Football Thread 2017/18

[Cosmic_Guru]

Another trophy for an English youth side http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/40619862

 

Not a bad haul for the summer but will it help the senior side much in the longer term?  Portugal had a phase of winning all the youth championships but only recently scored a large one.  I suppose a lot depends on the kids having appropriate loans (if with Chelsea) or first team experience and remaining motivated as much as anything.

[McFly]

Watford just signed an English kid from Chelsea whose youth teams are phenomenal. Yet they never get a chance to play in the 1st team, it must be really demoralising for these guys.

[Charliemouse]

24 minutes ago, McFly said:

Watford just signed an English kid from Chelsea whose youth teams are phenomenal. Yet they never get a chance to play in the 1st team, it must be really demoralising for these guys.

 

Sadly that isn't going to change is it, both Chelsea and Man City have spent millions on their academies in recent years and yet not one player has come from either of them and play regular first team football for them.

 

Yet, the same pundits and journalists who complain about there not being enough English players in the Premier League, are the same ones who are currently saying Spurs and other top six teams  must spend loads of money on players to challenge for honours.

 

For example Kyle Walker leaving this week, could give a massive opportunity for Kyle Walker-Peters to be Spurs's 2nd choice at right back, and I for one really hope we give him a chance, instead of spending 20 mill plus on yet another player from another league.  

[Dude Ranch]

Read that earlier. Kyle Walker's potential replacement is Kyle Walker? Brilliant.

 

The lack of young home grown players breaking through at the top English clubs is embarrassing.

[Plissken]

Spurs will be replacing Walker with Kieran Trippier, who was trained in Man City's academy.

 

City may also spend silly millions on a centre back, who will probably line up against another City academy reject in Ben Mee.

[Mr Do 71]

22 minutes ago, Dude Ranch said:

Read that earlier. Kyle Walker's potential replacement is Kyle Walker? Brilliant.

 

The lack of young home grown players breaking through at the top English clubs is embarrassing.

 

At United:

 

Welbeck (now in North London)

Rashford 

Paul Pogba (via Italy) 

Lingard

Fosu-Mensah

Tuanzebe

 

Then there's this lot who could hopefully break into the first team this season:

 

Mitchell

Mctominary

J Pereira

A Pereira

 

One for the future, as seen on MUTV, and I think is very special talent hopefully:

 

Angel Gomes 

 

[Steely]

 

7 minutes ago, Mr Do 71 said:

 

At United:

...

 

He did say 'Top English clubs' to be fair... 

 

[Mr Do 71]

Just now, Steely said:

 

 

He did say 'Top English clubs' to be fair... 

 

 

[Plissken]

Given Jose threw Rashford and Lingard under the bus again, I wouldn't hold out much hope of them doing much for United next season unless Mourinho is forced by injuries to play them.

[Dudley]

15 hours ago, McFly said:

Watford just signed an English kid from Chelsea whose youth teams are phenomenal. Yet they never get a chance to play in the 1st team, it must be really demoralising for these guys.

 

Yeah, it'd be easy to miss because it only gets so much coverage but Chelsea have won 6 of the last 8 FA Youth Cups including the last 4 in a row.

 

The first of that sequence is 2009/10, a 2-1 2nd leg final win against Villa that I was at.

 

Of the 11 starting players, 0 are still at Chelsea, they made a combined 15 appearences for Chelsea's first team (and 11 of those are Josh McEachran, now at Brentford).

 

That said, it's not like any of them are playing for big teams either.  Sam Walker was basically god that day in goal and he's done better than most in being Colchester United's #1 but other than that Rohan Ince is a fringe player at Brighton and a couple of the others play for Crawley town.

 

So is the youth cup just low standard and if so, where are the good players coming from? Maybe if you're good enough you're now in the first teams early enough that you never really play in the youth side?

[McFly]

The game really has changed with the gap between youth team and 1st team at a Chelsea is so huge now a player must be exceptional to break through. But i do feel certain clubs are ran in such a way that any risk of losing or stagnation is unacceptable.

[skadupuk]

11 minutes ago, Dudley said:

 

Yeah, it'd be easy to miss because it only gets so much coverage but Chelsea have won 6 of the last 8 FA Youth Cups including the last 4 in a row.

 

The first of that sequence is 2009/10, a 2-1 2nd leg final win against Villa that I was at.

 

Of the 11 starting players, 0 are still at Chelsea, they made a combined 15 appearences for Chelsea's first team (and 11 of those are Josh McEachran, now at Brentford).

 

That said, it's not like any of them are playing for big teams either.  Sam Walker was basically god that day in goal and he's done better than most in being Colchester United's #1 but other than that Rohan Ince is a fringe player at Brighton and a couple of the others play for Crawley town.

 

So is the youth cup just low standard and if so, where are the good players coming from? Maybe if you're good enough you're now in the first teams early enough that you never really play in the youth side?

 

I think it comes back to the age old issue of not being able to predict player development, the greatest 15 year old player (of their age) in the world is not guaranteed to develop any further.

 

I remember watching a documentary about the England under 16's squad (it had Leeds/Man U's Alan Smith in it) and so few of those guys went on to have a footballing career and they were the best players nationally.

[ukdazs]

11 hours ago, Plissken said:

Given Jose threw Rashford and Lingard under the bus again, I wouldn't hold out much hope of them doing much for United next season unless Mourinho is forced by injuries to play them.

 

What are you on about? Both started the LA Galaxy match and Rashford scored twice. I'm not seeing any buses.

[Dudley]

2 minutes ago, EUkdazs said:

 

What are you on about? Both started the LA Galaxy match and Rashford scored twice. I'm not seeing any buses.

 

Given it's a Mourinho team, did you look in front of their goal?

[ukdazs]

Heh. I'm all over Lindelof and Bailly in this years Fantasy Football. NONE SHALL PASS!

[Plissken]

16 minutes ago, EUkdazs said:

 

What are you on about? Both started the LA Galaxy match and Rashford scored twice. I'm not seeing any buses.

 

"A good thing for me today is he [showed] he’s a team player and was not worried about himself. He was worried about the improvement of the team. He didn’t score goals, but he played better than the ones who did score goals.”

 

Trans: Hey Rashford and Mhktaryan. You two selfish bastards think scoring goals is your job?

 

He couldn't manage to praise a player without doing others down.

[Cosmic_Guru]

Any Evertonians here? I was reading in WSC that the current crop of academy players there is very strong indeed.

[stefcha]

33 minutes ago, EUkdazs said:

Heh. I'm all over Lindelof and Bailly in this years Fantasy Football. NONE SHALL PASS!

 

Lindelof was largely culpable for the couple of goals LA scored wasn't he?

[Charliemouse]

1 hour ago, skadupuk said:

 

I think it comes back to the age old issue of not being able to predict player development, the greatest 15 year old player (of their age) in the world is not guaranteed to develop any further.

 

I remember watching a documentary about the England under 16's squad (it had Leeds/Man U's Alan Smith in it) and so few of those guys went on to have a footballing career and they were the best players nationally.

A lot of teams at youth level often just win because their players are just more physically developed.

 

Spurs played Chelsea in the FA youth cup semi final last season and the difference between the two teams in terms of their size and power was huge.  The Chelsea players on average were all at least 3-6 inches taller then the Spurs kids, and they just looked so much stronger as well, so it was no surprise Chelsea thrashed Spurs in both legs.

[Fry Crayola]

1 hour ago, skadupuk said:

 

I think it comes back to the age old issue of not being able to predict player development, the greatest 15 year old player (of their age) in the world is not guaranteed to develop any further.

 

I remember watching a documentary about the England under 16's squad (it had Leeds/Man U's Alan Smith in it) and so few of those guys went on to have a footballing career and they were the best players nationally.

 

Along the same lines, Ireland finished third in the Youth World Cup in 1997. Being a small nation, you'd imagine quite a few of the 18 would go on to represent their country, and indeed they picked up 102 caps between them - Glen Crowe got 2, Damien Duff got the rest.

[Revival]

17 hours ago, McFly said:

Watford just signed an English kid from Chelsea whose youth teams are phenomenal. Yet they never get a chance to play in the 1st team, it must be really demoralising for these guys.

 

The sad reality is if they we're genuinely good enough to be in the first team they would be. Take Ruben Loftus-Cheek for example, He's highly rated and has recently gone out on loan to Palace. Not a single supporter on the likes of the Shed End forum thinks he's good enough to break though and command a  regular spot in midfield. There's such a gulf now between the top teams being expected to win near enough every game they play then it must to so hard to take a risk when so much is at stake,

 

One to Eleven pretty much needs to have fully fledged competitive players simply for the team to meet the seasons expectations.

[McFly]

I suppose at 35 i have an old fashioned view of it.

[Sirloin]

There isn't much chance a player will make it at a top club but being in those academies means you are scouted constantly by everyone else. Leicester have taken loads from the top sides recently: Drinkwater (via Barnsley), James, de Laet and Lawrence from Man Utd; Hobbs from Liverpool; King from Chelsea. On loan we've had Mee, Keane and Kane. All gone on to decent careers.

[Commander Jameson]

6 minutes ago, Revival said:

One to Eleven pretty much needs to have fully fledged competitive players simply for the team to meet the seasons expectations.

 

Even worse for (youngsters at) the top clubs, and especially Chelsea and Man City, as they are expected to have two top class players for every position. That basically leaves only 1-2 spots for talented youngsters.

[Revival]

If there is a positive to it, A high percentage of those players that have learned in the best academies seem to make an immediate impact when out on loan so improve the quality of the teams lower down making the various leagues are a bit more competitive each year.

 

Unless the FA bring in rules stated each team must field a certain number of academy players I can't see anything changing unless the player is one in a million and is so good they can't be dropped.

 

[McFly]

It seems draconian to bring in rules but maybe an idea for just 2 academy players to be used. 

[feltmonkey]

2 hours ago, Plissken said:

 

"A good thing for me today is he [showed] he’s a team player and was not worried about himself. He was worried about the improvement of the team. He didn’t score goals, but he played better than the ones who did score goals.”

 

Trans: Hey Rashford and Mhktaryan. You two selfish bastards think scoring goals is your job?

 

He couldn't manage to praise a player without doing others down.

 

That is pretty tenuous. Lingers didn't score, so he's safe from the bus you mentioned in the first post, and Mourinho has been consistently effusive in his praise of Rashford. Did you see that interview Rio Ferdinand did with him? He went on and on about how great Rashford's attitude is.

 

Regarding youth players in general, does anyone know what the squad restrictions are regarding "home-grown" players are? Isn't there some rule about having a certain number in your squad who have spent three years of their youth career in the UK or something? I seem to remember Man City being close to the limit and having to buy British players they never intended to play. See Delph, Roswell, and Sinclair.

[redbloodcell]

11 minutes ago, McFly said:

It seems draconian to bring in rules but maybe an idea for just 2 academy players to be used. 

 

Wasn't the idea of having the extra sub spots to allow teams to have youngsters on the bench? Doesn't seem to have worked very well.

[Dudley]

2 hours ago, Revival said:

 

The sad reality is if they we're genuinely good enough to be in the first team they would be. Take Ruben Loftus-Cheek for example, He's highly rated and has recently gone out on loan to Palace. Not a single supporter on the likes of the Shed End forum thinks he's good enough to break though and command a  regular spot in midfield.

 

And I'd echo that.  He's good, don't get me wrong and I don't panic when he comes on but can I ever see him started ahead of Willian or Hazard? Of course not.

[Mr Do 71]

2 hours ago, Sirloin said:

There isn't much chance a player will make it at a top club but being in those academies means you are scouted constantly by everyone else. Leicester have taken loads from the top sides recently: Drinkwater (via Barnsley), James, de Laet and Lawrence from Man Utd; Hobbs from Liverpool; King from Chelsea. On loan we've had Mee, Keane and Kane. All gone on to decent careers.

 

Or they try and nick them. Like when Man City tried to get Callum Gribbin from United, until Giggs go wind of it and stopped them.