Interesting article - for a lad who was considered by many at Watford to be light weight he has not done too badly. A bit worrying that he was almost discarded and it was only by chance that he was sent over to David Platts England under 21 practice match to make up the numbers - where fortunately he made a big impression. A lot of credit should go to Chris Cummins. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/philmcnulty/2011/06/the_man_who_stuck_by_ashley_yo.html Wonder who has the battered green Ford Fiesta is now? Thanks Chris !
If I've got a criticism of the Watford youth setup its that we go for early physical developers. This leads to a lot of skill falling through the net and moving on to other academies with different approaches in the area eg. Tottenham. Danny effectively fell through the Middlesborough net and many others do. Its tesatament to the individuals who pick themselves up upon release and prove their point with the ball. Hopefully assessment will get more objective in future, a lot of subjective analysis in the past and face fits mentality!!
I think we have progressed a lot in that way Aberdeen , you can hardly call Murray or Mingoia physical types!
I agree with Norway that we're moving in the right direction. In fairness to Aberdeen, we did sign that Hungarian goalkeeper for no reason other than that he looked like reaching seven foot. And in fairness to the club, the academy started during Boothroyd's tenure. Successful or otherwise he was unlikely to still be here now, but I don't think the club could reasonably have been expected to predict that we would be playing such good football so quickly after his departure.
