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iron_stan

if you were a youth player....

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currently at the club would you really think staying here was a good option? even more importantly if you were a talented youngster the club was trying to bring in wouldnt you think ''maybe this isnt the right place for me to invest a chunk of my life and effort given they dont rarely bring their youngsters through into the first team....'' ?think id be pretty disheartened, seeing adeyami, smith, martin, steer, francomb etc etc released/shipped out tells you a hell of a lot, I dont remember the last time the club genuinely had someone with real ability come through the system (was bellamy the last one ?), im not saying they were all good enough but its a hardly confidence inspiring given all the investment into the youth, category one status etc etc etc

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The youth players shipped out though have all still got good contracts in championship and league one teams so still have good careers ahead of them.

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You raise a serious point here. City have often produced very promising young players but then don''t give them the first team opportunities to develop. Consequently they stagnate before being released. Given the money now invested in the academy it is vital that some of these youngsters begin to ''make it''. How many of the FA Youth Cup winning squad will become future first team regulars? On past history probably none although we can hope this will now change.    

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[quote user="Skerritt"]The youth players shipped out though have all still got good contracts in championship and league one teams so still have good careers ahead of them.[/quote]yep youre right, im not arguing they will probably have futures in the game.butwe see clubs like utd and southampton who have brought through academy players and they go into their first teams, not all of them, but quite a few over the years. Now i appreciate there are factors like catchment areas, reputation etc but city at one time did have the knack of doing a similar thing. genuinely suspect we will look back and regret releasing smith, francomb showed a hell of a lot of promise as well when he had his chanceits been a long time and the release of the latest batch suggests its not going to change anytime soon

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To the contrary, I think it''s impressive how many players are being picked up by Championship, League One, and League Two clubs, and it should give the impression that Norwich provide these players with a very good footballing education with so many remaining in the game in recent years. The FA Youth cup win will attract players too, and it wouldn''t surprise me if all at the club simply consider the latest crop to be of superior quality to the last couple of harvests.

I am a little disappointed personally with the departure of Adeyemi, I think that we should have kept hold of him and LOANED him to the Championship, but it still remains more likely that he will never become a Premier League player.

If I can criticise the club for anything it is the way that we have allowed all these players to leave for free when several would have been worth something on the open market. It is almost as if we are so rich now that a few hundred grand isn''t worth it, I''d like to think that every few thousand counts.

I think that Adeyemi could easily have justified half a million, Martin + Smith a quarter of a million, and Steer likely significantly more than we will get from a tribunal. We got £400k for Joe Lewis when we needed money, we even got £50k for Dale Stephens from Hibs.

My point is that if an academy isn''t producing players of Premier League quality then it should at least be partially paying for itself..... a million quid isn''t a lot of money in first team terms, but it is a lot of money to be reinvested into the youth system.

It should also be remembered that these players are a result of our Championship and League One years. Is it really a step backwards for Adeyemi to have broken through when we were a team of League One standard and then earned himself a move to a mid-table Championship club?

Is it really a step backwards for Korey Smith to have had his breakthrough at League One level under Lambert and then signed for a League One team?

I don''t think that Norwich have done any of these players a disservice, I think we are doing ourself more of a disservice by not seeing the academy as a means of income like some of the the bigger clubs in the country.

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We are not really any different to any other PL side, and ''twas ever the case that few make it at the top level (look at the mid 80s when we last won the FAYC, not too many of those guys got into the first team). Man U and Chelsea have much lauded youth set-ups but not too many have come on, they still buy their main players.

Hopefully with the cat 1 status we will get more coming through to the first team, but it is difficult to bring lads through at this level - there isn''t any point playing lads if they aren''t up to it.

That said, some of the guys who have left have already gone into the champs (Adeyemi), or L1-L2 (Korey, Francomb), suggesting the right decisions were made as of now (though who knows what will happen in the future). That these lads have found spots quickly does suggest that we have set them up well.

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[quote user="iron_stan"][quote user="Skerritt"]The youth players shipped out though have all still got good contracts in championship and league one teams so still have good careers ahead of them.[/quote]yep youre right, im not arguing they will probably have futures in the game.butwe see clubs like utd and southampton who have brought through academy players and they go into their first teams, not all of them, but quite a few over the years. Now i appreciate there are factors like catchment areas, reputation etc but city at one time did have the knack of doing a similar thing. genuinely suspect we will look back and regret releasing smith, francomb showed a hell of a lot of promise as well when he had his chanceits been a long time and the release of the latest batch suggests its not going to change anytime soon[/quote]

Im with you there mate. Adeyemi, Smith and Francomb all looked excellent prospects. Luckily we have a very good youth team coming forward with the Murphies an toffolo. The future is looking bright.

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I think that most youth players fairly soon realise that they are not in the same category as Rooney or Wilshire, and that they may never play in the first team or  Premiership. They are pleased to sign professional terms and then play regular football.

 

Many promising players at U21 level, and we''ve had a few, somehow develop no further, and this is true of many clubs - we have Fox and Johnson, at least, who were released by the bigger clubs, although Johnson has played regularly at EPL level, as we know.

 

I think it possible that some young players play at a low level because of the preponderance of foreign players in the Premiership, and now in lower divisions as well. Clubs can afford to pay for overseas players, and the result is a weakened England team, as the FA complain from time to time.

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There is probably only one club in the top 2 divisions who churn out top youth players and give them a chance and thats Crystal Palace. None of the teams in the premier league have great production lines, normally buying talent instead.

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Trying to look at it objectively I would say that we have simply come on too quick for some of these players.

Adeyemi especially, who, had we have been in the Championship, could well have gone on to develop with us.

However to say that the club struggles to develop players now is just not accurate. Loaning a player out is vital to both NCFC to be able to see if they can make it and at what level they will establish themselves, and for them to develop as a player.

There was a period where we simply didn''t do that - the Jarvis brothers and Eagle etc. And they were simply released when they were no longer needed as cover having rarely played for anyone''s first team let alone ours.

I think Smith, Francombe and Adeyemi have bright careers ahead of them. They are intelligent players. But in the cut and thrust of the premier league you need to be able to be confident that they can put in a performance for you week in week out.

Sometimes you just have to realise that for the best outcome for club and player they are better off moving on and finding a club where first team football is offered rather than hoping the next loan will turn them good.

Apart from the FA Youth Cup winning team there are also a few players in the U21 development team that may show signs of promise too.

Either way I am proud that we are now producing players considered to be good enough for the Championship and League One. Halfway through last season people were complaining that most of our youth were ending up in league Two or worse.

In some cases players not performing as well as we think they can. Michael Spillane for example, who everyone thought had a bright future ahead of him, at 24 is now at Southend Utd via Brentford and Dagenham+Redbridge.

I don''t think there is any issue with trying to keep hold of youth team players. I think the reality is as they approach 20/21 they themselves will be looking at the opportunities they have ahead of themselves.

This is clearly in response to Steer. But looking at the situation it could be another year or two before he gets close to being number 2. Does he want that? Two years of hard work, maybe being loaned out to teams lower down the leagues, to come back and get a place on the bench?

Perhaps he has been told that at Villa he will be number 2 now. That if he works hard he could be number 1. You cannot blame any player moving on to try and better their career. Just as I wouldn''t blame any of my colleagues at work if they moved on to a new job with more prospects to develop their career.

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Talking of the Youth cup winning squad, does anyone think any of the 18 year olds (e.g Murphy''s) will be sent on loan this season? Or is this too early?

I read earlier in the week that the centre back Kyle McFadden was hoping for a cup appearance next season so they obviously have ambitions of first team football sooner rather than later.

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Agreed with Yorkshire, getting game time as a youth player in the prem is proving near impossible. Much better to drop a league and prove your worth.

As others have said though, we''re still churning out decent prospects - it''s just a shame we let them all go for absolutely nothing

C. Martin (Free)

Adeyemi (Free)

K. Smith (Free)

and Francomb (Free)

have all good to League One or Championship clubs for nothing.

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[quote user="Dr Crafty Canary"]You raise a serious point here. City have often produced very promising young players but then don''t give them the first team opportunities to develop. Consequently they stagnate before being released. Given the money now invested in the academy it is vital that some of these youngsters begin to ''make it''. How many of the FA Youth Cup winning squad will become future first team regulars? On past history probably none although we can hope this will now change.    [/quote]Sorry, I don''t think that is true at all.Take a look at out 4 top profile youth products to be released at the end of the season just gone, and how much first team chances at both NCFC and out on loan they have received.C. Martin - 102 Senior games for Norwich.Adeyemi - 11 Senior games for Norwich, plus 100 games on 3 loan spells.K. Smith - 67 senior games for Norwich, plus 3 loan spellsand Francomb - 2 Senior games for Norwich, plus 3 loan spells.If we were still the Championship or worse, these players would be still at NCFC, and doing a fine job. The issue with getting young players into our first team now is that they have to be at Premiership level. None of our current crop is at that level. No shame in that. Not many players are, and certainly not at the age of 21-22.How many players that we have released on free transfers in the last 10 years have gone on to have Premiership careers?

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you have to remember that the youth system is a production line. if the lads reaching the end of that line don''t get off it there is no room for those on the line behind them to progress or for new products to start their journey at the beginning of the line. releasing these players allows the likes of the Murphys, Toffolo, Wyatt etc to progress to the next stage. the only ttthing i am disappointed about is that we are not getting reimbursed for the work we have put into developing these players.

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All the loan deals that Adeyemi, Smith and Francomb were on would not have been without a fee, so some money will have been recouped.

 

But in reality would could Norwich really do? Give those players contracts and then sell them off? That wouldn''t actually make the club a huge amount of cash as most players have a mechanism in their contracts that means they get chunk on money realting to how much longer they have left on said contract. Also, it''s not like Championship/League One clubs have much money to spend - I doubt Norwich would have been able to get a fee out of teams like Birmingham, Oldham and Wimbledon.

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It is only in the last few years that our academy has got back on track, we had a lot of barren years where we were shackled by distance rules, so really the fact is that we haven''t had a lot to work with.And players like Rooney etc come along very infrequently, so it really isn''t a failing of our youth set up that we haven''t unearthed a world class player playing in a Norfolk school.The future of our youth clearly is a lot brighter though.

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Put it this way - it''s easier for a young player to break into a poorly performing team than a good one. At this point in time, unless players have a genuine chance of being Premiership players, they''re better off moving on and getting regular game time.

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[quote user="iron_stan"]

genuinely suspect we will look back and regret releasing smith,

[/quote]

We won''t.

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If I was a youth player I would look to sign for the team that is going to give me the best coaching available. I would imagine that very few youth players sign for a top premiership youth team with a genuine belief that they will make it for that team. The idea as a youth is to get the best training you can to set you up for life. You can sign for a league two youth setup and have more chance of playing first team football for that club but the coaching will be nowhere near the level if you signed for a top premier league team with world class coaches.

 

If I was a youth team player it would be signing for a team above my ability to enable me to get better and forge a career. It''s no shame to not make it at Manure, Arsenal, or Chelsea, when their coaches set you up for a lifetime of Championship football.

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fourfourtwo magazine ran an article on youth football accross the UK and Europe about 3 or 4 years back. the facts they came up with showed that 90% of youth players will NEVER play a single professional game.

that just gives an indication of how many are good enough.

 

the fact our lads have gone to pro clubs speaks volumes. not just of the players in question but the efforts of a club as a whole. we should be proud.

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With Regards to Steer, it''s a good move for him. Given will probably leave meaning he''ll have gone from 4th choice here to second at Villa.

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