Youths up to u23's is it worth the time and investment

[oldcolner]

Yes he was and we had a great squad of youngsters in the late 60s and early 70s.
We are buying young players still -though some clubs seem to think they are worth millions like Forest with Worrall. Surely Charlie Taylor and Nick Pope are similar to Elder - bought young, then polished in the under 23s and then selected. Long too though his polishing took a long time.
ONeill looks likely to feature in the near future.

[sinkov]

We haven't had a first team player come through our youth system in ten years, not since Jay Rodriguez, I can't agree about McCann OC, he came over from Ireland and was in our first team within about a year, I don't think our youth development system can claim any credit for him. We have had one or two dossing round the lower leagues, McCartan, Anderson, McDonald, Fletcher etc but as far as our first team is concerned we could have shut the entire organisation down ten years ago and it wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference.

I thought Sean might have made a difference but it seems even beyond him to make it productive, he's been here over five years now, and still nowt for the first team. There may well be mitigating circumstances, but the bottom line is that it's been a complete waste of time and money for ten years now.

There is something I'd like to add to the above and it does puzzle me a little bit. It is a fact that our youth system hasn't produced a first team player in ten years, but it isn't as though it's never threatened to. I can remember seeing youngsters like Harvey, Fletcher, Dummigam, Macdonald and Hewitt playing alongside first team players in pre-season friendlies and they didn't look out of place, at the time they looked potential first team players, to me anyway. We have also had two different youth teams good enough to reach the semi-finals of the FA Youth Cup in that period, so it's not as though we haven't had promising youngsters on our books in the last ten years, we have, but all that promise has just disappeared into what I call the Gawthorpe Black Hole. What happens to them, we find them, they look good, they vanish into the Black Hole and out the other side into non league football. Why, what goes wrong, WTF do we do to them ?

[The Bedlington Terrier]

The problem of being in the EPL is the players have to be ready to compete in one of the world's elite leagues.

The reality is the players have to be bought in.

If the likes of Rashford are struggling to make the first eleven, what chance do any of the others?

A bit of window dressing for the elite teams are all the Development Squads are I'm afraid and provide game time for players recovering from injury.

A vanity project that EPL teams can easily afford in the hope that one star may be born.

[sinkov]

The problem of being in the EPL is the players have to be ready to compete in one of the world's elite leagues.

But that doesn't explain why 99% of those coming through our youth system haven't been able to compete at Championship, D1 or D2 level either, we run a production line of non-league footballers.

[oldcolner]

But that doesn't explain why 99% of those coming through our youth system haven't been able to compete at Championship, D1 or D2 level either, we run a production line of non-league footballers.

This is a bit out of hand as there are currently only 13 year 1 under 18s and 10 year 2 on professional contracts
https://www.burnleyfootballclub.com/teams/u18-team/

There are 20 under 23 players
https://www.burnleyfootballclub.com/teams/u23-team/

The Player Development Centre covers 6-16 year olds who pay £54 for 10 weeks. It’s part of Burnley F.C. in the Community and generates some income but players are self selecting.
https://www.burnleyfccommunity.org/s...opment-centre/

Are you criticising the fact that these local boys aren’t making it, or our scouts aren’t spotting or attracting players nationwide? Is it we aren’t getting under 18s to the PL or the under 23s? It would help to be clear what the problem is thought to be.

I suggest that 1% of 12 a year is a bit out.
We had Mee, Keane, Trippier, Long, Pope Taylor, and Ings playing under 23 fairly recently. They haven’t done that bad. If City have 600 their success rate must be lower than 1%. Though they might have lost a few to other clubs could develop as have United to our benefit once Sean sorted them out.

[oldcolner]

The Clarets missed out on the chance to go back to the top of the U18 Professional Development League as Leeds avenged their FA Youth Cup exit to grab pole position themselves.

Burnley had beaten Leeds in league and cup twice in the space of three days earlier in the season but couldn’t make it a hat-trick as Danny Cadamarteri’s youngsters suffered a second successive defeat.
Leeds 4 Burnley 2

[sinkov]

This is a bit out of hand as there are currently only 13 year 1 under 18s and 10 year 2 on professional contracts
https://www.burnleyfootballclub.com/teams/u18-team/

There are 20 under 23 players
https://www.burnleyfootballclub.com/teams/u23-team/

The Player Development Centre covers 6-16 year olds who pay £54 for 10 weeks. It’s part of Burnley F.C. in the Community and generates some income but players are self selecting.
https://www.burnleyfccommunity.org/s...opment-centre/

Are you criticising the fact that these local boys aren’t making it, or our scouts aren’t spotting or attracting players nationwide? Is it we aren’t getting under 18s to the PL or the under 23s? It would help to be clear what the problem is thought to be.

I suggest that 1% of 12 a year is a bit out.
We had Mee, Keane, Trippier, Long, Pope Taylor, and Ings playing under 23 fairly recently. They haven’t done that bad. If City have 600 their success rate must be lower than 1%. Though they might have lost a few to other clubs could develop as have United to our benefit once Sean sorted them out.

It's in my post what I'm talking about OC, our youth system. None of the players above have anything to do with our youth system, they're all products of some other club's youth system. As I've said before on this thread, our youth system, despite having had several lads good enough to play with the first team in pre-season friendlies, and two teams good enough to reach the FA Youth Cup semi-finals, hasn't produced a single first team player in ten years, not a one, and only one or two capable of dossing round D1 or D2, the rest, 99% of them, have gone straight into non-league football. That's the problem, but I don't pretend to know the reason or the answer.

[Supersub6]

They would get a far better chance if we were in League One or League Two. Unfortunately for them, we are not, therefore, they are not given the chance.
We all know how the fans are getting on the back of Hendrick at the moment and they have done this with lots of players through the time I have supported the Clarets. A run of poor results, as at the moment, leads to lots of people criticising the manager, whose job is on the line, in spite of what we might think. In this situation, there is probably less than 1% of managers who would give youth a chance because they would be on a hiding to nothing as a manager and would be reluctant to expose any young player to the pressure that he will get from some disgruntled fans. I can remember Hewitt coming on a couple of seasons back and he made a couple of mistakes and the groans of the crowd were hard to take and can have done nothing for his confidence, even though his mistakes were of no consequence.
There is one player who I think may make the grade, however, he has not yet featured in the squad and I shall keep his name to myself at the moment.

[oldcolner]

It's in my post what I'm talking about OC, our youth system. None of the players above have anything to do with our youth system, they're all products of some other club's youth system. As I've said before on this thread, our youth system, despite having had several lads good enough to play with the first team in pre-season friendlies, and two teams good enough to reach the FA Youth Cup semi-finals, hasn't produced a single first team player in ten years, not a one, and only one or two capable of dossing round D1 or D2, the rest, 99% of them, have gone straight into non-league football. That's the problem, but I don't pretend to know the reason or the answer.

So you are talking about under 18s Sinkov.
This website may interest you.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FA_Youth_Cup

The reason is related to the fact that we are not a Category 1 PL side so we can not attract the cream of youngsters.

The 12 clubs in the North Group of the Under-18 Premier League are:
Blackburn Rovers, Derby County, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Middlesbrough, Newcastle United, Sunderland, Stoke City, West Bromwich Albion, Wolverhampton Wanderers

The 12 clubs in the South Group of the Under-18 Premier League are:
Arsenal, Aston Villa, Brighton & Hove Albion, Chelsea, Fulham, Leicester City, Norwich City, Reading, Southampton, Swansea City, Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United

The club are trying to gain Cat 1 status but that will take time and probably one North club to drop out. Barnfield was a big step forward to get us to Category 2 but that was only last year. As a Cat 3 club what chance did we have unless a local lad made good as Jay did 11 years ago. This is a work in progress and the under 18s seem to have been doing quite well so far this year.

[Supersub6]

I have watched the Under 18s several times this season and they have doen extremely well in stepping up a level and doing very well. In all honesty, it is not results that matter because the team hs had many change each week through injuries or through calls for a few players to step up and play at Under 23 level. The Under 18s have done exceptionally well to be in the position that they are.
The Under 23 venture has been a fairly new venture and it will take some time to grow into this level, however, because the youth/development system hadsunk so low it will not happen overnight ---as some folk obvioulsy expect.