A new Dario Gardi way

When a young Dario Gardi joined Crewe in 1983 he offered the club a new direction which those in control doubted he could deliver.He proved them wrong and the rest is history as they say . His main aim was to set up an academy and sell players on and take his cut as well. He was the first manager I believe to do this and latter many other top managers followed this route .This resulted in top clubs coming to Crewe to buy a young player and then develop them further and this allowed Crewe/ Dario to make money and further develop the club and academy to were we are now. .This continued for years as a nice little earner until big money came into the Premiership and the buying clubs then went else where - world wide to buy finished players who would go straight into there teams.Even Championship clubs are looking world wide. The way academys were set up has also changed so potential young players are dazzled by the bigger clubs. and what they have to offer. It now appears that the

2 things really...

1) The 'Dario way' worked best when we could afford to plug the gaps that inevitably occur when your main source of players is from a youth system I.e. You can't go the academy and say "we need a striker / midfielder / left back" - you get them when they are ready and that doesn't always fit in with what the first team actually needs. All of the great Dario sides contained brought in players that were able to compete at the level we were playing at.

Going off the fees received from all the players we've sold all the way back to Dean Ashton and taking out the £500k - 750k per year it costs us to run the academy, we *should* quite easily be able to afford to do this.
I won't go over old ground because it's been done so many times, but the fact that we apparently can't raises major questions about where the money has gone.
This has NOTHING to do with the philosophy that Dario brought to the club and everything to do with the questionable motives of the majo

Agree 100% with Jamesdad Crewe are a Product of the Past but they don't have to be a Prisoner of it. Change or face Extinction

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mojofilter

Ray, Turton, Guthrie, Cooper, Coco, Davis, Saunders - all showed promise of varying degrees when they first arrived, all have stagnated.
That has to be down to the manager.

---

Although the guy is far from perfect (but then again, who is?), I would not lay the blame completely at his door.
For me it's the system.

Back in the day, we had the likes of Murph, Deano and Powell who were ready to make the step up from the Academy pretty much straight away - whereas the likes of Dele and Hignett were not. But they were allowed to mature by going out on loan to places like Stafford Rangers.

Unfortunately since the inception of the U21 league and the rules that go with it, we are not afforded that opportunity. These guys would learn so much more from playing in a competitive league like the Conference than in front of one man and his dog on a Tuesday afternoon at RH. It's how we (and specifically SD) negotiate that problem that

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by somersetcrewe

Ray, Turton, Guthrie, Cooper, Coco, Davis, Saunders - all showed promise of varying degrees when they first arrived, all have stagnated.
That has to be down to the manager.

---

Although the guy is far from perfect (but then again, who is?), I would not lay the blame completely at his door.
For me it's the system.

Back in the day, we had the likes of Murph, Deano and Powell who were ready to make the step up from the Academy pretty much straight away - whereas the likes of Dele and Hignett were not. But they were allowed to mature by going out on loan to places like Stafford Rangers.

Unfortunately since the inception of the U21 league and the rules that go with it, we are not afforded that opportunity. These guys would learn so much more from playing in a competitive league like the Conference than in front of one man and his dog on a Tuesday afternoon at RH. It's how we (a

[/quote]
Fair point, I didn't know that.
What specifically has changed?

[/quote]

The club are still free to loan out players but they find it very difficult to do that because of the number of under 21 games (27 minimum this season) and Cheshire Senior Cup games. Andre Brown and Joe Howell have spent time with other clubs this season but still with the proviso that they are available for under 21 matches - if needed. This is the 3rd season of under 21 games which has meant the club virtually having to resurrect the reserve side, as they are allowed three over-age players. Many fans used to criticise the club for not running a reserve side in a league, but what it did mean was the opportunity to loan players out.

Injuries don't help of course. Mullarkey & Kearns, both defenders from the successful youth cup run might well have gone out somewhere, but with Davis & Ray having long-term injuries the under 21 side has needed them; Mullarkey himself has had a knee injury.

Couldn't agree more with bigroof.

Want to know what our current products are capable of after being given a chance, look at Waters at Cheltenham

One thing that Gradi always did was having us play in a certain style and way, then replicating that through the youth teams.

In the past few seasons we've gone through so many styles of play and formations.

I'm all up for changing tactics to suit whats available to us and what we're up against to an extent but it needs to be remembered that if we're developing technical footballers we need a style of play that suits this.