But in most cases Walsall’s academy players don’t make it because they aren’t as good as other players produced by other clubs academies and they need to have end product now.
I’m not saying I know what the answer is. The academies at this level still identify talent and still produce footballers and are important to the local community. The fact that the best talent is moved on before it can play for Walsall is just a natural evolution in elite sport.
Personally taking the best released talent and working with them would be a far more fruitful way for the club in general simply because pathway and opportunity for first team football is more likely at a club like Walsall for a 20 year old than it is at Chelsea or Man City. That’s just a fact. But clubs will still play the best player right now and often that’s a seasoned 28 year old….
And yet in years gone by, in the days before academies, we had a reputation for attracting and developing local talent. And by the way, none of the “success stories” you describe could have been any less developed in a traditional model of youth football, otherwise nobody would have ever become a footballer before academies.
Quite simply, because it worked better than what has come about since. If you look at our reserve team in say 1977 which competed at what was then, a decent level of non-league football, over half of that team formed the backbone of the 79/80 promotion team. Ditto the conveyer-belt of talent that came through our system in the 80’s when we competed in the intermediate league. Players didn’t need to go out on loan as individuals, because they were playing senior football as a team, and therefore developed as a team. And reserve football was absolutely key to injured players returning to match-fitness, something which seems far more difficult to achieve with the current model.
I went to watch Newcastle under 23’s a few weeks ago, so there’s the elite of the team sitting 4th in the Premier League, they got shagged with a ragman’s trumpet by Whitley Bay - completely pointless making players at that age simply play against same age players, it doesn’t benefit anyone from a footballing perspective, but yes they were all nicely toned and well-fed, and probably lovely lads.
Isn’t the point here that, because there are so many academies, any player we sign is likely to have been in an academy, which says nothing about whether they are a good thing. All the decent schoolboy players are hoovered up and, naturally, most of them do not make it. In the case of a League 2 side, unless we can make some good reason why a young lad should come to us, an academy is not much relevant to our first team because there are almost certainly better players being released by top teams who have had the benefit of top class coaching.
Where academies have arguably made a difference is with the national team, where the skill levels are much better than they used to be. The layers that come through have experienced coaching of the highest standard for a decade or more.
Our best approach to signing quality is to have a good scouting system and to treat players well when they come.
Back to your condescending best as opposed to just having a discussion
This doesn’t make sense. Of course before the days of academies players were produced. That was the pathway at that moment in time. It doesn’t mean that the pathway now is worse.
It’s like saying before computers we still made cars that got us from A to B. We now make them to get from A to B quicker, more comfortably, with music, traffic info, heated seats and more economically……it’s better now surely despite the fact we still made them the previous way.
Before academies of course Walsall, just like any other pro football club, will have attracted and produced local talent. There was no other attraction and the finances meant that clubs didn’t and couldn’t afford to take a gamble on players, late developers, potential. They had to pay them a wage and worked on small squads with no substitutes and didn’t carry the numbers or the finances that they do now so players were very very lucky to be identified and taken on in the first place let alone pick and choose where they went.
Unfortunately now, just like with Schools, universities and employment, the best talent goes to the best places. That’s just fact. The cat 1 clubs offer a football education akin to Oxford or Cambridge do to prospective lawyers and accountants!
The fact is the levels have gone up immeasurably. Players in the past were hugely less developed in the traditional model compared to todays academies. They still made it as Pros because there wasn’t any alternative pathway on offer. Players of the past, great players would’ve still been great players but they’d have had a hugely different education (academically speaking), athletically massively different, health wise and most definitely technically and tactically.
Just because they still made it as pros that doesn’t make the previous pathway equal or as successful.
But clubs aren’t interested in developing a team. They are developing individuals with the intention of collecting the most technically and athletically proficient and putting them into and coaching a team.
Even at U10s the clubs are only using 10-12 players to facilitate the development of the 2/3 in the group that are the best. Each year they chop out the bottom of the group and try to add to the top of it. I’ve seen the most successful youth teams (in academy environments) produce no pro footballers and I’ve seen age groups that were terrible produce 2/3. The environment is too competitive and too streamlined to produce a team. There will be a better CM in the year below and a better GK in the year above and so when they reach u18s they’re working with a 3/4 year age band and at u23s a 5/6 year age band. The best of the best of this 6 years not the best in one single age group. By the time they’re into the first team environment it’s unlimited ages and just the best right now. That’s how it allows for late developers and potential rather than the best team right now.
The sports science and the level of physical fitness negates much of the need for this. While I agree game time is key to recovery you’ll find most players in this day and age wouldn’t and don’t want to play reserve team football anyway and although they will often play a 23s game or an in house game, they get very little out of it physically and it’s more about psychological recovery.
We’d need to know the ages of those players. Most likely it was full of 17/18 year olds getting some preparation of adult football in a non league environment. Clubs use the local senior cup competition for their u18s, their next best play u23s (21s now), the really advanced ones play Papa John’s and the exceptional ones are already in the first team.
It’s evidence of the system working not evidence of it failing. If clubs fielded their best u23 players (inc first team players in a competitive fixture like this it would be very very one sided.
I’m not commenting on academies and their worth/merits. But that paragraph is not “just fact” it’s simply wrong. You clearly don’t understand how the UK works for education or employment, I give you the class system. The best connected, and those with the money, go to the best universities. And I would also argue that Oxford/Cambridge are not necessarily where prospective lawyers and accountants would be found applying for the best education/prospects.
Many people….most people would associate receiving the stellar education with going to Oxford or Cambridge! It doesn’t mean that I think that they are factually the best….or that they were the best for specific types of education.
The comment was an of the cuff comparison trying to demonstrate a typical example of excellence.
And the best talent in most disciplines more often than not goes to the best exponents of that.
As a parent if your son or daughter was highly intelligent you’d want them in the best school, if they were exceptionally talented artists you’d want them at the best art college, if they were exceptional musicians you’d want them at the best music school with the best music teachers….etc etc
Football, sport is no different if you have exceptional talent for any sport you would be fast tracked into an elite environment with the best coaches.
No it doesn’t. Literally no amount of science or physical fitness training substitutes for game time when a player is on the verge of recovering fully from injury, which is why every manager/coach at every level of the game stresses the importance of getting game time “minutes into legs” “match sharpness” etc etc
Which is EXACTLY my agrument as to why the old system worked better. Competitive un-age releted reserve football enabled the better players to become more easily and quickly intergrated into playing senior competitive football, both alongside and against more experienced players.
Lets take a look…
Max Thompson (England under 18 keeper), Josh Stewart (19) (Joe White 71 (20 - currently on loan at Exeter where he has made 4 first team apps in League 1), Charlie Wiggett (20), Nathan Carlyon (20 - full time contract), Matt Bondswell (20 - full time pro), Jamie Miley (19), Amadou Diallo (20), Josh Scott (20), Michael Ndiweni (19), Kyle Crossley (18) (Jay Turner-Cooke 55 ( 19 currently on loan at Tranmere having featured for NUFC first team in 3 friendlies), Cameron Ferguson ( 19 - son of big Dunc) (Dylan Stephenson 55 (20 - currently on loan at Hamilton where he has made 2 apps).
So very much a full strength team, not a 17 year old in sight.
The evidence of success or failure of a system of developing players, is in how many go on to be successful AT THAT CLUB, Walsall FC used to be very good a scouting, recruiting, and developing young players, and now we arn’t.
You need to re read what I said. I didn’t say it substitutes game time. I said it negates much of the need, enabling players to return to first team football much quicker than in the past. I agreed game time was key to recovery but said that many players wouldn’t want to be taking part in reserve or u23s football to recover and that they wouldn’t benefit much from it physically. If they did take part it would be at half pace and avoiding much if not all real contact and simply getting through the game would be the objective not fitness. Players are recovering quicker and quicker from major operations and are back playing quicker than ever. This is down to the science of recovery and training not playing reserve games. Most players (as we’ve seen) make their recovery back in the first team fold.
In respect of their academies. The ultimate aim is to have a good side on a Saturday in the first team. They have no interest in trying to bring a whole team through the age groups or into the 23s that would or could compete as a first team.
All first teams at every level are made up of various ages , various backgrounds and from various clubs. The only real common theme is that they will, in the main, all have attended an academy somewhere.
I’ll give you the benefit of thinking you may have misinterpreted my point otherwise is shows a cras lack of understanding of youth development in respect of physical, social, psychological and technical development.
I meant you cannot have a whole team come through from an age group. There is a widening of the pool of players as they progress through academies that means the stages of development are all over the place even taking into account ages. Most academy’s - sorry all academies - will judge players development on their chronological age, their physical age and their psychological age. These aren’t all the same in any individual and their progression through the academy into a first team will be based on this which is why you get some players bursting into the scene as a grown up 16 year old and some are drip fed through minute by minute before making an impact and reaching their potential at 24/25.
No, but plenty of scholars and plenty of younger 1st year pros that will most likely be way down the pecking order in respect of the best u18s and u23s registered.
Clubs at this level (Cat 1) will carry up to 24 scholars (12 from each age band 17-18), and a further 18-24 u23s players alongside a first team squad of 20-28!!! Potentially 70 full time pro footballers….they are sending their least experienced players of those that are ready for adult football into their local senior cup games. Often the non league side will overcome this. They are competitive, physical and laying the night of their lives and it means the world.
Rightly or wrongly completely the opposite to most young pros playing at a non league ground on a Tuesday night.
Arguably this is one of the benefits of the old reserve team football (competitive / physical). But clubs don’t need this anymore because they can source it from other avenues ie cup games / loans
No it’s not. Most clubs will base their judgement of success and failure by how many go on to be pros anywhere, whether any of them earned them any money and whether any of them play for their first team. It’s multifaceted and not binary at all.
I understand your standpoint and I enjoy discussing it. I’m not arguing for the sake of it but I have a very strong opinion on this and it is just an opinion so I’m happy to have alternatives offered.
But my standpoint is coming from someone who played in the old ‘reserve’ set up and who has worked in a Cat 1 academy. I know first hand if I’d have had the system in place now behind me I’d have stood much more of a chance of success. I wasn’t anywhere near ready physically, mentally and most definitely socially when I was exposed to adult football and a little more education on these topics as is the case with academies now and the damage wouldn’t have been done when it was.
Well given that most comments on here suggest that because he’s gone out on loan to Leamington at 20 years old his pro career must be over, we kind of are discussing Sam Perry……
But fair enough a 24 hour ban for going off topic is far more worthwhile than what has so far been a pretty interesting (in my eyes anyway) articulate discussion….
Well one minute he was pulling up trees and definitely a better prospect than Alfie Bates and then Covid came and that was it. I dont think it was anything to do with quality im definitely on the side that he has long covid and its affected him physically and mentally. A real shame
I feel sorry for perry. I feel he has been beaten up mentally as he was always a decent player imo
That ability hasn’t just gone he just needs to find it in himself again
I personally hope we stick by him
He is still better than Comley and still has potential and only 20
Come on perry turn it around!
The last 20 years, off the top of my head, I think all of the following were with us at age 16/17. Apologies if they weren’t.
They all played a decent number of games, or were sold for money, or both, or were stopped by injury in one case.
In no particular order, and not necessarily a definitive list, Westlake, Bradley, Taundry, Tank, Bennett, Nicholls, Dann, Smith, Roberts L, Roberts K, Benning, Paterson, Henry, Preston, Bowerman, Bakayoko, Demontognac, Morris…can’t think of any others who played more than a handful of games, Sensara would have played 25 or 30 though, I suppose, which would be good going of late. Only Kinsella* in recent years, and he made his debut almost a decade ago.
I think Deeney and Grigg were signed from non-league, not sure exactly how old they were.
*Edit; plus Alfie Bates of course, he must have played well over 50 games.
Mal Benning played 46 times for this club (could be more but only list league games on wiki). He came right through and has had a pretty solid career in league 2 and now a squad player in league 1.
Was probably unlucky he was in same era as Rico otherwise he’d have started a bit more.
Was Sam Perry really pulling up trees? Really? The odd good game/sub appearance
yes.
Last season, given a fair go, he couldn’t truly establish himself in midfield one of the worse Walsall teams in memory, when only having (I think) Kinsella, Labadie and Earing for competition.
He was at the point where he was genuinely considered part of the first team team squad, and not being treated as the promising youth teamer any more and in respect of being treated that equally, if he was AN Other player, with the record of Sam Perry, would there be the same thoughts on keeping him?
We as a club have moved on in those last 12 months and assuming Sam is released in the summer, I hope he can work his way back and ultimately has a decent career in the pro game.
