Academy reshuffle

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Trav, good lad that he is, always just wanted to be a coach, felt like his demeanour changed when he got the Academy Manager gig, as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders, and Trav was never backward in coming forwards with his opinion.

IMO, Don't think you can coach, and overseer the whole works at the same time.

Ultimately, United haven't produced a player for the 1st team in his tenure, and that is what you get judged by, and currently the cupboard is bare.​

To be fair, and it may come across as unfair and a touch harsh but you can only work with what you have got, all the lads who play for United at U18 and U23s have done fantastically well, but its that final step up which is the hardest and that is what it is down to.

Coxy always used to tell parents the chance of a lad beginning at 9 and making it to the 1st team at United is 0.001%, and that was when we in League 1.

5/6 years ago United had a change of heart in the type of player that they were encouraging scouts in the younger age groups should be looking at, and in their recruitment practices.

Again decisions like that will have a knock on effect further down the line, and sometimes not always for the best.
 

Sharrowblade said:
Trav, good lad that he is, always just wanted to be a coach, felt like his demeanour changed when he got the Academy Manager gig, as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders, and Trav was never backward in coming forwards with his opinion.

IMO, Don't think you can coach, and overseer the whole works at the same time.

Ultimately, United haven't produced a player for the 1st team in his tenure, and that is what you get judged by, and currently the cupboard is bare.

To be fair, and it may come across as unfair and a touch harsh but you can only work with what you have got, all the lads who play for United at U18 and U23s have done fantastically well, but its that final step up which is the hardest and that is what it is down to.

Coxy always used to tell parents the chance of a lad beginning at 9 and making it to the 1st team at United is 0.001%, and that was when we in League 1.

5/6 years ago United had a change of heart in the type of player that they were encouraging scouts in the younger age groups should be looking at, and in their recruitment practices.

Again decisions like that will have a knock on effect further down the line, and sometimes not always for the best.
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I’m not sure if you’re quoting someone but that’s pretty harsh. We’ve been selling our youth players to fund promotion. In the last three years we’ve sold DCL, Ramsdale and Brooks to teams in a higher division and produced a few that weren’t quite good enough for us as we moved upwards like Reed and Whiteman. All of those were developed whilst we were a L1 club.

I agree with your point about running the academy and coaching, it’s two different jobs and if your first love is coaching, you’ll tire of the admin side of it.
 
Woodwardfan said:
Re above post:

Jack was U -18's manager at Forest and 'worked in the Academy'. This is a big step up for him then.
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Jack Lester was also U23 manager at Forest and along with the Academy Manager Gary Brazil, another ex Blade, has presided over a number of players making it into the first team. One of them a certain Ben Osborn who we have just signed.
 
Sharrowblade said:
Trav, good lad that he is, always just wanted to be a coach, felt like his demeanour changed when he got the Academy Manager gig, as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders, and Trav was never backward in coming forwards with his opinion.

IMO, Don't think you can coach, and overseer the whole works at the same time.

Ultimately, United haven't produced a player for the 1st team in his tenure, and that is what you get judged by, and currently the cupboard is bare.

To be fair, and it may come across as unfair and a touch harsh but you can only work with what you have got, all the lads who play for United at U18 and U23s have done fantastically well, but its that final step up which is the hardest and that is what it is down to.

Coxy always used to tell parents the chance of a lad beginning at 9 and making it to the 1st team at United is 0.001%, and that was when we in League 1.

5/6 years ago United had a change of heart in the type of player that they were encouraging scouts in the younger age groups should be looking at, and in their recruitment practices.

Again decisions like that will have a knock on effect further down the line, and sometimes not always for the best.
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Sharrowblade So, in your opinion, did Travis not want to switch from hands on coach to the Academy Manager gig. Was he "pushed upwards"? Or, was he just not able to refuse as it was promotion? Did he court that job? Come on Sharrowblade it's the missing piece of my jigsaw. Help a boy out?
 
Ball_Sup (Phil) said:
Sharrowblade So, in your opinion, did Travis not want to switch from hands on coach to the Academy Manager gig. Was he "pushed upwards"? Or, was he just not able to refuse as it was promotion? Did he court that job? Come on Sharrowblade it's the missing piece of my jigsaw. Help a boy out?
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You'd have to ask Trav, that Phil...……………. I can only remember at the time, that it was a popular choice amongst the staff.
 
BushBlade said:
I’m not sure if you’re quoting someone but that’s pretty harsh. We’ve been selling our youth players to fund promotion. In the last three years we’ve sold DCL, Ramsdale and Brooks to teams in a higher division and produced a few that weren’t quite good enough for us as we moved upwards like Reed and Whiteman. All of those were developed whilst we were a L1 club.
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Yes and No basically. Its what I've heard from a couple of friends I still have up there.

TBH, We didn't produce Rammers, Brooks, or Whiteman, we aided them and gave them an opportunity. DCL can rightly be claimed as one we produced but ultimately not produced for us (infact, I remember, walking out of Orient after he made his debut and hearing many Blades claim that he was useless, and the delight and to a large degree of dis-belief when they off-loaded him to Everton). He was sold under Trav's tenure but not produced (although Trav worked with him).

I do have sympathy for Trav, and Academy standards do appear to go in cycles. As mentioned I don't think he's been blessed with a great stream of talent in the last couple of years and that is not taking anything away from the lads who are in the current U18s and U23s, I've already stated that just to get to that level they've done brilliant.

If there's any regular watchers of the U18s or U23s that have seen anyone they think could breakthrough into the 1st team squad in the near future then I apologize.

By Trav's own admission he would be judged on players produced capable of playing first team football for Sheffield United

Furthermore, there's also a historical legacy Trav's had to contend with, the club delight in telling us about the likes of Billy, Jags, Harry, Kyle and Matty Lowton and back up with the facts about minutes played in the premier League....and so they should, its a proud record but you can't keep pointing to that and saying look what we produce and everything's fine, because time doesn't stand still.

Its would be easy, for the clubs hierarchy to look and say 'well we produced players under Ron Reid, and Pembo Snr, but we don't seem to be getting much now'

As somebody once revelled in telling me at Shirecliffe….its not about now....its about the future.

Good luck to Trav and John in their future endeavours
 
I would say from the language you talk Trav, Coxy, Rammers, Pembo Snr etc you have clearly worked at the academy but more than likely had a lad there.
The same as me.

What I would say is that Trav certainly felt there was opportunities to play young players in cup games since 2016 when he took over.
It never happened.

I would imagine he would not be slow to ask why.

DCL, Rammers, Brookes were all sold to fund squad building. That certainly is not Travs fault. He brought through 3 players who would have played first team football if for instance they had been at Forest !!!!

I genuinely can not see Lester being able to do any better in producing players than Trav did.
 
Sharrowblade said:
If there's any regular watchers of the U18s or U23s that have seen anyone they think could breakthrough into the 1st team squad in the near future then I apologize.
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I must prefix this with that I'm not knocking the current lads/setup and I don't see them anywhere near enough any more to think that my opinion is worthy on this... But I'll give it anyway...

Less regular than I used to be now, but to my uneducated eye there does seem to be less than previous years more recently... That does also obviously coincide with an upturn in the first team, which only goes to widen any gap. Personally, I'd say we've released some that would be closer than the current crops.
 
The progress of young men breaking through from primary school age has slowed since EPPP. Funny that. It seems incredibly harsh if Travis is given the blame for that when the club (academy managers and owner) have stated publically that we are now targetting older academy drop outs from other clubs; a strategy that has been successful. Does Travis et al get no credit for the development of these kids? It seems unlikely that we'll suddenly get a big influx of home grown Sheffield lads whilst we remain Cat two. Naive even.
The Maguire's etc were developed in a different world. Anybody drawing comparisons between the academy environment then and now is living on a different planet.
 
Barely believable but source impeccable, The bottom building lot wanted to release DB it was only the top building that said no. They sorted the Chessie loan, then pulled it after seeing his progression in pre season.
 
I find the comment a little strange about the bottom building wanting to release Brookes, as the season before he went to Chesterfield he played under 23s football but trained with the first team every day as part of that squad.
He had no interaction with the bottom building at all that season.

Wider sorted the loan to Chessy out and then had to backtrack when Brookes had a fantastic Summer with England.
If Brookes had not done so well with England he would have been at Chessy and long gone...... for peanuts, if not a free.

In fact it was Binnion who scouted Brookes to get him in and championed him to the top building known stop until they listened.
 
Redhead said:
I genuinely can not see Lester being able to do any better in producing players than Trav did.
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I disagree. Jack Lester was a good footballer himself and he has those genes. He’s been brought in with a specific brief of getting as many female staff at SUFC up the duff as possible in order to clone a new generation of strikers.
 
Cerberus Blade said:
I disagree. Jack Lester was a good footballer himself and he has those genes. He’s been brought in with a specific brief of getting as many female staff at SUFC up the duff as possible in order to clone a new generation of strikers.
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Brilliant pal ........
 
www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk

Released Peterborough United player joins Brighton, youngster joins Kettering, Academy chief joins Sheffield United

Peterborough United Academy graduate Lewis Freestone has joined Premier League side Brighton & Hove Albion.
www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk

Nick Sheppard Academy Head at Peterborough joining us. Says in a similar role. Not sure what it will be if Lester is running the Academy (Binnion and before him Cox's position) and Geary is the u18 coach. With Dungworth leaving maybe there is a role for him to support Geary and Lester above him in some capacity?
 
Redhead said:
I find the comment a little strange about the bottom building wanting to release Brookes, as the season before he went to Chesterfield he played under 23s football but trained with the first team every day as part of that squad.
He had no interaction with the bottom building at all that season.

Wider sorted the loan to Chessy out and then had to backtrack when Brookes had a fantastic Summer with England.
If Brookes had not done so well with England he would have been at Chessy and long gone...... for peanuts, if not a free.

In fact it was Binnion who scouted Brookes to get him in and championed him to the top building known stop until they listened.
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Yes, agree. Possibly just someone's version of events that differs to the academy staff version. There will be some truth there though.
People tend to take a position on something then drive the facts to suit. Seems worse in elite sport.
For instance since Cox left the talk was let's hope we can keep hold of TB, then in a Night of the Long Knives style putsch they do him and his 2 lieutenants.... Brutal.
 

Hilly said:
Yes, agree. Possibly just someone's version of events that differs to the academy staff version. There will be some truth there though.
People tend to take a position on something then drive the facts to suit. Seems worse in elite sport.
For instance since Cox left the talk was let's hope we can keep hold of TB, then in a Night of the Long Knives style putsch they do him and his 2 lieutenants.... Brutal.
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Football is actually a shit industry and as you say brutal.
 
SwissBlade said:
Interesting comment identifying the transitional phase from development to first team.
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I’d be interested to know from those with knowledge of the pre-Lester set-up, is the sort of work Carr will focus on actually that much of a change to what’s come before? We surely already have specialists focusing on particular parts of a player’s game?
 
I think the Academy/Lester need some Dark Arts help. How about

"Following a thorough review of the operation of the Academy, we have identified a crucial piece of the jigsaw. A detailed recruitment process has been completed, and we are delighted to announce Rhys Carr has been appointed as Individual Development Coach. Rhys will work individually with those youngsters at an advanced stage of development. Concentrating on the specifics they need to progress to the first team"

Instead, it's - randomly bumped into some fella on a course & thought fuck it, might as well give that a go as owt else.....
 
Ball_Sup (Phil) said:
I think the Academy/Lester need some Dark Arts help. How about

"Following a thorough review of the operation of the Academy, we have identified a crucial piece of the jigsaw. A detailed recruitment process has been completed, and we are delighted to announce Rhys Carr has been appointed as Individual Development Coach. Rhys will work individually with those youngsters at an advanced stage of development. Concentrating on the specifics they need to progress to the first team"

Instead, it's - randomly bumped into some fella on a course & thought fuck it, might as well give that a go as owt else.....
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Ha ha yeah it does seem a bit old school.
 
Ball_Sup (Phil) said:
Instead, it's - randomly bumped into some fella on a course & thought fuck it, might as well give that a go as owt else.....
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Indeed. When I read that it reminded me of the time McCabe had that chance encounter with the Prince at Robin Hood Airport...
 
Ball_Sup (Phil) said:
I think the Academy/Lester need some Dark Arts help. How about

"Following a thorough review of the operation of the Academy, we have identified a crucial piece of the jigsaw. A detailed recruitment process has been completed, and we are delighted to announce Rhys Carr has been appointed as Individual Development Coach. Rhys will work individually with those youngsters at an advanced stage of development. Concentrating on the specifics they need to progress to the first team"

Instead, it's - randomly bumped into some fella on a course & thought fuck it, might as well give that a go as owt else.....
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Easy for other clubs to spot our prospects now though, just have Rhys followed and get a bloke up a tree with some binoculars at Shirecliffe and see who he's working with.
 
Lester remarked: "As a player, I felt I improved when I was coached in small groups or on specifics to my own game and how I could effect it.

Affect. Fucking affect.

He’s right about it being an emerging role. I think Man U have just appointed someone in a similar role.
 
BushBlade said:
Lester remarked: "As a player, I felt I improved when I was coached in small groups or on specifics to my own game and how I could effect it.

Affect. Fucking affect.

He’s right about it being an emerging role. I think Man U have just appointed someone in a similar role.
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That would be Nicky Butt
 
Oldun said:
That would be Nicky Butt
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No, someone else, last week. I’d have remembered if it was Butt. I think he coaches one of the youth teams.

Edit, promoted to head of development in July.
 

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