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Question is, do we really need a fancy new money soaking academy? The idea of creating a production line of young players sounds easy on paper and for a small club like Latics an academy even in the Championship or Premier League would be a massive drain on resources. For example look at the number of young players that go through the systems at Manchester United Liverpool and Arsenal etc only for the clubs to bring in players for crazy money ahead of all the masses of youngsters. The exact same would occur at Latics as it does now,with dozens of youngsters churned out but with only ever one or two making it.
Bolton have a superb academy at Lostock and Blackburn up at Brockholes. Both state of the art, both all the facilities under the sun. These two are not exactly thriving are they and both ridden with debt.
Again I think the subject was just raised at taking a dig at how Latics are run and nothing else. State of the art training facilities for our squads are another thing and are essential but these probably exist or could easily be improved at Christopher Park so why is an academy so essential?This was the reason being given for the current hiatus, environmental mitigation! Probably more than a few newts!
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504509709469940
Question is, do we really need a fancy new money soaking academy? The idea of creating a production line of young players sounds easy on paper and for a small club like Latics an academy even in the Championship or Premier League would be a massive drain on resources. For example look at the number of young players that go through the systems at Manchester United Liverpool and Arsenal etc only for the clubs to bring in players for crazy money ahead of all the masses of youngsters. The exact same would occur at Latics as it does now,with dozens of youngsters churned out but with only ever one or two making it.
Bolton have a superb academy at Lostock and Blackburn up at Brockholes. Both state of the art, both all the facilities under the sun. These two are not exactly thriving are they and both ridden with debt.
Again I think the subject was just raised at taking a dig at how Latics are run and nothing else. State of the art training facilities for our squads are another thing and are essential but these probably exist or could easily be improved at Christopher Park so why is an academy so essential?What on earth are you talking about?
The whole point of an academy is to stop this happening.
Young lads enter the academy, are trained and coached, and hopefully make it into the first team and/or are sold to other clubs.
The club don’t have the money to keep buying players, so they need to farm them.
In what way is that a drain on resources?
Investing in an academy is exactly what you need. It seemed to work for Southampton when they slipped to the 3rd division, and many of their academy kids flourished as they could be blooded in a lower league without fear of failure.
Admittedly the catchment area isn’t the same and competition is fierce from higher league clubs, but the lure of actually playing first team football, rather than 4 years in the youth team and a sub appearance in the league cup, may well persuade some kids to sign up!
Investing in an academy is exactly what you need. It seemed to work for Southampton when they slipped to the 3rd division, and many of their academy kids flourished as they could be blooded in a lower league without fear of failure.Admittedly the catchment area isn’t the same and competition is fierce from higher league clubs, but the lure of actually playing first team football, rather than 4 years in the youth team and a sub appearance in the league cup, may well persuade some kids to sign up!
Spot on Mutty.
Look at Crewe and Middlesbrough for examples of how it works.
We can still have a first second and junior sides. We have always had these things. Change the name at Christopher Park to Wigan Athletic Academy and hey presto there you have one.
No we can’t. Academy football is tiered on facilities and Christopher park can’t be improved to have the number of pitches (both indoor and outdoor) so we will continue to be in Category 3 playing the club’s with the poorest facilities and against the poorest players. We play some of our academy games at John Rigby with pretty awful facilities in comparison to most other clubs. Let’s just accept second best then. Costs around a million a year to run a top level academy. Amazing lack of foresight by the club for us to end up at this point. If we had made that commitment when we got to the premier league who knows where we would be now.
How many players started today for their Premier League sides that had come through that clubs academy? Ten from each match? Fifteen? Or more? Stattos please.
So do you want to be a ‘buying club’ who has to spend money to bring players in, or one that develops their own and in turn sells them on at profit?
I want us to bring on our own youngsters of course but my point is that we should prioritise the use of players we bring up. No clubs at all seem to do this to a large degree. Again in the Utd Arsenal game today how many players started who came through their huge academies, a dozen between them? ten between them?
They have the money and name to throw at players. We need to get players cheap and sell high. If we can develop them ourseleves then we can raise the price.
I want us to bring on our own youngsters of course but my point is that we should prioritise the use of players we bring up. No clubs at all seem to do this to a large degree. Again in the Utd Arsenal game today how many players started who came through their huge academies, a dozen between them? ten between them?I don’t know, but if ten (half the pitch!) is true (it’s probably much lower) then I don;t think that’s bad. You have to remember that English football is littered (bad choice of word) with players who came through the academies at United, Arsenal, Liverpool, etc. Sometimes their academy kids are not good enough for their own team but they produce players who go on to have decent careers elsewhere in the English game.
Nail on button and the majority of players we bring through will probably not make it with us but will go on to other clubs lower than us.
Who was it who thought of and implemented this elitist idea of grading clubs reserve/youth sides in comparison to what facilities clubs have? Never heard such bollocks. What ever happened to progression on merit. Sounds a little like an exclusive little club and just isn’t right.I speak as a relation of a boy who plays at Liverpool. Basically club’s like Manchester City, Manchester United and Liverpool now have satellite academies in Wigan to monopolise all local talent from the ages of 5-7. Wigan meanwhile only begin training boys at 7 and 8 at poor facilities meaning by then any local gems at that age go to one of the big 3. Games then start at under 9s where Wigan play the likes of Rochdale, Bury and Blackpool whilst the big club’s play each other. At that age their would be little point in a lower league club playing a Liverpool as in my experience the score can be humiliating. Because these club’s have these satellite centres in around 10 places they are obviously in a stronger position as they have sifted through all local talents. At the ages of 10-15 we would generally get those released by these bigger club’s. If you look at those signed professionally this year the majority have been released by bigger club’s from 14 onwards (Macmanaman and Baines came similarly). Sadly the approach of the big club’s and our lack of vision/ambition renders us sterile in attracting the best local talents. Kind of sums up what’s wrong with English football!
Yes the big clubs do monopolise young talent putting another dose of pressure on children and parents and raising false hopes. How could we compete with their monopolisation even if we had the best facilities in the world. Blackburn/Bolton have amazing facilities and are going nowhere. Utd Liverpool City etc poach all the best local youngsters anyway to dump them and let them down and totally destroy their confidence just for the slightest thing. To these major institutions they are a commodity and not young people.
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