Yes, this is true. The academy has to be an important part of the system if you're running things this way. Not that it wouldn't be important anyway.
I didnt take it personally at all mate, its nice to have a sensible discussion about these things. I'm quite relaxed that some of the money we generate from player sales will have to go on Infrastructure and budgets. We just don't make enough money to cover everything without raising prices to stupid levels and pretty much rebuilding the ground to get more corporate types in. Perosnally i think we should be very proud and keen to keep the fact watching us is affordable for pretty much everyone, i really dont want us to lose that ever. As said by @FellTop the academy can be a gold mine and there seems to be a great line of prospects coming through all ages. Being cynical if we sell 1 player that comes through the academy its a pure profit sale for the accounts. The more i think about it, the more i wonder if we are looking a lot longer term and to what football may look like from 25/26 onwards. I do believe we will be very well placed when the final rules bite and not be scrambling around like an awful lot of clubs will have to do, we then have to hope that the FA, Premier League and EFL enforce them with strong enough penalties.
Money always talks mate. The PL and their lackies in the FA won't do anything that will damage the marketability of their brand. Man City case forever going on...Everton dealt with,Forest coming up....speaks volumes. I agree with you that we seem to be savvy to ensure we don't have an issue with the rules. What that means for our future progress,I'm not altogether sure.
All fans have to hope that these rules are enforced properly, i like you have my doubts they will be though
I prefer the term guidelines rather than actual rules and if they get a litte, errr, difficult we can always change them.
The Saudis, who own Newcastle, tried to buy the club and were knocked back ... ... they have about £250m of debt so only someone with money to burn could possibly buy them. I don't believe they're for sale in any case.
Totally agree mate the academy, training facilities, nutrition, physio, commercial, and march day staff etc are the foundation the club will be built on and as we all know strong foundations are needed. I don't think the club has all this right yet but they have rescued the academy which has probably had an effect on first team recruitment as the build continues but we did need to start at the foundation and move forward from there. There are still areas where big improvements can be made and I hope the end of the legacy contracts will see us improve off field activities over the next few years. There will still be mistakes and missteps along the way but in general it looks like we are moving in the right direction
Been thinking a bit more about this after yesterday and after some of the good observations on the team selection and tactics yesterday. I thought both were wrong first half, and quite noticeably so. I have tried to think about it purely from a coaches perspective where I have a little bit of experience. My first question is about players picked. Burstow in looks odd, Adil out looks odd, Mundle and Ba in strange. Rusyn not starting? Burstow first. Loans will have to be a major part of our approach going forward. My suspicion is we might have a long term view here and want to be seen as a place loan players play and get developmemt time. Frustrating for us now, but could be useful come the summer if another from Chelsea is available. Adil next. He made a good impact midweek, but doesnt get the nod to start. Folk saying we dont seem to trust some of the players we have bought. It is interesting to think about a coaches trust in a player. It has to be really strong when the coaches job is always at risk. Coaches want to win, they want to achieve targets set. Therefore they need players who they are confident will do what is asked tactically. I wonder if Adil and others are yet to earn a coaches trust enough to be starting regularly. That trust is largely built on the training ground. How quickly does a player understand the tactical ask? How effective are they at it? How consistently do they perform and repeat the ask. It may be Adil, for now, is trusted only to be the game changer, or finisher as they call it in Rugby. Someone to come on when the game has opened up and some of the structure has gone. I know folk will say we wont know if he can do it if he doesnt play, but I dont agree, as a coach we do a lot of training ground work to see if he can do it. Rusyn? Tricky one to be honest. If he had kicked the door open then Burstows game time wouldnt be a conversation. He hasnt though. He has been patchy to me. The goal he scored where he got across his man at the front post was the play of a number 9. Much of his play though is not of a 9, it is more erratic in positional terms. That said I think if we were seriously in a play off battle he would have started yesterday. Tactics then. This is where I think I struggle most to see consistency. I would expect a model to include a consistency in how we play. A really strong plan A that 90% of the time we play regardless. We have chopped and changed under the model. Johnson was a front foot all guns blazing type of coach, high energy, balls into the box. Neil was allowed to be much more pragmatic and do it quite differently. Mowbray went to a much more open style of play and you could see how much the players took to it. Freedom was everything. At the start of this season something changed and we started looking for more territory control in my opinion, closing spaces in the pitch, narrowing the game. It was odd, but perhaps a reaction to the squad balance. Beale was allowed to go back to a Neil style of solidity and ball control. Now Dodds is doing different things again, trying to go man for man all over the pitch, or wing backs, or 1 holding. My overall point is there doesnt seem to be a style of play that is aligned to the model. That really does need to be reset. Going forward I think it is clear we need to refine things. First of all lets set the style of play. If we are to persevere with a young squad, which I hope we do in the main, then we have to play an open attacking game. Not gung ho, but front foot, aggressive running game where high energy and quick ball movement has teams retreating. I think we have some players already here who would show up better in that style. Now we find the coaching team to implement that. They must have full belief in it and be all in. Us fans need to be the same, no calling for plan b after a couple of dodgy results. 95% of the time plan a at all costs. Liverpool are an example of this - they dont adapt for anyone. If we get the style set in stone, and the coaches who can deliver it to an elite level, then recruiting players becomes much more functional. Coaches and players will align more and trust will come quicker. Training ground work will be ultra consistent and repetitive, but high quality. One of the things hamstringing us currently is how we start games tentatively. I think it is because we are tweaking too much game to game and players are having to think too much. Again we need a set style that takes away confusion and allows players to be comfortable. My last refinement would be a bit more trust in older lads to contribute. The 23-27 age group is such a critical age in football and the top teams load up there. We dont need to load up, but 3 or 4 signings in that group over the summer and we would look different I think yesterday when we get to 2-2 and are probably at our most vulnerable, players to smell danger and react on the pitch. Opportunity is there for the club. So many foundations now in place. Not least the academy. Now we just need a reset at first team level and realign things around a central style of play. We can then be a juggernaut in footballing terms if we get the head coach right.
Very considered post with some great points. One thing I would say is the style of play has been pretty consistent as a 4231, the u21's play it religiously, we used to play it religiously and often still do. Recruitment seems to have been based around the same. I think that formation can lead to a 433 when the situation dictates. The striker and cdm roles are vital in both set ups and we don't have either and haven't had since Evans got injured 17 months ago. Dan Neil is the best placed to play as the CDM but there isn't really anyone else. There's a bit of work to do in the summer and we have to hope lessons are learned and we can get back to winning ways with the beautiful football we played at times last season
Spot on Felltop. A model that allows for any new coach to come in should have all teamsn (U12's through the first team) playing the same way so that if a player is called up he knows what's expected. Find the right players for the position and tactics in training and refine the tactics but don't change the overall game style
Do you think KLD would look to sell up completely and buy an alternative club or look to set up one of these umbrellas with investments in multiple clubs? If he is leaving, I hope something happens sooner, rather than taking ages and having a long drawn out unsettling period.
How would Bob know this? The Bob Murray interview said KLD had invested in the AoL and taken it to the next level. Murray was very happy with KLD and that the club was in good hands. Rather base my opinions on information from Bob Murray than the mad one.
Breath of fresh air this. Nowt against mad Bob. Just nice to see someone suggesting KLD is actually quite the reverse of the leech some would have us believe he is.
Always seemed like an odd thing to believe to me. If I was 23 and had a couple of billion quid burning a hole in my sky rocket, I'd buy a football club too. And love it. Not be trying to make money off it.
Not a lot of trust in the world nowadays. Which I kind of understand. But as I mentioned on another thread, I don't think the club are doing a very good job of letting people know just how much time/effort/money KLD is putting into the club.
