Good to see we finally seem to have some long term thinking at the club!! Whilst I think the 50% figure may be overly optimistic, it sends out a message I geuss that we will be willing to give youth a chance and therefore perhaps be more attractive for youngsters looking for a club: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23508239
Great news should it be approved. We've a history of nurturing young talent and this will just add to that and hopefully give us a strong future
I think 50% is ambitious but achievable, with Smith and Hyam already in the Team it means a minimum of 1 academy product making it each year to reach the target.
This is good news. Obviously Marcus can use his own cash to fund the academy without it affecting the FFP rules or the playing budget so it can only be a good thing.
This is all fantastic news, and the best thing about is that we have one of the best youth development coaches at the helm of it all! Just a sidenote, one of the feather guys has decided start a thread taking the piss about it! now if this is something to take the piss out off, bring it on. my take on it is that the new direction our club, both on and off the pitch has rattled them!
They should just enjoy the twilight of the most successful period in their history, but the cruddies continue to look on us with envious eyes and slowly, and surely, draw their plans against us.
Had a quick look at the thread but really couldn't be assed to get involved.FA Youth Cup-big deal-it didn't do us much good last time we won it!
i don't really understand why anyone felt the need to have a dig because its exactly what your club should be doing! you should all be very grateful to bryan klug because without him i doubt you'd be getting the upgrade to be honest good luck for the season. you never know, you might finish higher than 14/15/16th! 13th
Was thinking a bit more about this, could this be the green shoots of an "x year plan"? By 2017, I would hope that we would be/have been in the PL. As is shown year on year, there is a big difference between being good enough for the Championship and being good enough for the PL. So presumably these youth player that are being trained to comprise 50% of our youth team are being trained to be good enough for the premier league? This would seem to be infitting with the Upgrade to Category 1, and therefore being able to play against premier league youth teams. The other thread to this is presumably Klug and the team already have some idea of which players are most likely to make it, however vague. So I wonder if there is some sort of outline for transfer market strategy for the next 4 seasons?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23508239 Good news we are going category 1. However, with us aiming for 50% of the squad made up by youth players, does that mean the investment for signing more expensive players potentially will wane and no longer be there? Up for the move in theory though, especially with FFP on the way.
Merged Westy, you raise an interesting topic in the level of investments.... as far as I understand, ME doesn't have such rigorous restrictions on the level of investment he can put into academy coffers... whereas first team squad etc. everything is scrupulously checked and double checked.. I imagine this has been a common sense decision made by Klug and the directors (as well as ME) given the circumstances and also gives us supporters an optimistic viewpoint that ME IS in it for the long haul and that there is finally a concise and transparent long term vision and plan in place to take this club forward
Well it may mean that in the short term we have less money to invest in the first team, however in the long term, in theory it would mean that we have more money to spend on the first team in real terms. For example, by selling our best youth players for big money like Wickham. However the more attractive route to go down for ,e would be that if 50% of our first team is made up of players from our academy we would have more money to spend on transfer fees/wages on the remaining 5-6 players.
I would say that's the more likely route, and why I was saying this could be the seeds of a proper long term plan/strategy for the whole club. Identify the youth players that can make it, fill remaining gaps and get the experience from outside transfers. Of course, we can still sell on the best if we get a Wickham-like offer for them, and that will help fund the transfers, but with this news I think we're finally at the end of the Buy-a-team era.
