The Academy Critics

[shorehamview]

But none of that is the fault of the accademy.

We are only just seeing the real fruits of the system as these are the first batch of players to have come through the process end to end. General rule of thumb will be ten years if you are picking up kids at 7/8 years old.

MA as already commented that he wont blood tthe kids until we are mathematically down apparently, although I don't think there are many ready for the step up and you dont want to damaged the good cup run by throwing them in too early.

I know whay you mean, but I can see that there is some logic in lenners's's's's's's's argument even though blaming the Academy for the failings of the board and senior management is pointless at best. There is also the long debate between throwing the kids in now, and hanging back a while to so they don't become part of a totally shit season or squad.

 

[super_pig]

problem is we'll never see the fruits because either the manager won't play them or if they do break through by some fortunate twist of fate ie sun's kung fu antics that let kyle N. in .. we'll sell them anyway to the first bidder (not even the highest bidder)

 

[alcoblade]

even though blaming the Academy for the failings of the board and senior management is pointless at best.

But that is the point. The thread is about the academy. We can write hundreds of posts about the piss potical management that's brought the club to this point, and I'll add plenty to it. But they would still be different points.

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[lenners]

But that is the point. The thread is about the academy. We can write hundreds of posts about the piss potical management that's brought the club to this point, and I'll add plenty to it. But they would still be different points.

UTB

Er no they wouldn't.
The overall failure of management means the relative success of the academy means nothing beyond it's actually been wasted like every other opportunity of the last few years.
The suggestion that selling our best players represents success (and achieving relegation as a result) is exactly the kind of short-term thinking that now has us bottom of the Championship.

 

[alcoblade]

Er no they wouldn't.
The overall failure of management means the relative success of the academy means nothing beyond it's actually been wasted like every other opportunity of the last few years.
The suggestion that selling our best players represents success (and achieving relegation as a result) is exactly the kind of short-term thinking that now has us bottom of the Championship.

Jesus Len. When you've dug another hole you just keep digging. The thread is about the academy. The sale of players is a totally different argument to the ability of the academy to produce players that are of value. The club makes of that value what they will. It does not impact on the measure of success of the academy. For a relatively smart person, you can act incredibly dumb in your incessant attempts to hate every aspect of our club.

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[lenners]

Jesus Len. When you've dug another hole you just keep digging. The thread is about the academy. The sale of players is a totally different argument to the ability of the academy to produce players that are of value. The club makes of that value what they will. It does not impact on the measure of success of the academy. For a relatively smart person, you can act incredibly dumb in your incessant attempts to hate every aspect of our club.

UTB

Nice try Alco.
The academy has been mismanaged along with every single aspect of this club since we got relegated.
How ever hard you try to insist the academy sits alone and isn't part of the overall set-up, it ain't ever going to be so.
Like many fans, I'm truly pissed off with the way they've utterly failed to do what they said - which was give young players a proper chance and to build a team round them.
We could produce the next Messi, Xavi and Iniesta and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference if they were sold to pay for a set of pub players.
If I remember correctly, you were one of those fans who couldn't stop bleating about the necessity of selling the Kyles.
You and others were warned at the time what the outcome would ultimately be and it has come to pass.
That isn't success, it is utter, abject failure - and a failure that is going to cost SUFC many millions of pounds. I'd hazard a guess we're about to lose between £10m and £15m over the next year and millions more in the years to come from the failure of the club to have any coherent playing policy, which includes the academy.

 

[alcoblade]

We could produce the next Messi, Xavi and Iniesta and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference if they were sold to pay for a set of pub players.

In terms of a measure of success of the academy (ref the OT), it absolutely would. QED.

UTB

---------- Post added at 11:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:20 PM ----------

If I remember correctly, you were one of those fans who couldn't stop bleating about the necessity of selling the Kyles.

Because I was also bleating on about the stupidity of paying, for example, the likes of Garry Naysmith £1.5m per year to fill a 2nd division fullback role - as it would lead to the necessity to sell quality players in future.

As I've tried to spell out to you before, you can't pay 'em in washers. But you can't grasp it.

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[lenners]

Alco, you are essentially saying that although the academy has proved so far to be ultimately virtually pointless it has fulfilled its virtually pointless role very well.
You adopt the same argument about the sales of the Kyles - things would have been even worse otherwise.
It was bull at the time and it is bull now.
And it has got us into League One.
Until SUFC stops exactly this kind of defeatist and self-defeating mentality, we will continue to fail to achieve anything like our potential.

 

[alcoblade]

Yada yada yada. None of it makes any difference to the measure of whether the academy, in itself, is doing the job it's supposed to do. Until you can grasp this incredibly simple concept, there's little point discussing it. So over to you to finally reiterate how spunking money on property and the like means the academy is failing.

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[Flatulent_Bob]

Yada yada yada. None of it makes any difference to the measure of whether the academy, in itself, is doing the job it's supposed to do. Until you can grasp this incredibly simple concept, there's little point discussing it. So over to you to finally reiterate how spunking money on property and the like means the academy is failing.

UTB

How has the academy been mismanaged? Lenners thought it should have been closed down even after it had been built.

It has more than paid for itself in the intial setup and is now producing more players at a highier level. Pembo will take it even further in my opinion and it will be vital to what happens to us in the next 5-10 years.

Top and bottom of it is would the club have been in a better position now if we didnt have the academy? I cant see how we would be, and only a fool would argue otherwise. In fact i think we probably would already be in league one without it.

 

[lenners]

And yet 23 clubs in our division with apparently poorer performing academies than us are better off than us.
It is and will always remain absolutely meaningless unless you recognise the performance of an academy will always be an integral part of the performance of a football club, not a separate entity.
That anyone could contend that we'd already be in League One without our academy is almost beyond comprehension and certainly beyond any meaningful logic.
I'm afraid it's still the head-in-sand approach to SUFC yet again, despite everything that's happened.

 

[alcoblade]

How has the academy been mismanaged? Lenners thought it should have been closed down even after it had been built.

It has more than paid for itself in the intial setup and is now producing more players at a highier level. Pembo will take it even further in my opinion and it will be vital to what happens to us in the next 5-10 years.

Top and bottom of it is would the club have been in a better position now if we didnt have the academy? I cant see how we would be, and only a fool would argue otherwise. In fact i think we probably would already be in league one without it.

I think you've misread my post. I'm not suggesting it has been mismanaged. I'm saying quite the opposite. The funds generated by the academy have been mis managed by the football club / PLC, squandered on too big contracts for too poor players, property, world cup bids. This mis management is out of the control of the academy which can't be judged on it. Len can't grasp it, because it may lead to the unacceptable (for him) conclusion that part of the club has functioned correctly at some time. His hatred blinkers even the most simple concept.

UTB

 

[Rustyblade]

I think you've misread my post. I'm not suggesting it has been mismanaged. I'm saying quite the opposite. The funds generated by the academy have been mis managed by the football club / PLC, squandered on too big contracts for too poor players, property, world cup bids. This mis management is out of the control of the academy which can't be judged on it. Len can't grasp it, because it may lead to the unacceptable (for him) conclusion that part of the club has functioned correctly at some time. His hatred blinkers even the most simple concept.

He grasps your concept perfectly. He disagrees with the precepts you based it on. What's so hard to understand about that?

In essence you both agree. Where you differ is that you think the academy can be viewed in isolation. He doesn't. I tend towards Len's position in that the coffee machine in the players lounge might be working excellently but if it doesn't help us stay up.....?

 

[bladeinspaceandtime]

And yet 23 clubs in our division with apparently poorer performing academies than us are better off than us.
It is and will always remain absolutely meaningless unless you recognise the performance of an academy will always be an integral part of the performance of a football club, not a separate entity.
That anyone could contend that we'd already be in League One without our academy is almost beyond comprehension and certainly beyond any meaningful logic.
I'm afraid it's still the head-in-sand approach to SUFC yet again, despite everything that's happened.

But surely by your own argument the performance of the academy does not influence the performance of the club (otherwise we wouldn't be up shit creek). The academy has been producing young players, some of which have gone on and played for the first team, others have been sold on (some for considerable sums). How the club uses the players/cash generated by the academy is up to the board. It appears that they are either a bunch of muppets or sadists considering the direction the club has been heading in for some time. I seem to remember you had a pathological hatred of the academy in the old BU days. Is it just because you hate the concept or you don't believe the academy is being run correctly - what would you do differently? (i'm not taking the piss, i'm genuinely interested in your opinion!)

 

[lenners]

Nice try again Alco.
I understand your concept, you are unable to grasp mine.
The academy is part of SUFC, it does not exist in a vacuum.
The management of SUFC includes managing the benefits or otherwise of that academy.
The obvious inability to manage any benefits in terms of the performance of the first team renders the academy pointless.
You may as well say the stadium manager has performed really well because he's made sure the floodlights have come on when needed.
I'm pleased for the Kyles that they've made it as good professional footballers but the mismanagement of our academy in the context of the overall management of our football club renders that ultimately meaningless.
What this really boils down to is ensuring that McCabe and co one day are true to their word and do manage the academy properly, in the context of the management of the club.
When they say at the AGM we want this footballing culture from the bottom up, they need to be encouraged to stick to it.
Fan apologists for failure - and saying selling our best young players for a generation represents success despite the ultimate cost of that decision - do exactly the opposite.
My view is about as far removed from hatred of our club as it's possible to be. Intense dislike of those who've ruined it, yes. Hatred of the club, not in a million years.

 

[alcoblade]

He grasps your concept perfectly. He disagrees with the precepts you based it on. What's so hard to understand about that?

In essence you both agree. Where you differ is that you think the academy can be viewed in isolation. He doesn't. I tend towards Len's position in that the coffee machine in the players lounge might be working excellently but if it doesn't help us stay up.....?

I feel a bit like I'm trying to explain that the sky is blue here.

If the coffee machines are working fine, the coffee machines are working fine. If the players still have a hangover after drinking the coffee, because of the alcohol they consume, it isn't the fault of the coffee machine. The players need to stop getting pissed. If someone then posted a thread on the quality of the coffee from the machines, I'd say it was fine. I'd struggle to understand a standpoint that the coffee was shit because we'd been relegated.

It's hard to accept for no other reason than his measure of success of the academy is, quite frankly, complete bollocks. You are still free to agree with him....

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[Rustyblade]

If it's complete bollocks then just one question. How has the academy helped us this season?

 

[bricktop]

If it's complete bollocks then just one question. How has the academy helped us this season?

It hasn't because we have had a series of managers who have not picked any of this crop of outstanding youngsters.

Lets face it, when you've got luminaries such as Neill Collins, Michael Boyle, Daniel Bogbrushdanovich, Marcus Bent, Darius Henderson getting a game, and the crop of promising youngsters not being given a shot when they have got nothing to lose, smacks to me of shocking management.

 

[Flatulent_Bob]

If it's complete bollocks then just one question. How has the academy helped us this season?

Easy, the club would have already been relegated last season.

The academy has also provided the only positive on this whole season, and the only positive for next.

Alco, sorry it was a wrong quote i was stating that the academy hadnt been mismanaged.

Lenners we'd be in league one because we would need to find the 10 million last year from somewhere else and we have no where else to have pulled it from. Where would you have gotten it from?
No " I wouldn't have bought xyz, start of last season you need to find 10million, where are you pulling it from?

 

[Coily]

If it's complete bollocks then just one question. How has the academy helped us this season?

It's produced Lowton, the one positive in a horror show of the season. And was Quinn an academy product? Without those two we'd be in even deeper shit than we are already in.

The academy is doing well and has brought some very good players through with the prospect of more to follow. In isolation it's doing it's job, serving it's purpose. And long may it continue to do so. Where it's going wrong is the mismanagement of the club overall which has meant that the two best products were flogged because our overall strategy fell flat on it's arse. And that involved spunking up vast sums on players such as Beattie, Naysmith, Hendrie and the like who essentially were failures. I'd hope we can all agree that we are not where we are because we have an academy.

It's just like when Green and McDonald overspent on players we couldn't afford which led to a fire sale when the debts mounted up. The Kyle's apparently had to go to balance the books - though even if had Messi we's struggle to be able to do that - and everyone can agree that that is not what the academy is or was designed for. You have to wonder where we'd be if we hadn't produced the Kyle's? Administration?

Once more we have to ensure that we have a playing budget that we can afford, and with inevitable lower crowds that will become more difficult. But perhaps this gives an opportunity to those in this so called development squad and the academy. There have been plenty of noises from Pemberton, Birch and to an extent Adams too that strategy going forward will involve a greater emphasis on integrating academy players into the first team. I hope that happens, as has been alluded to previously managers have only turned to youth players when there is no other alternative. But with the present management, I'll admit to being skeptical...

 

[alcoblade]

If it's complete bollocks then just one question. How has the academy helped us this season?

Rusty - trawl back to the start. I'm not convinced that the academy is worthwhile. Have the costs been less than the benefit - not sure. It's not my point.

My point is that the measure of the academy should be the production of players that have value to the club. We cannot downgrade our perceptions of the performance of the academy because, for example, the money is wasted paying the loans we took on to cover Gary Naysmiths wages, or for bricks for a hotel.

The 2 Kyles were complete success stories as far as the academy is concerned. It's a completely different issue regarding how we made use of those players, or the money generated from their sale.

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[Rustyblade]

Okay, from that point of view, the academy has fulfilled its remit in that, if we believe it was self sufficient before the sale of the Kyles, it has provided us with one player and approximately 10 million.

But there is still a huge caveat. If we measure in this way, we are saying that the club is using its academy to prop up the failure of the management to actually run the club properly.

We're doing the same thing with the academy that we rant and rave about McCabe allegedly doing with SUFC; using the money generated by one part of the PLC to help the cash flow problems in other areas. I'm not sure I can see this as successful. I know I can't see it as a separate issue. The club is using the funds generated yes, but surely the success of any academy should be measured by how it helps the club with regard to players making the step up to the first team and actually helping out where it matters most.

It can only ever be deemed successful when it performs as an integrated part of the club set up and not as some sort of financial sticking plaster.

Part of the measurement of success has to include how that 10 million helped us as a club overall. Doyle, Collins and Bent, anyone? Three year contract for Cresswell? We had the opportunity for some kind of success, yes. Unfortunately, we blew it. You would draw the line lower down the heirarchy than I would is all. If I understand correctly, you'd argue that having the 10 mill (and Lowton) is proof enough.

I view it more along the lines of someone winning the lottery. A success, surely? Only if it doesn't end a few years' later with the winner penniless in the gutter sucking down the white spirit.