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Is there an issue with them doing that though? The target audience is young kids hoping to build a fanbase for the future. This thread is crazy, it's not affecting anyone's lives it being promoted more, just ignore it if you're not interested! They deserve a platform to be promoted on, and hopefully getting kids into it will mean more young girls get into it, meaning the standard will increase more and more as the years go on and also crowds will go up. I hope it works

Sell Pulisic for £60m Buy Brandt and Hazard for £48m Well played Dortmund... well played Premier League clubs continuing to get royally screwed and seemingly be fine with it!

Yeah Potter clearly has some real quality about him. Ask any Swansea fan, they’ve no idea how they didn’t finish bottom let alone almost make a run for the play offs! As upset as they are there’s not been a bad word said about him as in their eyes he’s stopped them from doing a Sunderland! Brighton have also been tracking his progress for four seasons so he clearly fits whatever they’ve been looking for. I’ve even seen press speculating about him being the next England manager already... I wouldn’t be surprised, Ashworth himself said he’d been monitoring him for a while (possibly with U21’s in mind) so with his connection to England, that sort of appointment after a good spell at Brighton wouldn’t surprise me at all! I love his name mind.... sounds proper conference north manager If Ashworth gets recruitment right this summer they could have a proper dream team on their hands there at Brighton... it’s also no surprise fans of Dans past club WBA wish he was still their sporting director!

You know it’s Rudkin who would have made all the decisions with regards to loaning out young talent right? Before being DoF he was head of youth development and I’d guess still is given the wording of Congerton’s announcement. You’ll struggle to find another club that have had two youth coaches in place as long as we have! And that’s not always a good thing... for starters you have to ask where is there ambition? They’re comfortable and probably know they’ve done well to move up the divisions with us and would have to take a step down a division if they moved on so there’s no personal ambition there. Besides it wont be labelled as a sacking; probably an end of contract thanks for your service job

It’s all just opinion mate, I certainly wouldn’t have a go at yours if it was put across in a readable and thought out way so not sure why you should? The sunderland signings weren’t put on there to say Congerton had done a good job, I’m convinced half the people who had a go at me didn’t even read it! They were put there to show he was rarely working under a manager who was a) sane or b) would listen to him.

It's not though is it? Monaco absolute ****ed themselves when they loaned him to us. That move showed they didn't value him, just because he did well for half a season doesn't mean we should instantly pay their new valuation now they've realised they screwed up. As i've said before, there's clearly still fitness issues there and a tendency to have a run of off games (half the reason he was loaned out in the first place!) We'd actually be stupid to bow down to £40m up front straight away! No reason why £20m + significant add ons isn't reasonable, it's just us doing our diligance on a player we're not actually 100% sure on yet, no matter how well he settled in.

Not really... I'm of the opinion they will never call anyone Chairman as long as KP are the owners here, and I actually hope it will be a tradition.. like retiring a shirt number. The CEO is the only position that needs to be filled and we have one of those A chairperson in any business is really just there to advise and be a public face.

It's usually July mate. They've definitely not kept them a secret as they announced the colour of both at the Chelsea game as part of the prize balls. They also said Pink was away kit and 'Grey' was change kit. Interesting that as I thought it would be other way round!

We've done it loads of times before or has everyone forgotten?

King was 2007 Moore 2010 Schlupp 2011 Chilwell 2016 Hamza 2018 Barnes 2018 Beaglehole and Peake have been there since the late 90's!! The board will have seen that the likes or Saints and Spurs and even in the lower leagues with Norwich are able to churn out 1 or 2 prospects a season that can either be used by the first team or move on. As I mentioned above we've had 3 or 4 seasons with an increasing reputation where we have more or less had the east midlands catchment area to ourselves.... I just hope we've done enough to capitalise on that (some of the prospects in the U18's look like we may have) Simple fact remains though that the style of play Beaglehole and Peake believe in just doesn't exist anymore, it's why O'Neill and Allardyce will only be employed for short periods of time for quick fixes by clubs now. With a new training ground on the way it's only right we scale up in this area, i'd like to see a head of youth development in place as well alongside Congerton, it's something most Premier League Clubs have. I actually think the club hinted at this appointment when they announced Lee as they specifically stated he was in charge of Senior recruitment. Ben Petty was hired as he was highly rated, I wouldn't be surprised to see him take charge of the Dev Squad.

The 'recent graduates' is an interesting point. We had a cluster all at once with Barnes, Hamza and Chilly. To be honest with a return like that over about 15 years, you could equally put that down to a law of averages that we would have 'one good year' with the academy, rather than any coaching in particular. The club have been talking about wanting to be self sufficient for a while now, of course you can do that by bringing in young prospects from abroad and selling them on, however you also want to be seeing one or two prospects a year moving from the dev squad to the First Team, making them valuable assets, similar to Southampton and to a lesser extent with regards to selling, Spurs. I hope we haven't missed the boat a bit on developing the academy whilst we were pretty much the only Premier League club within miles and miles!

I wonder if we’re not far off considering sponsorship. The KP global PR push has had more exposure than they could have ever expected, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the training ground and shirt sponsored by someone new come 2020-21

Excellent! Plan in place for a new man or is it Ben to take charge? Just to add... fair play for the loyalty and some successes, but definitely time for a change, especially with new facilities on the way!

Hmmm I’m more of the opinion one of them has gone. Been waiting for it for a while, especially now we’ve got a manager who likes things his own way. Positive move if it is one of them. We should be getting an academy graduate in the first team once a year not in a big clump every 5-10 years.

The beagle or the peake?