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simmo_2

Norwich Under 18's League Position

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After 14 matches Won 1, Drew 2, Lost 11.

Bottom of the table with 5 points.

2nd from bottom have 13 points.

Out of FA Youth Cup to Doncaster.

I think this is very embarrassing for the club and maybe a shake up is required at Colney.

I personally don''t think the Technical Director (Ricky Martin) needs replacing, maybe by Neil Adams when he returns.

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No point worrying about U18s league position - the aim is to develop individuals not teams.

 

Look at the standings of some of the other teams with the best academies in the country - Southampton are 10th out of 12, Fulham 9th and Arsenal 8th.

 

As I understand it a lot of the U18 boys have been moved up to the U21s to increase the speed of their development.

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It can be very hard to judge youth teams, as players are frequently moved about from one team to the next age up, so its nearly impossible to have a settled 11 every week.

I''d be much more concerned if it was our U21s that were struggling that badly, but they''re doing well and have a number of promising players. Hopefully McGeehan will prove himself in League 2 with Cambridge

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The OP demonstrates a spectacular lack of football knowledge but might still have a point. Firstly the foolishness, as has been pointed out results don''t mean a thing. We won the youth cup in the eighties but didn''t get any great players out of it. To tell the truth the current crop of youth cup winners don''t look like they are going to be any great shakes.

That said, we haven''t produced a decent home grown product since Chris Martin but poured millions into the academy. That sure doesn''t look like value for money.

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Big Fish,

This is the first crop of youngsters to really come out of the academy since the funding and academy status change. The Murphys have undoubtedly got the talent to be championship regulars which given there age is good development. They, along with McGeehan, King, Loza, Morris and McGrandles are all in with a shout of teaching the first team in the next few years, especially whilst we''re in the championship. These are exciting times and although the results this year have been poor it has come as a result of these players putting themselves on the radar and going out on loan to other teams to continue their development.

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[quote user="BigFish"]The OP demonstrates a spectacular lack of football knowledge but might still have a point. Firstly the foolishness, as has been pointed out results don''t mean a thing. We won the youth cup in the eighties but didn''t get any great players out of it. To tell the truth the current crop of youth cup winners don''t look like they are going to be any great shakes. That said, we haven''t produced a decent home grown product since Chris Martin but poured millions into the academy. That sure doesn''t look like value for money.[/quote]

 

Tom Adeyemi is obvious a ''decent home grown product'' just not for Norwich unfortunately.

 

As mentioned by AJ the academy was underfunded for quite a while but the current group, whilst I doubt many will ever make great strides for Norwich, represent a significant improvement on the previous years. If Norwich can sell a few of them and raise a bit of cash that is a start - Josh and Jacob Murphy both look comfortable in the Championship and at least one will be at the club offering cover (which saves Norwich buying another player).

 

There is no ''magic bullet'' with youth football, clubs have poured millions into their academies without seeing much return, whilst others have spent very little and be very successful. A lot is down to luck to be honest as no one can accurately predict the development of a young player.

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I had forgotten Tom A but your reply rather makes my point. The current crop are undoubtedly an improvement but, without wanting to offend anyone, can lower level Champs or "cover" really be considered a success. One decent Prem player every 2/3 years would seem to be a reasonable benchmark if we want to get the clubs money back. I don''t see anything from the current crop to say that is likely. I agree there is no magic bullet and I would probably agree if you said that I don''t know what I am talking about, I am not an expert, but I don''t agree that Southampton''s success is down to "luck" and by inference I don''t believe City''s relative failure is either.

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One problem which is apparent from watching youth games is that the players obviously don''t excel at keeping possession. I suspect the ethos isn''t anything like that of say Barcelona where accurate passing and possession of the ball is of paramount importance.If the current coaches aren''t up to scratch in this respect then why don''t we get in people who are able to develop the players'' skills and coach this sort of style? The same criticism could be made of the senior team, but teaching kids to keep the ball effectively is a lot easier than teaching adult players. Consequently if we were serious about youth development then we''d get rid of a lot of the existing youth coaches and keep Neil Adams as far away from the Academy as possible.

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[quote user="BigFish"]I had forgotten Tom A but your reply rather makes my point. The current crop are undoubtedly an improvement but, without wanting to offend anyone, can lower level Champs or "cover" really be considered a success. One decent Prem player every 2/3 years would seem to be a reasonable benchmark if we want to get the clubs money back. I don''t see anything from the current crop to say that is likely. I agree there is no magic bullet and I would probably agree if you said that I don''t know what I am talking about, I am not an expert, but I don''t agree that Southampton''s success is down to "luck" and by inference I don''t believe City''s relative failure is either.[/quote]

 

I think you''ll struggle to find any academy in the country that produces that level of talent - especially any academy that isn''t just buying in the best players from other teams at 15/16.

 

Southampton''s success isn''t luck, but they take in massive amounts of young players and only keep the very best - it is an expensive business but they have funded it through the sales of Walcott, Bale and Ox-Chambo. They also miss pretty regularly as well with many of their rejects going on to success with other clubs. Being able to indentify whether a talented 11 year old will become a talented 21 year old is as much luck as it is analysis and knowledge - which is why so many top players have a story about being rejected by one club only to go on and flurish at another.

 

If Norwich could produce 1 or 2 champ players every 2 years that would be a success for a club our size - especially considering a good championship player will often cost in excess of a million. A decent Prem player is worth £4m - £5m and would keep the academy afloat for two years alone.

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No, it is much to the contrary and it does illustrate the point. Unless I am mistaken there isn''t a single product of our youth system playing at the top level which rather indicates that our academy isn''t working and is not value for money for whatever reason. This compares poorly with Southampton who have eight at other clubs and still retain 4. Villa do better with 8 at other clubs and 6 retained. Of course money talks and Arsenal & Man U do much better. But within a European context there are clubs with less money who perform much better that would provide useful benchmarks. This is simply not down to luck and it is wrong to suggest this. Sure, finding and developing an individual 11 year old maybe but when aggregated across every 11 year old a club touches on it is a statistical trend.

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Thanks Legend I stand corrected (seems a long time ago) and things are not as dark as I first thought.

Still looks poor to me.

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[quote user="BigFish"]No, it is much to the contrary and it does illustrate the point. Unless I am mistaken there isn''t a single product of our youth system playing at the top level which rather indicates that our academy isn''t working and is not value for money for whatever reason. This compares poorly with Southampton who have eight at other clubs and still retain 4. Villa do better with 8 at other clubs and 6 retained. Of course money talks and Arsenal & Man U do much better. But within a European context there are clubs with less money who perform much better that would provide useful benchmarks. This is simply not down to luck and it is wrong to suggest this. Sure, finding and developing an individual 11 year old maybe but when aggregated across every 11 year old a club touches on it is a statistical trend.[/quote]

Having spoken to many who work in youth football, they will all talk about ''luck'' as it is impossible to know how a youth player will progress. Coaching can give them the best possible chance of making it professionally, but so much changes between the ages of 11 and 18, both physically and mentally that there are no models or formulas. Players who look amazing at 14 might not develop any further, while players like Mings at Ipswich can be rejected for being to small, before growing to 6ft 4.

 

Whilst it is obvious with some players that they will be incredible from a young age, it isn''t so with others. Cristiano Ronaldo was almost passed over by Sporting Lisbon as a young player as they didn''t think he would develop into anything. Some players, such as Holt and Rickie Lambert don''t reach their potential until their late 20s.

 

In the Times today there are the statistics that 96% of 16 years olds in academies won''t be attached to a club by 18, and 98% of 18 year olds won''t be playing at 21 professionally.

 

Norwich''s academy has been hamstrung by the catchment rules for a long time now, which majorly affected its chances of being successful. It has also struggled with larger teams poaching players (Arsenal took Lansbury and Philip Roberts etc). Whether it is ''value for money'' is a very debatable point, to maintain a Grade 1 Academy is very expensive, but without that top Grade Norwich won''t be able to bring in players from outside the catchement area - personally I think it might just be able to break even, but even if it was lose making nothing can replace the attachment fans have for a ''home-grown'' player over one signed at 27.

 

We won''t truely know whether the money invested into the academy in recent years will be worth it for another 10 years or so - it clearly suffered from underfunding for a long time but the club still did well to get a few players out of it - with Jed Steer, Korey Smith, Shakell, Green, Adeyemi, Martin, Rudd and Josh Murphy - all of whom have either contributed to the team on the pitch, or raised a bit of money through transfers.

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[quote user="BigFish"]The OP demonstrates a spectacular lack of football knowledge but might still have a point. Firstly the foolishness, as has been pointed out results don''t mean a thing. We won the youth cup in the eighties but didn''t get any great players out of it. To tell the truth the current crop of youth cup winners don''t look like they are going to be any great shakes.

That said, we haven''t produced a decent home grown product since Chris Martin but poured millions into the academy. That sure doesn''t look like value for money.[/quote]

How am I showing a total lack of football knowledge by posting facts and saying Ricky Martin needs replacing?

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I said from day one applying for grade one academy status at a cost of 2 million a year would never pay for it''s self Shot down by many on this board for saying it !

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[quote user="BigFish"]The OP demonstrates a spectacular lack of football knowledge but might still have a point. Firstly the foolishness, as has been pointed out results don''t mean a thing. We won the youth cup in the eighties but didn''t get any great players out of it. To tell the truth the current crop of youth cup winners don''t look like they are going to be any great shakes.

That said, we haven''t produced a decent home grown product since Chris Martin but poured millions into the academy. That sure doesn''t look like value for money.[/quote]

Ever heard of John Fashanu?

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[quote user="SwindonCanary"]I said from day one applying for grade one academy status at a cost of 2 million a year would never pay for it''s self Shot down by many on this board for saying it ![/quote]It may eventually. It is still very early on to make any judgement, and it is likely we won''t see anything back for many years. But it is a long term investment and a path we should carry on down.

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Anybody watching the U21s?[url]http://youtu.be/W1tR5JF9_ck[/url]Neat passing, bit of threat up front. Just gone down though.

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