A case for patience

[Joelasticot 111]

Alright guys,

I see a lot of pessimism and negativity towards our youth policy wandering in the dusty corridors of this forum . I understand why a lot of people want the club to be pragmatic, especially after the poor run of results (by recent standards) we've had over the past year. In my opinion long term will always beat short term and I am adamant the results will come. We have to understand that not only establishing an efficient youth system is a long term process but also developing young talents into top class players isn't any faster. To put it in a nutshell : It's the story of the rabbit and the turtle.

The club, AVB and Abramovich especially, are always looking for good examples in other clubs. And we have seen that Roman can sometimes be a "I see it, I like it, I want it, I get it". And it goes far beyond players themselves. I'm convinced the club regards barcelona as a model in many ways and that they are trying to copy and paste their youth system.

We are building a factory here, and the first products are slowly coming out of the warehouse for everyone to see.Think of sturridge, he's what I'm talking about (I'm actually thinking of Eva right now, wait... she also comes from our youth system doesn't she?). Of course, you don't build a factory if you're willing to release only one copy of you product. Once the machina is up and running, we'll see more and more players coming through. I'm sure Roman knows a lot more than me about industrial ways.

Don't get me wrong I know those young talented lads aren't guaranteed world class players in the making. I know some of them will probably never be good enough to play in the premiership. So let's say only one out of 5 will make it to the first team or get good enough to be sold to another club for an interesting amount of money. I say get 10. And it seems to be the club's policy right now. I don't know if you like it, but i think you should and i definitely do.

[eldo 868]

That constant complaining about our youth policy is quite annoying indeed.

It's like those Kalou jokes.

[strong centreback 157]

Only thing im gonna say about our youth team/set up is this, before roman came in our youth setup was for lack of a better term an after thought, it may as well of been stopped due to the amount of neglect it recieved, since roman came in he has built world class facility's for the first team through to the youth team, the whole psychology of the club towards youth football has shifted from what it was under gullit/vialli/ranieri, the current crop of u15 youth team footballers are apparantly one of the best in the country for their age group, these are players that have benefited 100% from the better facilitys, the better coaching on offer and the right frame of mind from the upper management lets see over the next 5 years how many of them make it into the squad and then judge how the club has done, as at the moment we are judging the youth set up on arnesons signings when he went down the wenger route of signing 16 year olds and trying to polish them up into first team squad players, which with a multitude of managers coming and going hasnt helped.

[manpe 10,855]

Sturridge is a bad example, we bought him... to be clear, are we talking about splashing and buying all the talent or producing some ourselves (from the depths of obscure toddlers and adolescents)? If it's the latter, we have a right to be worried.

[termninja 5,290]

Yes, it indeed requires a lot of patience and for me it is essential that we establish a good working youth system. Roman will not always be there, but the youth policy and system will. I don't know all details about finacial fair play rules but unless we find a way to bend them we won't be able to spend as much as we have until now and having talented youngsters will definitely helps us out on that field.

It's a touchy subject though. We can debate about youth for a year and we still wouldn't clear things up and in the end most of the people will stick to their opinion anyway

But we have made improvement comparing it to the last couple of years. Let's see what will Andre do next season.

Lukaku, Bertrand, McEachran, Kakuta (if he ignites on his loan) are players he can think of including into the first team from the next season and with the future aditions of Bruma, Kalas, Courtois, Piazon, Chalobah, Kane and couple of others it is not neccesary for us to spend a lot of money on expensive players.

I only hope the club don't throw everything in the water again, spend big on postitions we have talented players for and send youngsters on loan again or dump them in reserves.

We also have world class trainning facilities and good roles models for players to learn from. Andre is good with Coyle and Brendan can also help us with loans. We also have Holland for work permitless players and Hamburg in Germany so it's not like we are in a bad shape right now.

[zolayes 14,489]

it isnt as if we are starting from scratch with our young players . We are buying young overseas players (some for considerable fees),

It seems to me either our scouting system is poor or the coaching below the first team. In the past 6 years we have had countless age group

and U 21 internationals yet none have made our starting 11. My belief is that the coaching isnt up to the task.

[Fernando 6,376]

1. What we actually doing is a Wenger. Buy young players around 18, and give them that extra push
   
2. Very hard to bring youth when you keep firing manager
   
3. After Terry the real product from our academy is Josh
   
4. FFP will make it worse for England cause most big clubs will continue to do what Chelsea is doing. Buying younger players from 17-20 age bracket.
   
5. And last it's also about right timing. United had a golden generation, now they are lacking badly....maybe has to do with buying overseas players....
   

[zolayes 14,489]

1. What we actually doing is a Wenger. Buy young players around 18, and give them that extra push
   
2. Very hard to bring youth when you keep firing manager
   
3. After Terry the real product from our academy is Josh
   
4. FFP will make it worse for England cause most big clubs will continue to do what Chelsea is doing. Buying younger players from 17-20 age bracket.
   
5. And last it's also about right timing. United had a golden generation, now they are lacking badly....maybe has to do with buying overseas players....
   

we can't even bring through our overseas players ... Tore ,, Stoch ..Borini Bruma ...Kakuta.

will wait to see if Josh makes it

[Fernando 6,376]

we can't even bring through our overseas players ... Tore ,, Stoch ..Borini Bruma ...Kakuta.

will wait to see if Josh makes it

I remember Carlo saying it was hard to bring younger players in big clubs.....

Maybe the problem is the "big club, big ambition, big deadlines"

Wenger has not won jack shit in ages and still get to keep his job....

[eldo 868]

Foreign players joining at 16 is something usual here.

[LDN Blue 7,903]

That constant complaining about our youth policy is quite annoying indeed.

It's like those Kalou jokes.

That doesn't stop making it a huge cause of concern.. On both counts

[eldo 868]

That doesn't stop making it a huge cause of concern.. On both counts

It's stupid, for example people are writting off Bruma before they have even seen him play in germany, assuming we are going to sell him...Why do we always want to make the club look stupid?

What about constant calls for Josh to be played when he clearly needs to improve his physical appearence. Even swans fans have ssaid that.

[cujo101 75]

Patience? The one person that needs patience is the owner. The problem I have with Chelsea is that the constant turnover of managers leads to established, experienced players being bought at the expense of youngsters. Think about it - it's taken Chelsea a decade to bring through a player of sufficent quality to play for the team (only for us to loan him out). I believe that we have must of had youth players that are good enough to make it in the last 10 years but they haven't had the opportunity. How can Chelsea not bring through one player every 2-3 years? Last summer when I saw JM playing in friendlies I foolish started to believe that he was going to start in games! Shows how naive I was. TBH, seeing Chelsea buy all these young players doesn't mean anything to me because I don't really believe that they will get a chance. KDB? The manager didn't even have him in his plans - what great joined up thinking...

...sorry but this subject really, really f***s me right off.

[manpe 10,855]

exactly.. only the clubs that trust and back their managers 100% get the occasional wunderkind 'cause they have no pressure if it doesn't go right

[eldo 868]

Jack the lad is injured.

[LDN Blue 7,903]

It's stupid, for example people are writting off Bruma before they have even seen him play in germany, assuming we are going to sell him...Why do we always want to make the club look stupid?

What about constant calls for Josh to be played when he clearly needs to improve his physical appearence. Even swans fans have ssaid that.

That, I will most definitely agree to!

While it's concerning, you're definitely right that it doesn't mean we should rush them either.

[Joelasticot 111]

Patience? The one person that needs patience is the owner. The problem I have with Chelsea is that the constant turnover of managers leads to established, experienced players being bought at the expense of youngsters. Think about it - it's taken Chelsea a decade to bring through a player of sufficent quality to play for the team (only for us to loan him out). I believe that we have must of had youth players that are good enough to make it in the last 10 years but they haven't had the opportunity. How can Chelsea not bring through one player every 2-3 years? Last summer when I saw JM playing in friendlies I foolish started to believe that he was going to start in games! Shows how naive I was. TBH, seeing Chelsea buy all these young players doesn't mean anything to me because I don't really believe that they will get a chance. KDB? The manager didn't even have him in his plans - what great joined up thinking...

...sorry but this subject really, really f***s me right off.

Hence the AVB over Ancelotti choice. Roman experienced the problems of short term thinking as much as we did. I'm sure he learned from it, he's not a stupid man.

Do you think that if he hadn't changed his mind about the way to go we would still have only two low profile signings in this transfer window?

Back in the days he would have splashed the cash. Right now he prefers to wait and see, and I'm sure this has to do with young players.

There is not a single decent businessman in this world who would have extended the contract of emloyees he thinks they have no future in his company.

[Naked Mole Rat 437]

We are building a factory here

No we are not, and we shouldn't be. We are more than capable of producing first-team materials or making profit off young talents. We have great talents. It's just that we fuck things up all the time. Gokhan Tore is already looking like someone who's worth at least five times the amount Hamburg paid us for him. Same goes for Stoch. We made a total of 5 million pounds of profit off him, but you know what? I bet we'll probably have to pay about 10 to 15 million if we are to get him back from Fenerbahce. What about Borini? Could we have saved those 50 million pounds we spent on Torres had we not ignored Borini? Maybe a bit far-fetched, but at that time he was on fire, and we could have at least given him a chance. It's not a big ask for the fans to demand the club take some kind of action to make our investment in youth pay because we really can be doing better.