Zatara
Player Valuation: £100m
Here he is:
So he got a chance for England and now heading off with Poland again...
Here he is:
So he got a chance for England and now heading off with Poland again...
As I understand it he’s been capped by Poland at u15 already. England have had at least three u15 camps in the past few months , roughly 60 players , Nsangou was in the first one , he’s not in the December one. They usually do a trawl of talent with multi camps at this age, I wouldn’t read too much into it yet.
Jake Doughty is also one of ours in the first camp.
Obviously it's "only" u16s, and not sure who the oppo are, but he looks really good there. Playing up a year as well I'm guessing? Defo looks like 1 to keep an eye on if he can keep developing. Looks to have god technical ability and a better footballing brain.
chrismpw
Player Valuation: £70m
Time for his own thread?
Zatara
Player Valuation: £100m
Hopefully with TFG now in place theres more focus on the youth sides and no need to sell en masse in future.
….the reality is, all clubs are finding it more difficult keeping hold of youngsters with the monies on offer at home and abroad.
Read all this nonsense about ‘pathways to the first team’ but there has always been guarantees of professional contracts beyond which the extremely talented come through and the rest don’t.
Glad to see in the mission statement of the new owners, our youth system will be pivotal in our makeup - going forwards ....
The Catt swore by this as players fees even back then were getting ridiculous - the team that won the title in 1970 was full of home-grown players signed young from other clubs too in some cases ... The average age of his squad was 22–24 years old ....
…..these statements are so much easier said than done, Joey.
You and I saw Husband, Tommy Wright, Royle, Hurst, Kenyon, Whittle et al on a conveyor belt of young talent in the 60s but times have changed significantly. Whilst we lived playing street football, honing our skill set whilst enjoying ourselves, kids of today don’t play and exercise to the extent we did so talent is less plentiful.
I’m afraid even Catterick would struggle unearthing youngsters these days and even when you do, other clubs can attract them in an open market. There’s no magic wand, it’s an honourable but difficult aim.
Simon Buttle
Player Valuation: £60m
Its keeping them interested in football also. As you said kids don't kick a ball about in the street anymore like they did when most of us were young (I'm in my 40's) and there are many more distractions these days. A mate of mine had a kid in the Brighton Academy until recently, he was seriously highly thought of by the club to the point where they had twice sent him abroad on special training camps and he was playing with kids older than him and he wasn't even 10 years old yet. Id seen him play a few times and he was ridiculous for a kid that age, I mean properly ridiculous, then he just woke up one morning and decided he didn't fancy it anymore. The commitments that went with the football training meant he was missing out on a load of normal kid stuff and he was getting frustrated with it.
This is a massive thing. It's not like the old days where you could just get the bus to training with a pair of boots and then do the same going home, stopping for a bag of chips on the way, the whole thing is an absolutely enormous undertaking for kids and their families and you can see why some of them fall out of love with the game.
Simon Buttle
Player Valuation: £60m
Its huge mate, I'm in West Sussex (my mate is also) Brighton is in East Sussex, its about 40 mins in the traffic (sometimes a bit quicker) They wanted an under 10 year old, (he signed for them when he was about 6/7 years old I think) to go for training in the evenings 3 times a week then matches at the weekend on top of school work! Its madness imo. He did have Chelsea and West Ham sniffing around him too which both his parents rightly said no as there was no way they could ferry him up and down to London multiple times a week.
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We can’t compete with that , Thelwell’s strategy is to identify players under the radar not identified by others like Benjamin, Clarke and Loney , it won’t always work but hopefully we can get a couple through to the first team eventually.
Keeping hold of youngsters is becoming a big problem. In September Chelsea lost one of their brightest prospects Ngumoha who signed for the RS just after his 16 th birthday. They were/are furious and banned scouts from RS and United from attending their games, stopped issuing team sheets, refused to let scouts mingle with parents and put the scouts in a small corner of the ground to restrict them . Ngumoha was on the bench for them the other night , no doubt part of the package that attracted him.
We can’t compete with that , Thelwell’s strategy is to identify players under the radar not identified by others like Benjamin, Clarke and Loney , it won’t always work but hopefully we can get a couple through to the first team eventually.
Bradthwaite ? They are out there in the lower divisions our scouting system needs a revamping!
….probably been a strategy for a bit thinking of the likes of Fraser Hornby and Brendan Galloway. The most successful strategy getting breakthrough professionals such as Stones, DCL, Branthwaite and even Holgate.
As you say, it’s an increasingly cut-throat market.
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