why do we even bother with these players? If we are never going to blood them then why sign them in the first place?
Isnt Brinkhurst at Lewes
Isnt Brinkhurst at Lewes
It's not the Youth setup irtself that's at fault - it's what happens after. We have had some successes like Virgo and Elphick but they didn't emerge from the youth team as fully-developed professionals; most if not all of the young pros we produce could benefit from at least a year out on loan. As you say we could get premiership kids and our kids can go to places like Eastbourne, Worthing, Crawley and Lewes. Sometimes, for reasons of economy or whatever, we've tried to bring the youngsters on too quickly and then they've been slaughtered by the CRETINS on here who immediately expect them to be fully mature....and playing really well by all accounts.
It really does amaze me why we bother having a youth set up. this is not a critisism ogf the players, far from it, BUT when you have managers who will go out and loan or buy players to fill positions and have to look for instant impact, then there is no point whatsoever in having youth teams.
Dean Wilkins saw the benefit of having youngsters and bringing them through.....everyone else since hasn't.
Personally I would get a system going whereby the Premiership teams have academies to bring on talented youngsters and then loan them out to championship/1st and 2nd Divi teams. Then the lower league teams dont have to develop the kids that they cant afford to do anyway.
It's not the Youth setup irtself that's at fault - it's what happens after. We have had some successes like Virgo and Elphick but they didn't emerge from the youth team as fully-developed professionals; most if not all of the young pros we produce could benefit from at least a year out on loan. As you say we could get premiership kids and our kids can go to places like Eastbourne, Worthing, Crawley and Lewes. Sometimes, for reasons of economy or whatever, we've tried to bring the youngsters on too quickly and then they've been slaughtered by the CRETINS on here who immediately expect them to be fully mature.
It's not quite the same thing as I'm a pretty crap footballer, but I went straight from playing schools football to playing in a mens' league and it was a hell of a culture shock - and I didn't have thousands of fans watching me or a few cretins slagging me off on the internet.
I think they've all had at least short loans, but I don't think that's good enough. I know Tom Fraser, in his first year as a pro, had about a month at Bognor and then made his 1st team debut in Wilkins' first match in charge (Millwall away). Not much of a transitional period for someone who went on to attract a lot of ire from the cretins I mentioned earlier.One of the issues is that the Youth programme (and this is nationally) is only two years. Previously it used to be three, so players are being spat out by the system before they're ideally ready.
Virtually all of our players who have come through the Youth system have gone on loan to gain some experience, and that is often the equivalent of their third year. I can't think of anyone who didn't.