not like we released them, and they went on to become superstars. They were poached by richer clubs. There is little we can do about that. The world of footballing academies is very different these days. Every club poaches from others. The talent is in the scouting and negotiating, not in necessarily producing the talent as such. If we are going to sit around and wait for the next local lad from Shirley to rise to the top, we'll be waiting a long time.
I know some don’t rate him but Will Smallbone came through the academy set up. End of the day if they are good enough they will get a chance. Some will be ready at an early age, some, like Smallbone, will take a few years more. I love seeing the kids get some time on the pitch but it’s up to them to show the manager that they are ready and capable enough to keep a more established player out of the team. You have to be a VERY special player to hold down a starting spot at 17, which is the age of most of the lads who are on the fringe.
How many Gareth Bales play in the footballing world over a 5 year period? I am talking in the whole footballing world, all the clubs, all the countries, all the world? Maybe 2 or 3? Are we being unrealistic that in the whole world we produce one of those locally every 2-3 years? (Also, Gareth Bale was taken from Cardiff as there was a weird anomaly that he was 'local' due to the English channel being south of us if I remember ) What is the chance that a local person every 2-3 years or even 5 years is the next Lionel Messi? Slim I think, even if we had the best Academy.
We had a satellite academy in Bath at the time, and Cardiff was just inside the catchment area. Rod Ruddock was the scout, based at Bath. I think we were allowed the satellite because of the reasons you state.
Yep, and Smallbone wasn't alone. Around the same time that he was trying to break through, we had; Michael Obafemi (32 appearances for Saints) Yan Valery (43 appearances) Nathan Tella (36 appearances) As well as Slattery, Vokins, Ramsey, Tchaptchet, Watts, and Jankewitz, who all made their senior debuts. So it isn't as though we haven't been giving opportunities to our youth players in recent years. It's simply that they weren't deemed good enough. And we were right in most cases, apart from Tella, but at least we made 20m from him.
I agree that it's unreasonable to expect the club to win promotion from a difficult league whilst also providing ample game time to young players. I would also have liked to see SAA get more minutes off the bench in certain games. The two aren't mutually exclusive. (And I know SAA isn't considered 'academy' because he didn't arrive in a pram but you get my drift.
It was disappointing last season that we didn’t play the kids more when the senior players were playing so poorly or didn’t give a crap. This season, if a youngster is annoyed he can’t get into a club record performing side, then he needs to stop being a brat.
We always have a reason, though. This year we're pushing for promotion. Next year we'll likely need to fight for survival or promotion, so naturally there isn't going to be much opportunity to play them, just as it was last year and the years previous. At some point, it just isn't a priority. Players and their families would likely be much more understanding if we had any recent history whatsoever of bringing through Academy players. The last graduate to go on to a substantial PL career is Matt Targett. Targett's 28 years old. You aren't going to be given a lot of grace under the circumstances.
Sure, but we can't just play players for the sake of being nice, that's the point. If they're going to weaken the team, we shouldn't play them (unless we're at a point where it doesn't matter - end of season mid table mediocrity stuff).
