Very.
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Very.
Mutzo Nutzo
Player Valuation: £70m
Big Willy C is a footballing myth. He doesn’t actually exist. A virtual footballer who always seems to be available for transfer pre-season and then simply disappears.
Luuk De Jong and Davy Klassanin the same team
Amazaballs
Amazaballs
Our academy is excellent.
Nonsense to suggest otherwise.
In terms of the local, home-grown talent we have on our books, none of the top clubs come close to competing with us.
Brands' job will be to see how he can push that on even further.
TheBlueGibbon
Player Valuation: £40m
Should fit in with our lot then.
zzr45
#MURDERINGSCUM
Respectfully, that’s nonsense. We have one Academy graduate in our first team in the shape of Davies. We have a load on the periphery who’ll either make it or they won’t. Compare it to the likes of Academies in Europe and suddenly you see how it (and indeed the English system in terms of Talent Development) is actually, rather poor.
We actually have four players currently in our 'first team' - Davies, Rooney, Jagielka and Baines - who all came through the ranks at Everton. Yes, Jags and Baines both left for first-team footy, but they started at Everton. Ross was a key player for us until his agent got to him.
Dowell is a real talent, needs to be handled correctly though. Baningime has broken through this season and will hopefully be even more involved.
In terms of giving young players a chance we're at the top of the league.
Our academy is one of the best in Britain. Maybe that's not saying much, and there's always room for improvement, but we don't do bad.
Pabbers
Player Valuation: £60m
Shocking assesment of our academy.
Our fans will be negative even about the things we do well. You will be having a pop at our charity & community work next.
Our academy regularly produces players who are capable of playing regular Premier League football, which is exactly what it's there to do. To say that it's not fit for purpose is absolute preposterous. It's not La Masia, but it's most certainly fulfilling its purpose.
zzr45
#MURDERINGSCUM
Mm. That’ll be Rooney that’s off to America, Jagielka that went through the system At Sheffield Utd and Baines at Wigan. That leaves one.
A read through what the club actually considers a graduate is depressing. We’ve produced/nurtured one brilliant talent in Rooney. We managed to produce some lads that became stalwarts in Hibbert and Osman.
We’ve then produced a load of bang average players that haven’t really made an impact. Davies might go on to, but after this season who knows.
We should be striving for better, not using former successes to trumpet a system that clearly isn’t working.
Marius57
Player Valuation: £60m
Jon joe has been a massive part of our season this year as well.
Then there’s a load dotted around premiership (Duffy for example) and championship (young players getting experience who may still make it with us).
No team at the top has loads of academy players in their squad. You get one or two coming through that are good enough for what you want and the rest leave to get game time.
No point comparing us to Europe as many of those countries have set ups where all the clubs fill their teams with academy players. In England, it’s a different set up.
We should always be striving for better - but then fans have to do so as well and if we are to rely on our academy the way clubs in europe do, accept that success won't come overnight.
This exactly
chazzle_dazzle
Player Valuation: £35m
Think you're being ridiculously harsh on the academy there mate, we have produced in the last 20 years plenty of players who have played over 10 first team games for us... I don't even want to count how many. How many other clubs have done that?
Not every player that comes through the academy are a Rooney, they are once in a generation, we wont see another for a fair few years - however if we produce players who go on to play in the first team who do a good job and become good players - it doesnt really matter, the academy does its job.
zzr45
#MURDERINGSCUM
We were the 8th best team in England this year. Does that mean we should accept that fact?
Not saying it needs to change overnight, but there’s got to be a realisation that it isn’t good enough.
So the standard for success is lads that can play a quarter of a season for us then disappear? Look at the money wasted last season on utter dross - a functional academy prevents that. It produces something better than Martina at left back. A good academy should be creating players that come into the first team and are there for ten years. Again, it is a very English problem, but fingers crossed we can get a hold of it and actually lead the way in producing youth that pushes up the ability of the squad rather than having to bring in the likes of Bolasie, Klaassen, Martina et al.
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