I thought it was in the match day thread that he wasn't on the bench. The question remains why not use him if we have no one else? He's done OK whenever he played ie cup games.
I would have been happy for him to start, but if he'd had a poor game, he would have had a lot of pressure on him.
On what basis? How is it better now? We had Cairney, Cullen, Cooper, Devitt, Atkinson, Bradley and Townsend all within a couple of years. Who's come through since we improved it so much? Luer looks good but Bruce won't play him. So either Bruce is holding them back more than previous managers or the setup is actually worse after all the investment. I'm sure it isn't the latter in reality but proudly proclaiming how great it is now and slagging off the old setup is a bit rich.
It took Pennock five years to turn around the Swansea academy and get players into the first team, the sale of one of those players recouped the entire investment over those five years. Expecting him to have a queue of players lined up for first team action, after two years, is laughably unrealistic.
Its clearly obvious that over recent seasons we have squandered money to support what was our Centre of Excellence, however I share the view that Tony Pennock has a proven track record in developing players and ultimately feel confident that we will begin delivering players into the first team squad from The Academy over the coming seasons. I don't think it will necessarily deliver Hull born players which has always been cited as a reason for developing the youth set up, but if it happens then thats the icing on the cake
We signed Luer in January and he's already made five appearances for the first team, these things don't happen overnight. Personally, I'd have played him more than we have done, but expecting players to be first team regulars within a year of signing is ridiculous. The whole point of an academy is that you develop players and get them to a standard that will see them get into the first team, it takes years, not months.
As I said above, you think better facilities will turn our current crop of **** into all time world stars? Or do you expect investment in the academy to also turn finding 8 or 9 year olds and educating and developing them through til they're about 18 into a one year process? Maybe Huddlestone could use his telekinetic powers to help with that. He must have a spell to speed up time.
I think a lot of it comes down to whether or not these lads are up to the standards of the Championship every week. It's all well and good looking alright in a 20 minute cameo, it doesn't mean you're good enough or ready to be a regular.
I was addressing Chazz's claim that the pre-investment setup was really bad. It produced way more players than we are doing now. Time doesn't come into that. My issue with youth matters now is Bruce. Luer has shown it doesn't matter how well you play. If you're not already established he won't give you a chance.
For sure it's good that we are investing in the facilities, but to be good at football you must have the gift. You can teach a kid to ride a bike but no matter how much you spend on the equipment it's unlikely he or she will win the tour de France. The same applies to swimming, running, car racing, whatever you care to name. I think the scouting / talent spotting is more important than the facilities. Hats off to those unknown who go and watch game after game of kids playing in the hope of finding those with the gift of been great at football. Peterborough keep finding young talent and I don't imagine they have a multi million pound training center.
Peterborough did something very similar to us and moved their academy to Nene Park Academy, which was a school that was upgraded to an academy and has just had £15m spent on its facilities.
My next door neighbours kid plays there, he's around 7 or 8 I think. He plays every weekend, and trains in the week. It's not mental stuff, they're still young kids, but hes definitely being prepared the right way. His team are romping their league too.
Hopefully we're all about to be reminded of how effective his telekinetic powers are from the comfort of the bench. He's really, really good, possibly even better than even you think he is Bob, in that position.
