Ajani Burchall turned down contract?

DJ said:
I did say “maybe”.

I didn’t argue whether it would be enough or if it had a financial return I said it would maybe be a benefit in this one off scenario. Of course I’m not advocating we should spend £10million so we could keep Burchill, but if it aided in improving our chances of keeping the next 10 Burchill’s then...

Along with first team players being happier about where they spend the vast majority of their time. It might not be tangible but no doubt if player x has a choice of identical contracts at identical clubs but one has a big training ground complex and indoor facilities and the other has portakabins and a field where they have to tip toe past dog poo to get in...they’re not going to look favourably on the latter.
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Dog s@&t park , round the back of the Crsecent ?
 
SlowDownDerek said:
I'm sure I saw that the training ground plans were going to cost £30m somewhere. That's probably why I'm a bit down on the idea as I'd rather that was put towards a new ground.
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The original plans were £10 million, the altered super fandango put us on a par with most clubs in Europe was £30 million.
 
Clubs like Chelsea have fabulous academies, but their first team usually never includes any of those players. They end up on loan to 3rd and 4th tier clubs.

Would be interesting to see a club by club cost benefit analysis of these academies.
 
Yes. The value of the academy to Chelsea is questionable. They've always been a club which can go out and buy any player they feel they need from elsewhere.

Having said that, a lot of other clubs are able to benefit from their academy by taking their players on loan. So I'm glad they persist with it, even if the academy is in no way crucial to their success or otherwise at the moment.

I think for a club like AFCB, or at least for the type of club we allegedly aspire to be, an academy would be much more useful. If we can bring players on into the first team without having to buy players at inflated prices on the open market, it should serve us very well in this league and the leagues below.

It would at least be a USEFUL legacy from our golden era if that ship has not already sailed. I'd still love to see it happen, but I have my doubts now, unfortunately. I think it was always EH's pet project and without EH I don't think Maxim will see the need for it.
 
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RobTrent said:
Clubs like Chelsea have fabulous academies, but their first team usually never includes any of those players. They end up on loan to 3rd and 4th tier clubs.

Would be interesting to see a club by club cost benefit analysis of these academies.
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Not sure that this is true at the moment Rob.
Tammy Abraham, Hudson Odi, Reece James and Mason Mount have all played a number of games for their first team this season
 
For my money the best step we can take to improving the output of our youth setup, and better equipping lads to bridge the gap to a Championship or above first team, is to improve the quality of opposition and regularity of facing them. That would do more for us than all the flashy facilities in the world. But in order to gain access to the competitions where the opposition we want to play are – we have to improve the facilities and gain the grading.

We currently pit our lads against Exeter, Bristol Rovers, Carlisle and Southend’s youth teams, which with all respect to them, isn’t ideal preparation for coming off the first team bench to face fully fledged Championship sides.

Then we try and bridge the gap by farming lads out on loan to L2 and L1 first teams, sometimes for years on end, sometimes never to be seen again.

Cat 2 would be attainable, sensible, and a good step. The full-blown academy complex aiming for Cat 1 is shooting for the stars knowing that you could land on the moon, but let’s just get over the Cat 2 line.

That would enter us into the 'Professional Development League' against the youth setups of Watford, Crystal Palace, QPR, Brentford, Bristol City for example. Not the mega clubs, but a sizable step up on who we face currently.

Which kind of opposition to we see our first team facing long term? That has to be reflected in what we do with the club's facilities.
 
tough one to call imo, game has changed a lot. like rob, would be interesting to see recent data on the subject.

seems like a lot of risk for a variety of reasons, considering the outlay.

you could argue we're better off picking up the elite clubs cast offs. come with decent pedigree, (trained with best coaches in game, facilities etc) and not much difference in success rate I'd imagine, in terms of who we'd still realistically be able to attract and hold onto with a top tier youth academy.

Also, it's not just the cost of building it, but ongoing costs. Even if you have decent facilities, you're still up against the stature, pulling power of the top clubs, so it's not like building a cat 1 facility guarantees anything. I also believe the best youngsters are heavily incentivized one way or another when it comes to choosing which academy to join...

Overall, I don't think it's worth it, if anything I'd be more on favour of Brentfords model and getting rid of it altogether and invest more in increasing/improving our scouting system.

Let them get the very best best coaching, playing with the best peers and world class facilities during their teens and then look to sign them when inevitably a load are deemed not good enough for the likes of chelsea, man u etc. I think the odds of success are higher or least equal going down this route, without any big, upfront outlays.
 
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If we enter the PL again with this 'Cat Level' not even being on a par with Championship or many L1 clubs, then wtf is going on in terms of our long term future trying to compete with the likes of Wolves, Burnley or Southampton etc.
That's before we talk Stadium Capacity for a decent amount of people to witness the fruits borne by any such upgraded facilities!

And..We don't hear what the proposals might be if there are any !
 
northstandmark said:
For my money the best step we can take to improving the output of our youth setup, and better equipping lads to bridge the gap to a Championship or above first team, is to improve the quality of opposition and regularity of facing them. That would do more for us than all the flashy facilities in the world. But in order to gain access to the competitions where the opposition we want to play are – we have to improve the facilities and gain the grading.

We currently pit our lads against Exeter, Bristol Rovers, Carlisle and Southend’s youth teams, which with all respect to them, isn’t ideal preparation for coming off the first team bench to face fully fledged Championship sides.

Then we try and bridge the gap by farming lads out on loan to L2 and L1 first teams, sometimes for years on end, sometimes never to be seen again.

Cat 2 would be attainable, sensible, and a good step. The full-blown academy complex aiming for Cat 1 is shooting for the stars knowing that you could land on the moon, but let’s just get over the Cat 2 line.

That would enter us into the 'Professional Development League' against the youth setups of Watford, Crystal Palace, QPR, Brentford, Bristol City for example. Not the mega clubs, but a sizable step up on who we face currently.

Which kind of opposition to we see our first team facing long term? That has to be reflected in what we do with the club's facilities.
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You make good points.

Hard to argue against striving to achieve category two since it would give regular, higher quality football to our youngsters.

If we can achieve category two status on the cheap, that would seem to me to be money well spent. Category one status should remain the long term goal but category two status should bring immediate benefits to the development of our youngsters and be much more affordable.
 
RobTrent said:
But how many have not come through?
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Is that the point though? Academies are either to create first team players saving the club money on buying young prospects such as John Terry or Mason Mount or selling players to recoup investment such as Nathan Ake and many others.
 
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