academy of light

I don't know for sure when it opened (99) I think but how many players have come through the system,what's going on,who runs it ,and why hasn't the turnover been better

 

Was hailed at the time to be the finest in Europe when opened (previous best was Ajax).In fact we got the then Ajax academy manager to run ours.We were told that it could take around five years to start to reap benefits of such a fine instituition.Around fifteen years on and the only two players of note to have graduated from the academy have been Henderson and Colback.
What the hell has been going on,who is running this white elephant.If there are players about ready to be brought in from the under 21,s then WHY are we not bringing them into the first team picture.
We are now in desperate need of an injection of fresh (young) faces to add some spark.If Gus remains then he will continue to ignore the youngsters

 

Players like Adam Johnson who's a local lad came through Boros academy. WhereS our scouts???

 

Henderson- 20m
Colback- Premiership player
Leadbitter- 2.6m
Waghorn- 3m

That's all I can think off. Worth remembering that the AOL is primarily a training facility to our seniors. So as far as I can see it's down to the managers we've had and how much of their budget they wanted putting into the kids rather than it being the facilities we have being responsible. It's only been the last five years we've taken kids from outside the region and only in the last couple of seasons we've started taking the odd kid from outside the country. So Quinn with Keane and Bruce at the helm clearly failed to invest any real money in scouting. This is proved by pop robson only ever bring players in from outside the Country when he managed to fit some matches into his holidays to Turkey(Alfie) and Ireland(McClean). This is what I blame. The ALO is still one of the finest facilities in the world.

imo Watmore is ready now, Mandron will be ready for next season and give it year for the likes of Honeyman, Agnew, Smith, Robson and Gooch to be knocking on the door and needing Championship standard opposition. We've got some great kids coming through and we can start seeing the investment of recent years starting to show fruit.

 

Pickford should be worth a few Bob in a few years time aswell.

 

He's already graduated fella. He's a senior now.

He'll be Number two next season fella. Vito will be off.

 

I agree mate. Its a shame for Vito, we took him to our hearts last season, but Pickford looks class now and he'll keep on improving. Pants is a good number 1.

 

I'd still have Vito as Number one myself but Pants is good, pity every time he catches the ball it leads from us having possession to loosing possession. It lowers our defensive line because he kicks it while our back line strolls out. It's a massive problem for us imo. I'd rather sell Pants and Keep Vito even though Pants is the better shot stopper. Vito's distribution is second to none. I think we miss it badly.

 

Agree with you mate, you are better than analysing than me.

 

I wouldn't say that fella. You know your onions. Rarely disagree with you. Can we just mold the best parts of Vito and Pants together and throw the rest in the skip?

Costito Mantilliomon with Pickford as number two.

 

Ha if only.

 

The whole AOL system is pointless if we don't play the kids. Watmore is ready now...Mandron is being kept back by a player who hasn't scored a goal for us since he signed two years ago and another who doesn't seem to give a crap.....got to give these kids a chance. Until then the whole AOL...is just a training ground...