One of our own

[Warnocks Legends]

Clubs that rely on youngsters may fail even harder though.

Academies make sense for top clubs, who can pick the absolute best young talent and have the facilities to nurture them. But for clubs of our size, it just seems too big a risk to throw money at something that probably won't work.

The chances of a youth-team player becoming an established first-team player for a lower-league club are pretty slim. If they aren't good enough or ready enough (the vast majority), they'll go - or the club will play them and be weaker on the field. If they are genuinely talented (and we've had a few), they'll go.

Sorry I cannot agree with this, under Warnock we had a blend of youth players and experience and made it to the premier. I wholly agree with Don it's the ideology running through the club and has been for many a year, we simply put our youth on the scrap heap and it's both sad and annoying at the same time.

[Notts78]

Sorry I cannot agree with this, under Warnock we had a blend of youth players and experience and made it to the premier. I wholly agree with Don it's the ideology running through the club and has been for many a year, we simply put our youth on the scrap heap and it's both sad and annoying at the same time.

But how many of those youth who are put on the scrap heap go on to make it?
The other issue we as a small, non-league club have is that even if we have a fabulous talent who is 11/12, they will soon be poached, for no money.
I would love nothing more than Notts to have 2 or 3 lads who come through our system make it to regular first team football. However, we simply have nothing in our favour to compete and certainly not the resources or facilities. Let’s also not forget that in the not to distant past we sacked off youth football completely.

[Notts78]

Even Wrexham with their millions have one home grown player who plays regularly. He even scored in their last game.

Is the expectation there lower than ours?

Grimsby played one in their playoff final against us.

Just two off the top of my head. But I’m sure if I looked I’d find more at each club.

Any chance of answering the whole of my post? Do you agree with the rest?

We have none playing regularly for us, and we would need to go back a fair while to find one who scored for us…….at least as far as being a league club maybe even a league one club.

This isn’t a new problem.

Wrexhams player, I assume you mean Jordan Davies? If so it’s not wholly true he is a home grown talent. He spent 3 years getting a football education at Brighton after Wrexham cashed in on him. I suppose they get the best of all worlds having made a small amount on him, then getting him back for free, presumably in better shape.
Harry Clifton at Grimsby joined them aged 17. So not sure it counts that he went through there academy.
I don’t know what the answer is Don in terms of what strategy the club should take. Are we better financially at the moment than at any point of the last 15-20 years? I’d suggest we aren’t haemorrhaging cash like we have in the past.

[jackal2]

Are we better financially at the moment than at any point of the last 15-20 years? I’d suggest we aren’t haemorrhaging cash like we have in the past.

We certainly don't seem to be paying big wages to older (and often fading) players anymore. Most of our signings this summer have come from the lower leagues - albeit some of the best young talent in those leagues - so I suspect their wage demands are more realistic and that our overall budget has levelled off or even reduced a little from the days we were signing the likes of Vaughan, Doyle, Dennis, Ben Turner etc. I'm sure the club still needs financial support from the owners to a certain degree, but maybe not the scale of losses we had in the past, especially bearing in mind we're getting better gates at the top of the National League than we did at the bottom end of League Two.

[crazyfists]

Sorry I cannot agree with this, under Warnock we had a blend of youth players and experience and made it to the premier. I wholly agree with Don it's the ideology running through the club and has been for many a year, we simply put our youth on the scrap heap and it's both sad and annoying at the same time.

It's not the same now as under Warnock though, the Premier league or big clubs lower down stack their books with the youth who show promise from 5 years old and then when they get older loan them out. Then they sell them or use them. It would take a youth with a massive love of Notts to stay with us when the big boys come calling. Also there wasn't as much money at the top of the game then and we were better placed. They might stay with us to play division 2 or 3 but division 5 when they can go to a bigger club higher up is a tough sell mostly to their parents.

[The_Don_ORiordan]

Wrexhams player, I assume you mean Jordan Davies? If so it’s not wholly true he is a home grown talent. He spent 3 years getting a football education at Brighton after Wrexham cashed in on him. I suppose they get the best of all worlds having made a small amount on him, then getting him back for free, presumably in better shape.
Harry Clifton at Grimsby joined them aged 17. So not sure it counts that he went through there academy.
I don’t know what the answer is Don in terms of what strategy the club should take. Are we better financially at the moment than at any point of the last 15-20 years? I’d suggest we aren’t haemorrhaging cash like we have in the past.

Do you think the lack of haemorrhaging cash is

a) due to us not investing more in youth
b) due to us not allowing managers to sign a load of old tosh chasing “championship in 5 years”

You can’t seriously believe the youth team has been responsible for us haemorrhaging cash?

[The_Don_ORiordan]

It's not the same now as under Warnock though, the Premier league or big clubs lower down stack their books with the youth who show promise from 5 years old and then when they get older loan them out. Then they sell them or use them. It would take a youth with a massive love of Notts to stay with us when the big boys come calling. Also there wasn't as much money at the top of the game then and we were better placed. They might stay with us to play division 2 or 3 but division 5 when they can go to a bigger club higher up is a tough sell mostly to their parents.

So what’s the answer? Close the academy again until we get promoted?

Honestly, under your view it’s completely pointless. Don’t know why any club other than in the top divisions would have then. Yet they do, and they still produce players for their teams……and we still struggle to……

It’s still early days in terms of academy, but I’m hopeful that things have improved under the Reedtz, although the proof will be in next year or so to see if their ownership has in any way impacted the academy.

[queenslandpie]

The model of buying semi established young talent like Roberts / Langstaff / Wootton and so on is far more likely to yield results than sticking hundreds of thousands of pounds every year into an an academy which will take an age to get much from in a far more competitive market for talent . Notts average squad age has plummeted since we took the drop into non league which is fantastic. I don't think an academy is pointless but in terms of a return for the money spent and getting back into the EFL an academy is as it stands not something that has a lot of point to it. Especially given we rarely blood any talent that comes through it, even now with a philosophy on younger players. Money better spent elsewhere in my mind.

[crazyfists]

So what’s the answer? Close the academy again until we get promoted?

Honestly, under your view it’s completely pointless. Don’t know why any club other than in the top divisions would have then. Yet they do, and they still produce players for their teams……and we still struggle to……

It’s still early days in terms of academy, but I’m hopeful that things have improved under the Reedtz, although the proof will be in next year or so to see if their ownership has in any way impacted the academy.

I would love to see our own youth players in the team, I just think as soon as you get a good one then other teams hear about them and they're snapped up. Let's see if anything changes with the academy under the Reedtz.

[Woodypie]

All sounds pretty miserable. Best stick to signing other teams' failures and hope one or two can become better with our fantastic coaching. Or we could do something really radical and become a Forest feeder team, signing six or so of their young players for a season, giving them a year experience of being kicked to buggery to help them grow into rounded professionals.