Academy/Development/Youth Squads/U18/U21 2026/2027

[coolhandfox]

3 minutes ago, davieG said:

But both were interrupted by serious injuries and are only just fully recovered, hopefully so we'll never know what might have been especially as we've been shockingly bad over that period.

 

29 minutes ago, Phil_Dunphy said:

Agree but Alves has made 6 first team appearances. Albeit mainly a few minutes each.

I know, but I'm not sure we can honestly say that we've had a strong player development pathway into the first team over the last few years.

 

It's only now, arguably more through necessity than design, that we're seeing players like Braybrooke, Alves, Aluko and others being given opportunities.

 

Hopefully, that starts to change the perception and creates a more consistent route from the academy to the senior squad.

[davieG]

11 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

 

I know, but I'm not sure we can honestly say that we've had a strong player development pathway into the first team over the last few years.

 

It's only now, arguably more through necessity than design, that we're seeing players like Braybrooke, Alves, Aluko and others being given opportunities.

 

Hopefully, that starts to change the perception and creates a more consistent route from the academy to the senior squad.

Sure but have we had those players to develop KDH, Barnes, Thomas, McAteer, Stolarczyk have all come through with relatively decent levels of success  and Nyoni / Noubissie who chose to leave who else has missed out?

 

[coolhandfox]

8 minutes ago, davieG said:

Sure but have we had those players to develop KDH, Barnes, Thomas, McAteer, Stolarczyk have all come through with relatively decent levels of success  and Nyoni / Noubissie who chose to leave who else has missed out?

 

I 100% agree they've done a good job, but not to the extent that I'm surprised when players decide to jump ship.

 

For the club to survive in its current predicament, it's not enough to simply be good. We need to be great. That's the reality of the situation.

 

Take Bassey and Maswanhise as examples. One has gone on to become a decent Premier League centre-back, while the other ended up as the top scorer in the Scottish Premiership. Neither really got a sniff here.

[davieG]

6 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

I 100% agree they've done a good job, but not to the extent that I'm surprised when players decide to jump ship.

 

For the club to survive in its current predicament, it's not enough to simply be good. We need to be great. That's the reality of the situation.

 

Take Bassey and Maswanhise as examples. One has gone on to become a decent Premier League centre-back, while the other ended up as the top scorer in the Scottish Premiership. Neither really got a sniff here.

Bassey wanted out because he wanted to a FB but has ended up as a CB anyway. Maswanhhise may prove to be successful outside the Scottish Premier if that's a measure of our failure I can live with that.

 

As for the 2 that jumped ship there's little we could do about that we're never, ever going to compete with the likes of Liverpool and Man City and we'll have to wait and see if they made the correct decision. Also even they lose players who can't get a look in.

 

Of course we need to be better but that applies across the whole club and you could argue that our Academy success has been badly affected by the poor performance of the Senior level of the club soi in the circumstance the Academy and it's staff have performed very well.

[Holly B]

5 hours ago, D_Fox said:

Man city 

Along with two of our u14’s