Academy.

[Guest Bow_Legged_Chicken]

Just put a post on the Steve L site about this but thought i would put a similar one on here for everyone to discuss.

At the momenthe academy is costing us a mint and what are we producing?

A couple of eyars ago we went through a stage of producing lots of bright young stars. Brown, Coles, Hill etc however that was when we wasn't buying in any youngsters for our first team and giving our academy prospects a chance, and it did pay off.

At the moment we are spending loads of money on the academy and producing nothing because we are spending our "spare" money on more youngsters and shutting our academy prospects out.

Its seems to me that as long as we spend our "spare" money on more youngsters rather than older players to help our academy prospects along, or more talented coaches to help them along, talent coming from our academy is going to be few and far between and certainly not our moneys worth.

I think we should either finsih the academy now and invest the money on buying in bright young stars and/or older talented players.

OR concentrate fully on making our academy work and try to produce our own bright young stars.

[England]

all about opinions but to my mind

Lita is weak - we have far better forwards available

Brown never will be a footballer

Jones looked a real prospect but has gone backwards and would not displace any current defender

I never have rated Amankwaah as a wingback/winger and Roberts is a far better all round player

It has also been suggested that the players are not coming through because we have lousy coaches like flipflop instead of great coaches like Benny.

[bucksred]

So you would rather buy more of the likes of Peacock, Jones, Thorpe, Seal, Dyche, Lavin, Hutchings, Mortimer, Sebok etc?? Paypackets are us we dont really care about the club. We rarely buy Akinbiyis, Andy Coles, or Goaters do we

Best argument for an academy I can think of. For the lack of progress see Wonder-son about getting a couple of more experienced players in, Manures kids got better because of the likes of Hughes, McClair, Bruce et al...like our own Shaun Taylor, Tins, you know the kind of player, a couple of good seasons left in them, and staying loyal to the club, because they are given a chance.

We have the raw talent, but the manager doesnt use them or try and get the old heads we desparately need. Yet another unproven kid on top of ours means they all lose out. Yes not all the academy are up to scratch, but get rid of them, to lower league sides like the big boys do

[Guest Bow_Legged_Chicken]

Yes but by buying the likes of Hutchins, lavins, dyche etc got us promoted in a quicker time than what this bloody academy is doing.

Cole and Goater are just to premiership or at least ex premiership players.

How many of them can we say we had from our academy over the years?

But i agree i think this is down to our poor standerds of coaches and we can't afford to buy better ones because we are spenind the money on young players, Which all in all is contradictive of our whole academy.

[CTRed]

This is a very good point tommy. I have serious question marks over the standard of coaching within the academy, for me it consists of too many 'old style' coaches. By this I mean that they are maybe not the most innovative coaches in the business and so are not nurturing the obvious talent that we have throughout the academy teams to a sufficient standard.

There is no doubt in my mind that our academy is a very big asset to our club and it is something that does and will give us an advantage both now and in the future but changes do need to be made as far as academy staff are concerned in order to start fulfilling its true potential.

This is why I am in favour of Benny Lennartson being brought back to the club in a capacity with the academy as this is a coach who has a record that is second to none for producing fantastic young players.

A good point tommy and one that I have enjoyed discussing. I think that we will see in the not too distant future an overhaul of the academy structure.

[Guest Spunkwood]

Or we could just rid of the manager who seems against playing those young prospects - Lita, Brown (m), Jones, Amankwah... the list could go on and on..

100% agree with Tomarse there

[SimplyRed]

How are we spending "loads of money"?

I was under the impression that the academy was supposed to be, in the main, self-financing?

[tompo]

Or we could just rid of the manager who seems against playing those young prospects - Lita, Brown (m), Jones, Amankwah... the list could go on and on..

All those who think playing Lita for a whole game will be the answer to our problems are sadly deluded. I think Wilson's handling of the player has been right.

If you want to make a comparison, albeit slightly unfair I admit, look at Moyes' handling of Rooney. A full England international who cannot get in the Everton starting line up.

The difference is that when Rooney comes on (and it is often just for a few minutes) he makes things happen and you expect him to make things happen.

How many minutes of football has Lita played and what has he done. He rarely if ever looks like scoring and gets pushed off the ball far too easily.

He may score for fun in the Ressies and Acadamey teams but there is huge difference between that and regular first team football. I think we would be doing the lad a big favour (and the same goes for Marvin Brown) if he could be given an extended loan at a Conference or even a Div 3 team.

I've no doubt he will make it but he is not ready for the first team yet.

[bucksred]

Point about Cole & Goater, (Akinbiyi falls in that category as well)is they werent Prem players when we got em, (actually rejects- Manure Arsenal, Norwich), but they did better than the other players in the list, who mostly took the p***. We sold these guys on, because they were capable (Ahem Ade...) of doing the biz at a higher level.

We occasionaly buy an unknown who turns on the performances but the majority are donkeys, when here -or sicknotes.

Academy players can be moulded into good or bad players, especially if a couple of experienced quality pros are there, but we cant make them better if all the experienced players we have aint up to much.

Mostly academy kids or brought in kids- Tins Butler, and Bell are the experienced players we have, and arguably only Tins is a good player- no wonder the academy players struggle. Most of the names realistically touted would not benefit City in the long term, only Cureton is a name which might do the biz

What we need is a couple of quality older experienced players, to help our kids improve, buying getting in anymore overpaid donkeys in the side (Peacock for example- sure as hell aint worth 600,00, and sure doesnt deserve to be an automatic pick week in week out)

Until City can improve to levels which encourage these players to come, we cant afford to waste precious funds buying players who almost always fail to live up to expectations- vicious circle I know, perhaps better coaches are required (Certainly on the striker front)