| Does the level of academy talent in the squad in recent years worry you? 16:45 - Jul 20 with 2153 views | Matt_Netherlands |
I’ll start this by recognising we have e just secured Cat 1 status so there should be a better calibre and profile of player coming through quite soon.
That being said, academy players who have established in our squad in recent years are very few and far between:
In and around the squad now:
Humphreys - turns 22 this year so not really a ‘kid’ and still on the fringes
Baggot - Turns 23 this year and still nowhere near the first team
Wolf - A proper success story all things considered
Buabo - A few appearances off the bench, but will struggle to make the squads this season
Clarke - bit of a roundabout route but he counts!
Left and kicked on:
Downes - The only name that springs to mind from recent years
Matt Clarke - although he left nearly ten years ago now
Left and not really kicked on:
Dozzell
Gibbs
Knight
Simpson
Brown
Maybe it’s a signal of where we are at right now in the modern game. Cat 2 (and the money being offered by big teams to young kids) has been making it very difficult to attract young talent, then our ambition and rise has meant we’ve needed to upgrade the squad quickly though new faces rather than waiting for the pipeline to come good.
Looking at the squads of Leicester and Southampton they aren’t overflowing with academy graduates either.
To answer my own question - I would t say I’m worried, but it would be great to see more young players come through, not least to help with PSR if they were to move on! |  | | |  |
| Does the level of academy talent in the squad in recent years worry you? on 16:48 - Jul 20 with 2122 views | jackp_1878 |
thats purely down to evans not giving a crap about academy. some of our current academy players will be special in the future (tudor mendel, tom taylor, nico valentine ect). give them time to develop and we will be laughing |  | | |
| Does the level of academy talent in the squad in recent years worry you? on 16:50 - Jul 20 with 2081 views | J2BLUE |
Consequence of success. Ideally we would have 1-2 a season come through but it's unlikely for the next few years. |  |
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| Does the level of academy talent in the squad in recent years worry you? on 16:53 - Jul 20 with 2045 views | pointofblue |
Even Woolfenden isn't a starter now. Basically all the academy has produced is someone the manager sees as Championship back ups at best.
Hopefully Category 1 and the investment involved will change things. | |
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| Does the level of academy talent in the squad in recent years worry you? on 17:01 - Jul 20 with 1976 views | SheffordBlue |
| Does the level of academy talent in the squad in recent years worry you? on 16:53 - Jul 20 by pointofblue |
Even Woolfenden isn't a starter now. Basically all the academy has produced is someone the manager sees as Championship back ups at best.
Hopefully Category 1 and the investment involved will change things. |
Even then if you have someone coming through who looks like they're going to be a really high decent talent they'll get hoovered up by one of the bigger Prem clubs. That's not to say we might not develop someone for 'our level' in the Prem though.
It looks like a more workable model is identifying talent in other teams academies who aren't quite at the level that they are after and then bringing them in at a higher age group in the Academy e.g. Somto Boniface. | |
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| Does the level of academy talent in the squad in recent years worry you? on 17:27 - Jul 20 with 1833 views | ArnoldMoorhen |
| Does the level of academy talent in the squad in recent years worry you? on 17:01 - Jul 20 by SheffordBlue |
Even then if you have someone coming through who looks like they're going to be a really high decent talent they'll get hoovered up by one of the bigger Prem clubs. That's not to say we might not develop someone for 'our level' in the Prem though.
It looks like a more workable model is identifying talent in other teams academies who aren't quite at the level that they are after and then bringing them in at a higher age group in the Academy e.g. Somto Boniface. |
I think I am right in saying that Level 1 Academy status gives a lot more protection against other clubs hoovering up your talent. | | | |
| Does the level of academy talent in the squad in recent years worry you? on 17:31 - Jul 20 with 1793 views | SheffordBlue |
| Does the level of academy talent in the squad in recent years worry you? on 17:27 - Jul 20 by ArnoldMoorhen |
I think I am right in saying that Level 1 Academy status gives a lot more protection against other clubs hoovering up your talent. |
I don't think it does. It allows Cat 1 academies to pick up talent from non-Cat 1 academies more easily but if a Chelsea/Man City/Arsenal come in for a key academy talent then the player will go if they want to. | |
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| Does the level of academy talent in the squad in recent years worry you? on 18:09 - Jul 20 with 1628 views | Nutkins_Return |
Not really sure that's fair on Gibbs as a 22 year old who has made nearly 60 champ appearances for Nor......oh....yes....you are quite right. As you were. | |
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| Does the level of academy talent in the squad in recent years worry you? on 18:22 - Jul 20 with 1536 views | 90sBlue27 |
Important to consider what’s in the academy now. The club doesn’t promote content from the academy in the way that others do, but that’s not to say we don’t have a raft of talent in the younger ages, taking into account the investment that’s gone into recruitment especially at the younger ages.
We don’t know how our age groups compete with current cat 1s and all people can do is come to an assumption without actually knowing? | | | |
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| Does the level of academy talent in the squad in recent years worry you? on 23:07 - Jul 20 with 1095 views | mutters |
| Does the level of academy talent in the squad in recent years worry you? on 18:09 - Jul 20 by Nutkins_Return |
Not really sure that's fair on Gibbs as a 22 year old who has made nearly 60 champ appearances for Nor......oh....yes....you are quite right. As you were. |
Agent Gibbs has done a cracking job dragging them down.
Looking forward to seeing what comrades Manning and Hogg do over the next 18 months. |  |
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| Does the level of academy talent in the squad in recent years worry you? on 06:37 - Jul 21 with 796 views | franz_tyson |
It hasn't been good for about 20 years... why the sudden concern now?
Downes and Woolfy are realistically a high point in the academy's history over the last 20 years. Wickham wasn't really much of an academy success as I think he didn't spend much time in the academy.
Look at players like Bishop, Lankester, etc.. they end up in the lower leagues.
We truly exaggerated how good our academy was because that seemed our only way out of the Evans' downward spiral.
Needs a revamp and probably will take a while. | | | |
| Does the level of academy talent in the squad in recent years worry you? on 07:44 - Jul 21 with 692 views | Axeldalai_lama |
Equally it hasn't been that bad, depending on the metric. Maybe we haven't had a team made up of youth players coming through, or even a steady flow to the first team, but we have had plenty who have played a chunk of league football, been poached by bigger clubs and a few that played for us or above. And thats in a period seen as lacking in investment or interest in our youth players. |  | | |
| Does the level of academy talent in the squad in recent years worry you? on 08:27 - Jul 21 with 561 views | PioneerBlue |
OP: Yes | |
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| Does the level of academy talent in the squad in recent years worry you? on 08:59 - Jul 21 with 456 views | itfcjoe |
I think people are a bit harsh with regards to what has come out of the academy - we've spend the majority of the last 25 years as a mid table Championship club and our output is linked to that.
We've generally had 1-2 in the squad contributing positively over that period, for the last 15 year we've only had 2 periods of relative stability [Under Mick and McKenna] and was no surprise that towards the end of Mick's reign we were in a really nice position with the academy and in the age groups there, there is still a massive number of 1-2 intakes still earning a living from the game [Woolfie, Downes, Dozzell, El Miz, Folami, Morris, Hayes, Smith, Lankester, Kenlock, Emmanuel, McLoughlin, Fowler]
Since then, due to lack of investment/care, the players earning a living left fairly early to do so or just needed to drop down - Simpson, Dobra, Gibbs, Chirewa, Ward.
You put it all together and it's certainly ok, the 1998/1999 born group was exceptional and our last one to be so; but they haven't all kicked on and some of the best ones were lost to injury - but we saw the level of the PL last year and to have both Luke Woolfenden and Flynn Downes from that team playing in the league, with Andre Dozzell starting regularly in the Championship is not to be sniffed at.
Elkan Baggott and Cameron Humphreys have been unfortunate, because they were in a L1 academy at age 18-19, and now need to be good enough for a PL/PP team at 21/22.....if they were going to be good enough for the level we are at at 21/22 they'd have been starring for the first team in League 1!
I do fear that below them we have really slipped behind, we are a million miles of the top Cat 1 academies and will be in for a chastening few years - lots of talk that Norwich have tanks parked on our lawns with regards to recruiting players in between Ipswich and Norwich, but lack of investment sees us losing out to boys to Colchester as well. Stopping running the free buses up the A12 that likes of Ben Morris, Tristan Nydam and Flynn Downes came on....hopefully that is back soon if it isn't already.
We have a huge challenge ahead, and I'd imagine some aggressive recruitment at age 14-15, plus 18-19 is needed to try and close the gaps at U18 and U21 level which will become evident when the new league season kicks off for them |  |
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| Does the level of academy talent in the squad in recent years worry you? on 10:11 - Jul 21 with 296 views | OldFart71 |
I think this situation runs through many clubs where putting a youth into the first team is deemed as a gamble and because of that they would rather bring in a ready made player at a financial cost. | | | |
| Does the level of academy talent in the squad in recent years worry you? on 10:15 - Jul 21 with 275 views | baxterbasics |
Well the silver lining here is this appears to be concerning to the current management and they are taking steps to improve the situation. Years of neglect can't be turned around overnight. |  |
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| Does the level of academy talent in the squad in recent years worry you? on 10:27 - Jul 21 with 229 views | blueasfook |
I think our academy has been something of an afterthought in recent years, but like you say getting Cat 1 status should hopefully some see good youngsters come through in the future. |  |
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