The proof is in the pudding. Saints obviously wanted to keep a manager who had brought success to the club, despite him being off plan in some areas. However, for whatever reason he left....which may turn out to be a good thing IF Puel brings success whilst being closer to the Southampton system. Have to wait and see, but I am hopeful and interested to see what unfolds.
Although publicly slagging the kids off as not good enough was a little unprofessional on Koeman's part too IMO.
In hindsight it seems as if there were obvious conflicts about the academy - something that was heavily rumoured at the time as well; but coming to light more clearly now with some analysis. All the noises coming out of the club about it right now are the right ones, however; hopefully problems didn't run too deep and Puel & his team can heal them.
Some parents weren't happy...think they thought promises made had been broken. They may be happier now, but of course still doesn't mean that their precious will make it.
I think this is part of the business model. We develop players who whilst may not be good enough for our first team still have sale value to teams lower down the order. Currently we just release these with no benefit having spent time and money getting to this point. Sign a number up each year and sell them at a point for £2-£5m each year. This can then fund one major player each year or invested back into the system...
There's nothing wrong with views and opinions changing. The problem arises in that it is difficult to have any kind of discussion about the club's direction and options if people insist on trying to frame everything (including their own views) to suit some kind of positive/negative battleground, and it becomes more absurd when the club's direction (or at least our perception thereof) shifts, and suddenly so do opinions and battle lines. There are a bunch of potentially interesting discussions that could arise concerning the club's policies here, as raised by LTL in the first post, none of which need to be viewed as either indictment of or paean to the board. Instead, most of it is getting framed around "do you trust them?" as per usual.
I think that's unfair for this thread Schad. Seems to me that some points have been raised for discussion and discussed quite well in her (this thread). Interestingly enough though one of the people (spacedsaint) who felt that discussions couldn't be had on another thread (and why Laces started this one) bowed out saying it was the end of the discussion. This was after putting some words into my mouth too by the way, but I let that go. I am someone who says "trust the board" yet on this thread on page one I posted about the academy being a big part of the Board's new direction. Nobody repied or took it up. Should I moan that I am being dismissed as a truster? Not just me, others too.
I'll take it up - I don't think that is an entirely new direction - going all the way back to the Cortese days, we've stressed the importance of the academy & the path to the first team. Koeman's tenure was a diversion from that, but we're just reverting to the path that the board always wanted us on, IMO. Did we have a bit of a talent hole? Sure, but it looks like we're trying to fix that too: http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/arti...gn-scholarships-with-southampton-3164673.aspx - they don't have to have been with us since the age of 5 to be counted as our academy products later on.
Funnily enough I've just been conversing over e-mail with chap who I do design work for who is a Swindon Town supporter and he asked about the new signing. I wrote a few lines and then cut and paste the '5 things article' from the Saints site and he said he believed it was a typical Southampton signing where they get a good young player in, get him playing well and confident and sell him on at a big profit in a few years time. From his perspective he thought this was a great model and saw nothing wrong with it. He admires Saints.
Not sure many business models exist where you help rival businesses. Who have we sold for £2m to £5m? All our recent youngsters just go on loan, or released from their (long) contracts because no team will pay money for them.
Thats why I'm saying it's part of the model, maybe I could have said it maybe part of the model. Academy players won't be on Gaston or Osvaldo sized wages as you well know. We could be selling others that won't make it with us to others, as I said those that are below our current level. You're way off point re selling to our rivals, one they won't be sold to rivals as such but moreover the whole football business is selling to rivals. Take a look at recent success here to help you
Selling to rivals has a flip side, it means the asset has good worth & is sort after. Good things kinda stop there though......
It probably isn't worth it to sign up a young player just to sell him to a lower division side for a couple of mil. But I don't think that's really our plan. I think we believe these players have potential and you never know for sure. Even if there is only a 10% chance they become contributors to the first team, the benefit is so massive that more than covers the cost of the 9 failed players. As for buying up players to sell to our rivals, I don't think that is our intent either. We buy them up at cheap prices and get 2 or 3 excellent years from them. If we can hang on to them at wages we deem reasonable, we will. If we can't then we sell. As for what teams have become successful by helping their rivals... all of them. La Liga is filled with ex-Barcelona players. Nothing wrong with helping your rivals if by doing so you also help yourself.
There is definitely a market and a business model for "failed" academy players. Chelsea hoard players for example and their academy has been more successful at selling players than creating first teamers. If we maintain/improve our current league standing then it's acknowledged that it will be harder for an academy player to make the grade, but the flip side is that they'll probably interest a higher calibre club. Championship clubs could afford to pay a bit of money
Who on here really disagrees about the academy? I've only really seen minor quibbles at the edges, are there really many who disagree that much on the broader point? If so, I've never seen them
