Koeman doing his usual telling the truth...not sure it is particularly helpful though. We all suspected it because not much sign that any are going to break through and the Academy hasn't been setting the league alight recently. It is also much harder to break into Saints at the moment as Ron says. However, this is a thing for internal discussion (for instance why is this happening and is it related to change of personnel at the Academy), not for a public declaration that goes against our professed aim and depresses the people involved at the Academy.
Glad to hear. Our USP for the Academy was that they get a chance in the first team, but this has become harder recently. I guess we have hit a blip, but this wouldn't even be an issue if we hadn't sold so many players. It would have been concealed by the presence of ex-Academy lads in our first team (Lallana, Chambers, Shaw etc). It is a shame that Targett and Reed are getting blocked (though understandable if the blocking players are better)....I really thought Harrison was going to make it as he looked quite at home when he did get a chance.
Not entirely sure that I agree with him going public on that - must be demoralizing for the U21s. In terms of hitting a blip, I suppose the current crop coming through now are those who were joining during our admin years, so it's to be expected I guess.
I have read this from a few people and haven't quite added that up.... are saying that at that time, we were not recruiting, or are we saying something else? I believe we still had the "academy" (maybe under different name) so why do we think this was to blame? Was it because we just didn't cast too many nets?
The under 18's now are mainly people bought in this year. We only gave two players contracts that have been here years, the others weren't up to it. This was due to us being in admin so scouting less and poorer quality players.
My guess is prospective families maybe didn't want to send their kids here, for fear of us going under?
Last year though, Ronald DID think they were good enough (Hesketh, Gape etc). Somethings changed there!!
Thanks Beefy. Just because it's cold today and my brain is slow ... are we saying in the last bit that we scouted poorer quality players? This is the bit I don't understand. I understand us scouting less. The quality of players we look at shouldn't be affected by our financial situation unless promises of payments to parents needed to be involved?
Probably the better players didn't want to risk joining us. Were as the poorer players would be more up for it.
Not sure he thought they were good enough SF4L, Hesketh got one start and then never seen again and Gape got a few minutes in the Everton game when we were really low on players and I was next on the 'available' list.
I'm not sure - I can't see Koeman starting with someone (Hesketh) if he didn't think he was good enough to contribute to the match. Maybe his mind changed since, but certainly at the time, he was considered good enough. Perhaps this is the reason why he doesn't rate some of them? He cleardly made a mistake with Hesketh, thinking he was ready when he wasn't, and doesn't want to make the same mistakes?
But surely it would be better to give Hesketh a run of substitute appearances rather than signing players like Elia, Djuricic who had little to no impact and we wasted money on? (Okay, Elia did have one good game against Newcastle but really - he didn't make much of an impact for the wages) Hesketh physically couldn't be worse than Djuricic was, and he could improve with more of a chance. Plus the other youngsters have people to look up to, and it helps to attract more young players. Not to mention that Reed has cut the mustard in every appearance, yet is seemingly frozen out and criticised publically by big Ron. It seems a little strange for him to belittle the youngsters to the press, rather than actually helping them develop...
It's weird to start Hesketh, but not use him as a sub at all this season. Hesketh looked like he had potential in that game before he got injured. Honestly I have no idea why Koeman wastes money signing players from abroad instead of using academy players. Honestly, what was the actual point in players like Djuricic, Elia (one game wonder) and Caulker? Why bother signing two DM's when Reed already looks ready. Gazzaniga could easily have had more chances too. As far as I'm concerned Koeman has handled the academy players very badly. Because I haven't seen the other academy players play at all, so can't judge whether Koeman has missed out on giving someone else a chance. We've also lost a lot of money not getting rid of Ramirez as soon as Koeman turned up. He has no faith in the youngsters at all which is sad.
It doesn't really make sense that Koeman is willing to gamble on imported unproven youngsters, but not on ones from our own academy. I can't help but feel that more young players would be developing if Pochettino were here still. There just doesn't seem to be logic to some of the decisions. Beefy, do you know if the u21's still train with the first team like they did under Poch?
