http://www.theoriginalcoach.com/#!the-academy-integration-conundrum/c167y THE GRAND OPENING OF THE NEW £200 MILLION ACADEMY by Manchester City has re-ignited the discussion regarding whether investments made by top clubs like Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and Everton in their academies will result in more young players at these clubs graduating to the first team. The Financial Fair Play regulation has forced high-spending clubs like Manchester City and Chelsea to place increased focus on developing their own players in the long term. Youth players at Manchester City will now be trained in state of the art facilities which will include the latest sports science advances such as altitude training. There is no doubting that professional football is still playing catch-up in terms of sports science but debate is now focusing on whether today’s academy generation coming through are too pampered . Sean Dyche, the Burnley manager, recently argued that academy players in England today are given too much too young, and are too soft. He pointed to young players aged 14 requiring rub-downs before training and an 8-year-old complaining about a hamstring injury. Gary Neville has also recently questioned how England should best prepare young academy players to successfully graduate to the first team. Neville argues that he benefited from being around the first team at an early age and laying out the kit in the changing rooms before first team games. He also pointed to the fact that at Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson and his assistant manager Archie Knox frequently trained young players at the club from U12-U16. Gary Neville believes that technical skills are a given when you reach 16-18 at a top club. He strongly feels that his academy learning at Manchester United was successful because he understood from an early age - by being around the first team environment and their staff - what was required to play at that level. Manchester United has subsequently, like many academies in England, separated their academy from the first team activities. Manchester City has embraced this model at their new facility. Patrick Vieira, Head of the Elite Development Squad at Manchester City believes that the thinking is to have the young academy be close enough to the first team to “see it, smell it and they can see they need it”. Vieira does not agree that young Manchester City players will be too pampered. The message he wants to portray is that a player can make the step up if they’re good enough. Two of Vieira’s young players were involved in first team action when Manchester City beat Sunderland 4-1 this season and his U19 group of players have topped the UEFA junior league and beat Bayern Munich along the way. No doubt the debates will continue within English football on whether the Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) will result in a greater number of players being capable of playing in the English Premier League. The Elite Player Performance Plan is the youth development scheme initiated and implemented by the Premier League in recent years. The intention of the EPPP is to improve the quality and quantity of home-grown players produced by top English clubs. According to Sky Sports last year, the pool of English players in the Premier League has dropped by 16% since the 1998/99 season and is now at about 32 %. It will be several years before statistics can properly evaluate how successful EPPP is at improving the quality of the young players being produced at England’s academies; until then, the Sky stats are telling. There is no doubt that technical skills are being developed and that the young players have access to the latest in sports science and sports psychology however, as Dyche and Neville point out, are the academies doing the right things to adequately prepare these young players for the very competitive world of first team professional football in arguably Europe’s toughest league? Many clubs have for many years loaned their best young players out to professional teams in the lower leagues in order to gain valuable first team experience playing against other professional players. Lately, there has been some debate about England following the same model that exists in Spain where top clubs like Barcelona and Real Madrid run reserve teams in the second and third tiers of Spanish football. Neville is still of the opinion that academies are not about buildings, but about people and behavior. I would agree with that. If the key question is whether to integrate academies with the first team, rather that segregate, then I would argue the former. Crewe Alexandra’s academy has long been considered as one of English top football academies and has generated more than £20 million in transfer fees from players such as David Platt, Nick Powell, Dean Ashton and Danny Murphy. One of the reasons, I believe, that the club’s academy was so successful was that the club’s long-serving manager Dario Gradi also coached at the academy level. I was quite surprised when I came across this when visiting and observing their academy model several years ago. However, I do see its benefits. There was a distinctive coaching philosophy that was religiously followed throughout the academy and all the way up into the first team. In the academy their young players quickly learnt, like Neville argues, what the requirements were at the club to play for the first team. More recently, I have spent time at the Wolves academy. For the past few years, their academy and first team have shared facilities and I think that has benefited the club. Last season, 50% of the first team that earned promotion to the Championship graduated through the academy. Kevin Thelwell, Head of Football Development has articulated the club’s vision for the future: “We have one football department and everyone works together. By having this one-club approach, this ‘Wolves way’, I think it allows us to achieve much more than many other clubs.” Recently, Wolves opened their new £7 million academy facility at Compton Park. The first team and the academy will now be operating out of different buildings. There will be less opportunity for the young academy players to mix with the first team but maybe, like Neville argues, it is more about the culture of the club and the integration, rather than buildings. Kenny Jackett, the first team manager, has given many young academy players their debuts in the last two seasons and is looking to add more academy graduates to the first team so Wolves will retain their integrated approach to their football operations between the academy and the first team. And what about the other clubs? Gary Neville, in his article in the Daily Telegraph posed some critical questions: “If you went to all 20 Premier League managers, I wonder how many are 1) concerned about the youth team 2) in daily contact with their youth team coach 3) know the ins and outs of the youth team players from 14 up?
For academies to truly work for PL clubs then the players they are producing need to feel that there's a genuine opportunity for them to progress into the first team. For that to be tangible then they need to be within touching distance of the first team, but retain an arms length distance. If a lad truly shines then he should be given an opportunity to train with the first team and maybe allow him to travel with the first team squad to an away, even if not named in the squad. The problem with most clubs systems is that the disconnect is too great, lads who are seen as great prospects within the group are cast aside and the lads in the years below look and think "he was great and yet he still didn't make it, what chance is there for me?" Ultimately the only way young players develop into PL players is by playing in the first team. If you don't give them the chance to adapt to the level then you'll never produce quality youngsters. Clubs like City are creating fantastic facilities but will their short termist first team managers (who must produce results or be shot), ever have the long term benefits as one of their key objectives? Will they bollocks, therefore imo they've just built a massive white elephant, that will ultimately be producing players that benefit other clubs
this is sensible. there needs to be close technical collaboration at a higher level but for me the opportunities afforded by loans, first team games and such and unfortunately in this country we have no b teams.... but that level of hard games is the only way. i think pound for pound wolves will get more value out of their set up than city ever will. city will always react to a gap in their squad with eyes outwards not inwards. we see chelsea sitting on two decent players and going to sell them to buy some guy this month. ffp? is there seriously nobody in the 20 they have out on loan good enough? nor in youths that win youth league??
At clubs like Chelsea and Man City, the academy and first team may as well be fifty miles apart, the youngsters stand zero chance anyway. Arsenal, Liverpool, Man Utd, Southampton, Everton, etc all integrate the youth with the first team and give the youngsters a chance. Sure we don't see as many break though any more but I think that is more to do with the higher standard the PL requires nowadays. Obviously, owners wanting success yesterday doesn't help either although we have owners that encourage youth development.
In the modern game, managers are often given short time frames to achieve their goals. This leads to many managers not giving the academy a second thought. They have their hands full with the senior team and have to focus on getting the best players motivated all the time. Why would, for example, Tony Pulis risk his job and the clubs results in order to bed in some youth players? He wouldn't. There is too much to lose. Bedding in youth is a luxury for sides that can afford it. The proven fact is that the one thing worth more to a young player than their talent/potential, is getting regular minutes in a strong, confident first team. Players with high ceilings can wither away on the bench (Pacheco, Suso), while players with not much hype/evident talent (Flanagan)* can excel with regular appearances. *Not saying he had no evident talent, but certainly didn't have the hype surrounding him that the other two did. Next you have the mid-table level where youth are afforded a chance IF the results allow for experimentation. West Ham, Stoke, Swansea, etc. When they get a good run and secure their top flight status, they often start bedding in academy prospects. If there is a risk of relegation, again, those spots disappear and managers don't care too much about the health of the academy. Finally there are the top 6 or 7 clubs, clubs that will challenge for Europe every year. These clubs, once they have figured out their goals for the season, often have more leeway to introduce youngsters. A solid spine that can be counted on to win without 11 international players affords the manager some opportunity to turn his eye to the academy setup to try and tweak it in hopes of producing a player that could be useful in the seasons to come. This is why there seem to be more debuts and cameos past January - clubs have found their level and know when the spots are available. Some of these clubs though will not really be looking to promote from within while they have the resources to poach the best European talent (often better than their British counterparts). Chelsea and City won't really care for anything other than the quota of homegrown players/players required for various rules. Spot opens up? Sign a 25m talent from Spain and don't worry about it. Certain clubs have turbulent lives - other than us, Spurs, Everton, United, Arsenal, Chelsea, and City, the rest have to worry about possible relegation each year. This places less of an importance on a healthy academy and more of a focus on bringing in external, established experience. So it's hit and miss each season depending on results. I exclude Southampton because they have made academy prospects into a business model. This is a risky model as it can lead to a plateau of ambition but it can also pay off. Academies should be kept separate in terms of funding and ambition for their own sakes, and competitive in themselves. Tell them to produce two premier level players a year, regardless of available first team spots, and they'll develop them as best as they can. Tell them to produce talent only IF there is a spot available, an the level of motivation will drop. Academy leagues, cups, and international competitions should help them. They should, however, hold mixed trainings to integrate some of the youth into the first team squad on a motivational level. Already knowing the inside jokes and team spirit of a first team will help eliminate the time needed to adapt. Being exposed to first team football is the number one needed thing for these youngsters to break through. Benitez overhauled Melwood and made it into one of the best academies in the world - but he never offered his graduates regular spots. The bottleneck from this ruined their careers and provided no benefit to the first team. Only now are we bearing the fruit of his (and Segura/Borrell's) labour - but that wouldn't have happened under Rafa. Redbrynner would have some interesting points to add, he's always been quite knowledgeable on the subject
ECA [European Club Association] 'Report on Youth Academies in Europe' [2012] found that the 5 most important critical success factors were: vision of the board regarding the transition of Academy players, qualified/experienced staff, communication between Youth Academy and first team, implementation of the football development vision, effective recruitment of talents. Having state of the art facilities is great but unless you have the vision/talent etc. mentioned above, then it's not going to turn out great players. Separate or integrated - it is more about the culture of the club than the buildings.
vision of the board regarding the transition of Academy players qualified/experienced staff communication between Youth Academy and first team implementation of the football development vision effective recruitment of talents. Which ones do Liverpool comply with... Yes ??? ??? ???
interesting vision of the board it i clear at bayrn a large portion of board are not just cronies and hangers on but real football men... this technical direction helps. i think english clubs mostly lack this.... southamptons ethos dries youth development. ours cannot as ours is SUPPOSED to be about trophies qualified/experienced staff again i have to wonder as ex players get the call over any highly qualified guy. the english guy sat on the bench at read with anchelotti could not get a job in england. rodgers took 1 years to get qualified and it was only mourinho giving him the go that allowed him into football. communication between Youth Academy and first team patently obvious but often ignored. rodgers reviews every single academy brat ever the time they are at the club implementation of the football development vision **** knows what that means... it could mean actually picking one for a game for all i know effective recruitment of talents. all of lfcs best are bought, everton at least made local players. ojo, sinclair, branngan,ibe, sterling , suso, wisdom.. all bought... ward was bought too... long long list. very very few 8 year olds go to 18 still at lfc.... hve to wonder there. is buying effective? however i have to add.... the average kid in a first pro deal now seems to earn more than we do as grown men... some are on 100k a year min. back in our day a yts was 100 a week....... i feel hunger is in question in this scenario
Short termism is an obvious problem re. youth. It's a good point that managers aren't here long enough so why should they risk their jobs to concentrate on youth? This is why it's important that managers are not the most important people at the club - having a structure, led by a DoF will ensure the youth is aligned with the first team, and the first team is aligned with the overall ethos of the club - from top to bottom.
''implementation of the football development vision **** knows what that means... it could mean actually picking one for a game for all i know I think it follows on from the first point 'vision of the board' - there's no good having a vision if you can't/don't/won't implement it. Interestingly the report cited the top 5 fail factors or as they call them 'critical constraint factors' [ie the opposite of the above mentioned critical success factors. They are: lack of vision/strategy, competition with other clubs for talent, player agents, limited academy budget, insufficient working conditions. It's all here if you're really interested, it's very long but worth a read. The part I quoted page 146/7 http://www.ecaeurope.com/Research/ECA Report on Youth Academies/ECA Report on Youth Academies.pdf
I think it should be viewed in a layered system. A range of levels judged on age and ability. Once you reach a certain age and/or reach a certain level you climb up a layer. If you reach that level at a younger age than most, and a medical proves your body can handle it, you can progress early. If you reach the top age for a level but have not reached the right ability you are let go or moved on. I'm pretty sure this is standard practice any way?
Agreed. There should be a framework in place that is separate from the first team. Players and managers come and go, but the academy will always be there. However it is important that those in the first team staff have a say in the direction of schooling, training regime, and staff. Obviously Guardiola will want something different to Mourinho from his academy. I don't like it when new managers replace old staff - yes, you're trying to make your mark on the team but you risk disrupting years of work and tearing apart a system at risk of losing talented youngsters. There has to be a balance - a board that is responsible for overseeing the transition between managers, frameworks, and staff. This should be the responsibility of the owners, not the manager. Ultimately the youth need to be given a chance at the top level, with top players around them. Being surrounded by B-team or reserve players also making their debuts doesn't provide them with the full experience of first team football.
I agree and this is why I think west brom are mad to give pulis his way. They've worked for years there but have just kept appointing weak managers cos they keep thinking a technical director should buy the first team players This is the English disease If you give pulis total control he will get you 45 points, build a team of thugs and the walk out Desperation does funny things
