Oldham

[Timmy58]

Two things..

How come Bury and Accrington plus many others our size and less able to pay their players like Maynard more than we can? They don't have academies and some clubs have seen the light that the PL and the Championship doesn't need to sign untried youth players from L1 and L2 especially when they have dozens of their own, most who even so don't make the grade? ie the world of football has moved on and our board is stuck in a time warp.

Secondly, The National league and L2 is of a similar standard nowadays and when Tranmere played Wrexham last season over 8000 fans turned up, when we had a job to get in 6000 when we played Port Vale!

760,000 pounds a year on the academy MUST mean we starve the first team of funds and we have to play academy graduates no matter how bad they are.

Trust me, the Academy is not starving the first team of any money. Bury have been close to winding up several times I believe only to be saved by someone providing funding. Accrington are unlikely to sustain their success for long. The same pretty much applies to many clubs like ours. For the ump****th time, the Academy provides decent footballers who are young and on low wages. To replace them would quadruple the wage bill (at least) for players years older and probably not much better than our kids, if better at all!. And whilst that scenario might work for a couple of seasons it is unsustainable for any lengthy period of time. It is quite right that the situation has changed for Premier league clubs as they are much less inclined to scour the lower divisions for young players, preferring to hurl vast sums of money around to swell their large squads with ready made products. The Championship is a different matter of course as many players are discovered in the lower leagues. The fees may not be great but with good negotiations money can be made from subsequent sales as happened with Ashley Westwood. So, yes. The Academy is maintaining the club rather than the other way round. Just my opinion of course, but clearly those in power at the club believe it worthwhile

[gazan]

With ref to Wartman's assessment of players, I have to disagree about Lowery. There's no way he has had enough opportunity in the first team. I 'm one of those of the opinion that we need a 3 man midfield and Lowery should be the third man, at least until Green comes back. That may also allow Jonah to drive forward with the ball.
As for Lunch, Offord et al. I haven't an opinion at the moment as I haven't seen them.
Kirk has recently shown what he can do but needs more support 'in-play'. Ainley - well everyone knows I've been a regular critic of his but he's not done too badly recently (albeit, as crap as the rest against Oldham - but in those conditions not surprising). I also thought Dale showed promise and needs a few runs to get the right tempo for L2 football. Dale can also score goals.

[AstonAlex]

Just to follow up on gazan’s point, Owen Dale, Tommy Lowery and Charlie Kirk are 20, Ainley turned 21 last month and the others mentioned in Wartman’s posts are even younger. Whilst none of them are likely to turn out to be Danny Murphy, Dean Ashton or Nick Powell we shouldn’t forget that:
Luke Murphy, by the age of 21 had been in the first team for 2 years of, at first, inconsistent performances playing wide right. He was closer to being 24 when he moved to Leeds for a fee in excess of £1million
Ashley Westwood had been in in the first team for 2 years at age 21, including half a season at full back. He too was 23 when he left for around £2million the previous year.

I’m not saying that all of the young players currently being brought through will get that sort of return, but that age 20 and 21 is too young to right them off - or 18 in the case of Sass-Davies. I wouldn’t have valued Westwood at £2million when he was 19 or 20 - give them a fair crack of the whip before writing them off with Francis Tierney, Ben Rix and Danny Shelley!

[As it is]

Francis Tierney would have made us money , but did he not fail his medical at Liverpool.

[out0lunch]

Something like that