[Archived] Rovers Young Guns

[den]

well den are you happy with the way the academy is being run,i'm not for one.over the years rovers have done there fair share off poaching now we produce players for the coca cola leagues,the academy needs a shake up

Waggy. The shortage of quality youngsters in our first team squad is down to one of two reasons. Either the scouts aren't finding the talent or the lads that are good enough wont come to Ewood. I don't believe it's down to coaching or as rover6 argues, Mark Hughes not giving the lads first team football. Mike England would have been a great player whoever coached him. Fred Pickering made a great centre forward, even though most of his time as a youngster he was coached as a full back.

The simple fact of having an academy makes no difference to any of those considerations. Rovers had as much of a chance of unearthing talent forty years ago, as we have now.

[AggyBlue]

The shortage of quality youngsters in our first team squad is down to one of two reasons.

Couldn't give a monkeys how many reasons there are. The fact is our Acadamy isn't producing first team players. Not one.

Somethings got to change.

[den]

Couldn't give a monkeys how many reasons there are. The fact is our Acadamy isn't producing first team players. Not one.

Somethings got to change.

Anyone got a "scratches head" smilie?

[speeeeeeedie]

R6, I don't know what point you are trying to make. According to you we've scoured the globe and found the aforementioned people, who will at best be a bunch of Sergio Peter's. Getting to Youth Cup Finals rarely means that the youth team has 9 Premier Leaguers in it. They may have 1, but more than likely they play well together, and are well coached. I'll keep saying it; Rovers do not get 1st pick on youngsters, and the local catchment area where they should rule the roost doesn't have enough high quality players. How many locals are currently playing professional football? I can think of Dunn, Ormerod, Beattie, and Chaplow. How many am I missing?

The simple fact of having an academy makes no difference to any of those considerations. Rovers had as much of a chance of unearthing talent forty years ago, as we have now.

The academy might sway a kid who may have signed for a non-academy club such as Rochdale, but it has no real bearing on overall prodcution, but I'm no expert.

[RevidgeBlue]

The simple fact of having an academy makes no difference to any of those considerations. Rovers had as much of a chance of unearthing talent forty years ago, as we have now.

An over-generalisation there surely Den. If we were in the position we were in when Howard Kendall was here i.e. no facilities and didn't even have our own training ground I might agree with you. But now at least no-one can say the facilities are a bar to attracting decent talent, even if other clubs have now caught up with us in that respect.

I don't necessarily agree with you when you say that the coaching is more or less irrelevant and that it's purely the quality of the raw material coming in, but just say you're right for a minute, are we simply lacking a charismatic figure with gravitas to persuade them to come? Dalglish, etc? Personally I wouldn't have thought it should be that hard a job to persuade a kid that he has a better chance of breaking through at Ewood than at one of the big four.

And I have to go back to the point that similar clubs to us like Boro, Villa, and Citeh seem to be making great progress with their academies whereas our output is consistently nil.

Why is that? It surely can't be a geographical fluke that there have been no decent youngsters emerging out of this part of the world for many a season?

[hollowsr]

I have to be honest I can't decide what is wrong with what is happening at the moment. I think Hughes was correct a few weeks ago when he said that the kids have it easier nowadays as there is no jobs to do for the senior players (e.g. boot cleaning) and so many think they have made it too quickly and are happy with what is happening at the academy.

Although to the people saying its just us not creating any premier league standard players. Look at Bolton they have created very few recently if any at all. Joey O'Brien is the only one i can think of at the moment.

[LeChuck]

Can't understand how you overlooked Kevin Nolan there. Nicky Hunt's got a lot of Premiership appearances under his belt too. Vaz Te seems to have been on the verge of being a first team regular for a while but it hasn't quite happened, there's still time for him though. Still, that's four first team members coming from the academy, better than ours at present.

We've got far better facilities than Bolton, and we're a far more established club, so we should easily be out-producing their academy.

[den]

An over-generalisation there surely Den. If we were in the position we were in when Howard Kendall was here i.e. no facilities and didn't even have our own training ground I might agree with you. But now at least no-one can say the facilities are a bar to attracting decent talent, even if other clubs have now caught up with us in that respect.

We do attract "decent" talent Rev. The vast majority of them aren't quite good enough to make the grade in the Premier league. Only the absolute cream of the countries youngsters attain that, and I reckon those kids get the choice of clubs.

I don't necessarily agree with you when you say that the coaching is more or less irrelevant and that it's purely the quality of the raw material coming in, but just say you're right for a minute, are we simply lacking a charismatic figure with gravitas to persuade them to come? Dalglish, etc? Personally I wouldn't have thought it should be that hard a job to persuade a kid that he has a better chance of breaking through at Ewood than at one of the big four.

Well that argument has always been used, but the fact is that most kids would be well swayed by the opportunity of going to Man Utd, Liverpool etc, before rovers. As for Dalglish, he went out personally, to visit Damien Duff and his family and succeeded in persuading him to come to Ewood. Without Dalglish and the fact that non of the other big clubs could match the academy at Brockhall at that time, he probably wouldn't have come down here.

And I have to go back to the point that similar clubs to us like Boro, Villa, and Citeh seem to be making great progress with their academies whereas our output is consistently nil.

Why is that? It surely can't be a geographical fluke that there have been no decent youngsters emerging out of this part of the world for many a season?

I'm not quite sure what you're saying there Rev. I'm sure that those three clubs don't pick up youngsters solely from their own doorsteps. However, don't you think that Micah Richards, Stuart Downing and Agbonlahor, for instance were all basically better individual talents than anyone we have had in the recent past, and if they had come through the academy at Ewood, would all have been in rovers first team now?

[Alan75]

Apart from Alan Judge, there was nothing to inspire confidence in the academy, watching the reserves last night.

rover6 Francis Zenaba has a cap for Congo, despite being a teenager. Apparently, he will be in their World Cup qualifiers squad.

On last nights performance, they must be desparate. - looked like a little boy lost in a shopping centre. lightweight easily dispossessed stray passes.- taken off just after half time.

Rigters, started ok, - had some good ball control involved in Rovers goal but drifted out of the game.

Result Rovers 1 (Judge) Newcastle 3.

[waggy]

Waggy. The shortage of quality youngsters in our first team squad is down to one of two reasons. Either the scouts aren't finding the talent or the lads that are good enough wont come to Ewood. I don't believe it's down to coaching or as rover6 argues, Mark Hughes not giving the lads first team football. Mike England would have been a great player whoever coached him. Fred Pickering made a great centre forward, even though most of his time as a youngster he was coached as a full back.

The simple fact of having an academy makes no difference to any of those considerations. Rovers had as much of a chance of unearthing talent forty years ago, as we have now.

well before scrapping the academy i would like to see a change in personal at brockhall,i for one do not accept that every decent player is at manu/liverpoo/chelski/arsenal etc but i do accept that the guys who are in charge at brockhall are failing in there job ie making first team players for BLACKBURN ROVERS

[den]

well before scrapping the academy i would like to see a change in personal at brockhall,i for one do not accept that every decent player is at manu/liverpoo/chelski/arsenal etc but i do accept that the guys who are in charge at brockhall are failing in there job ie making first team players for BLACKBURN ROVERS

Whoa, no-one's suggesting scrapping the academy and no-one's saying that all the best youngsters are at Man Utd etc either.

[waggy]

Whoa, no-one's suggesting scrapping the academy and no-one's saying that all the best youngsters are at Man Utd etc either.

well if the academy carries on failing to do it's job what is the point off wasting £xmillions running it,i thought that the quote that the lads who are good enough won't come to ewood ment they went elsewhere

[speeeeeeedie]

An over-generalisation there surely Den. If we were in the position we were in when Howard Kendall was here i.e. no facilities and didn't even have our own training ground I might agree with you. But now at least no-one can say the facilities are a bar to attracting decent talent, even if other clubs have now caught up with us in that respect.

Rev, you can't compare the Kendall era to now. I know what you're trying to say but we have to recruit youngsters based on the position we are in. The playing field has levelled regarding training facilities so we may have to try harder.

I don't necessarily agree with you when you say that the coaching is more or less irrelevant and that it's purely the quality of the raw material coming in, but just say you're right for a minute, are we simply lacking a charismatic figure with gravitas to persuade them to come? Dalglish, etc? Personally I wouldn't have thought it should be that hard a job to persuade a kid that he has a better chance of breaking through at Ewood than at one of the big four.

The youth coaches biggest job is acting as a sales person and getting kids in. This is the area where they may be lacking. The name on the door will go some way but some good persuasion may tempt kids to Ewood. Kids don't really care where they play, they just want to be footballers and the earlier you can get them the more comfortable they will be with the club and less likely they will be to go elsewhere. Kids who are still picking a club at 16 are either the world beaters who will make it anywhere or they're not good enough and will never make it.

And I have to go back to the point that similar clubs to us like Boro, Villa, and Citeh seem to be making great progress with their academies whereas our output is consistently nil.

Why is that? It surely can't be a geographical fluke that there have been no decent youngsters emerging out of this part of the world for many a season?

Boro are a shining example, I'll give you that, but Villa and City have large catchment areas to choose kids from. It's no fluke, it's a numbers game. Manchester has a metro population of 2.2million, Birmingham 2.3million. East Lancs has about 400,000 depending on what towns you take in. The competition is greater in bigger cities, there are more kids playing, more choice, and as a result better players emerge. I remember when I was playing Sunday League youth football. We played against Burnley teams, Blackburn teams, and the odd Accy team. In the Lancashire Cups we may have played a Preston or Blackpool team and lost more than we won. It was the same with district sides, they did OK but Manchester and Liverpool teams almost always came out on top. Nowadays the locals may be getting better due to coaching methods and such, but the big cities are doing the same keeping that gap in place.

Are there any other locals still playing? I still can't think of any more?

[Montfort]

I went to see the reserves on Monday night for the first time in some time. I have to say that there were very few names that I remembered from the last time I went. The reviews and write ups were very fair. We started quite brightly went 1 up but from then on were definitely the second best and were well beaten.

I have been going to the reserves for about 10 years now. During that time I have been excited and hopeful about a number of prospects, Paul Gallagher, Alex Bruce, Jemial Johnson, Cieran Donnelly etc not all of whom went on to realise the full potential that I hoped for. ( Incidently I did'nt pick up on Derbyshire to the extent you would expect. He seems to have kept on improving whilst others seem to plateau after a metioric start ).

However, I have to say that I didn't see too much on Monday. The exception is Judge. He catches the eye initially because he is not a statuesque as many but he is very busy and quite direct and decisive. Generally there seemed to be too many cross field balls or balls back to the centre backs. If these are essentially practice games perhaps they should be practising the decisive forward pass a bit more.

I felt sorry for Rigter. He started very brightly, full of energy and chased about all night. He did look a different class as one would expect but drifted out of the game perhaps because his efforts didn't come to much and normally when he got the ball there was too much for him to do. I don't know how old he is but if he is one for the future then OK.

[den]

I felt sorry for Rigter. He started very brightly, full of energy and chased about all night. He did look a different class as one would expect but drifted out of the game perhaps because his efforts didn't come to much and normally when he got the ball there was too much for him to do. I don't know how old he is but if he is one for the future then OK.

Unfortunately he's 24. EDIT- and pretty much as good as he's going to get. Just put it down to a mistake by Hughes.

Maceo Rigters

Date of birth: 22.01.1984

Country: Netherlands

Position: Forward

[Cocker]

Just put it down to a mistake by Hughes.

Not really Den, we paid hardly anything for the guy. If he turned out to be a gem well brilliant but as he hasnt really set the world on fire we havent lost much (when you think what Pompy paid for Nugent and compare what the two have done Hughes has been very wise)

[rover6]

Apart from Alan Judge, there was nothing to inspire confidence in the academy, watching the reserves last night.

On last nights performance, they must be desparate. - looked like a little boy lost in a shopping centre. lightweight easily dispossessed stray passes.- taken off just after half time.

Rigters, started ok, - had some good ball control involved in Rovers goal but drifted out of the game.

Result Rovers 1 (Judge) Newcastle 3.

To be fair, that was Zenaba's debut. The time to judge him his when he's got some games under his belt. But it's good he's getting reserve action because he has been a regular for U18 side.

I hear that the best prospect, aside from Judge and Doran, is Bussman, the German keeper. He's only 16 and he's already playing for the reserves. However, it's a very long way for a young goalie to make it into the first team, so I really am doubtful of his chances of getting between the sticks for the seniors. We have FIelding and Nielsen ahead of him, who are both rated highly too. Arestidou is a England youth international goalie as well.

[rover6]

Waggy. The shortage of quality youngsters in our first team squad is down to one of two reasons. Either the scouts aren't finding the talent or the lads that are good enough wont come to Ewood. I don't believe it's down to coaching or as rover6 argues, Mark Hughes not giving the lads first team football. Mike England would have been a great player whoever coached him. Fred Pickering made a great centre forward, even though most of his time as a youngster he was coached as a full back.

I agree with you there, Den. If we had Damien Duffs in the academy, it wouldn't matter if Bobby Downes put them on a regime of ballet practice, their progress to stardom would not be hindered.

My claim about youth talent being wasted relates to the second level of talent. The reasonable-to-good players. Here's my argument broken down into stages. I agree our argument is tedious because it simply goes round but if you can cite what stage of my argument you disagree with, we might get somewhere and agree to disagree.

PREMISE (1) There are some reasonable-to-good players coming through the youth set-up. In the past, this 'secondary level' of talent has, arguably, included players like Andy Taylor, Neil Danns, Jon Douglas, Jay McEveley, Jemal Johnson, Martin Taylor. Currently, this category includes people like Matt Derbyshire, Tony Kane, Eddie Nolan, Sergio Peter, Keith Treacy, Martin Olsson, ALan Judge.

PREMISE (2) Reasonable-to-good players usually need the manager to persevere with them and give them first team games to overcome their insecurities and perform to their maximum. As cited in another thread, the strength of Arsene Wenger's development policy is that he is not afraid to give a young player games to get to grips with the Premier League and fulfil his potential. Closer to home, look at the success Hughes has had with Aaron Mokoena, simply by being patient and persevering. Mokoena's a hopeless player. He came in and was abysmal in central defence. He played right back was poor. He played defensive midfield and was not special. However, Hughes retained faith with him, kept playing him and slowly, Mokoena improved and, although still a terrible player, he did make some positive contribution.

PREMISE (3) Hughes is not persevering with reasonable-to-good youth players who could contribute to the first team. Fortunately for Derbyshire, he came in and made an immediate impact and ever since, Hughes has used him, to good effect. However, Hughes has not shown any inclination to coax some of the other guys into useful squad players. His attitude seems to be that a youth player must be the finished article before he can get games. However, PREMISE 2, means that guys like Nolan, Peter, Kane cannot become the finished article until they have first team games to develop their confidence. It's easier for a striker who needs only score a goal to boost his confidence. If they score, their performance is not judged particularly harshly, even if they are anonymous.

If Sergio Peter or Eddie Nolan had received the ultra-patient treatment Aaron Mokoena has received from Hughes, they could arguably be making a useful contribution to the first team now, probably as squad players. But Hughes has patience for Mokoena but not them.

PREMISE (4) By not persevering with reasonable-to-good youth players, their development is stagnating and their talent wasted. If a player sees no chance of progressing, chances are that he will become demotivated, lose confidence and not fulfil his potential.

PREMISE (5) We are not utilising homegrown guys who could make squad players and therefore missing out on their contribution and missing out on money that might be raised by selling them. We have reasonable-to-good players who, given the opportunity could become squad players, at least. However, we are not pursuing this internal progression policy with any genuine intent. Instead, sub-standard squad players are being recruited, at further cost. Hence, we have Berner, Mokoena, Enckelman and in the past, Nisse, Jeffers etc.

We are wasting money tranfer fees and wages on sub-standard players being signed to fill squad roles. We should be giving reasonable-to-good youth players opportunities to become squad players and then eventually, if surplus to requirements, sold off for good sums (Jay McEveley). Young British talent, with a bit of Premier LEague experience, carries a premium in the transfer market. This would be a good way for the club to raise much needed money.

CONCLUSION: Whilst the academy is not producing genius', they are producing reasonable-to-good players. These guys need first team action to develop their confidences and reach their potential. This potential is, in some cases, enough to make them useful squad players. However, because they are not persevered with by Hughes (unlike new signings) they are not given the chance to develop. Therefore, their development is halted. Rovers miss out on useful talent and instead spend money importing sub-standard players to fill squad roles.

Not every youth player should expect to get the perseverence treatment from Hughes. But the elite few should be given this patient approach to coax their potential out of them.

(There you go Den, tell me what stage of my argument you disagree with and, I promise, I will leave it at that - agreeing to disagree).

[joey_big_nose]

Isn't it just true that the standard of the whole Premiership has vastly increased in the last eight or so years? The Premiership is full of much more talent imo, as well as much more atheltically able individuals, and as a results kids are going to struggle to keep up. Sides like Villa, Everton, West Ham, Ourselves, Manchester City all have some top top players.

The Premierhsip is getting better (note I did not say entertaining) and its tough to get a break.

That said there is a lot of truth in the "why can man city and boro produce players" argument.

But I don't think anyone can say that the bar has not been substatially raised.

[92er]

Premise 3; when Bellamy was here, Peter played a number of 1st team games and combined quite well with him. The following season he featured in some European squads but he has gone backwards. I don't know why but I presume MH has some reason for not featuring him and I further presume that it is not just a case of his face not fitting.

Premise 5. The signing of Jeffers, who I did not rate, seemed to follow the pattern set by the signing of Kuqi. He came on a free and we got a considerable fee for him. Jeffers was sold for less, but at a profit. I have wondered if Rigters was signed in the belief that we could make a similar sort of profit, which, if it were the case, has proved to be a disappointment so far.

[roversmum]

I understand Peter has had a serious injury and been out for some time, that is why he has not featured.

[JAL]

I agree with you there, Den. If we had Damien Duffs in the academy, it wouldn't matter if Bobby Downes put them on a regime of ballet practice, their progress to stardom would not be hindered.

My claim about youth talent being wasted relates to the second level of talent. The reasonable-to-good players. Here's my argument broken down into stages. I agree our argument is tedious because it simply goes round but if you can cite what stage of my argument you disagree with, we might get somewhere and agree to disagree.

PREMISE (1) There are some reasonable-to-good players coming through the youth set-up. In the past, this 'secondary level' of talent has, arguably, included players like Andy Taylor, Neil Danns, Jon Douglas, Jay McEveley, Jemal Johnson, Martin Taylor. Currently, this category includes people like Matt Derbyshire, Tony Kane, Eddie Nolan, Sergio Peter, Keith Treacy, Martin Olsson, ALan Judge.

PREMISE (2) Reasonable-to-good players usually need the manager to persevere with them and give them first team games to overcome their insecurities and perform to their maximum. As cited in another thread, the strength of Arsene Wenger's development policy is that he is not afraid to give a young player games to get to grips with the Premier League and fulfil his potential. Closer to home, look at the success Hughes has had with Aaron Mokoena, simply by being patient and persevering. Mokoena's a hopeless player. He came in and was abysmal in central defence. He played right back was poor. He played defensive midfield and was not special. However, Hughes retained faith with him, kept playing him and slowly, Mokoena improved and, although still a terrible player, he did make some positive contribution.

PREMISE (3) Hughes is not persevering with reasonable-to-good youth players who could contribute to the first team. Fortunately for Derbyshire, he came in and made an immediate impact and ever since, Hughes has used him, to good effect. However, Hughes has not shown any inclination to coax some of the other guys into useful squad players. His attitude seems to be that a youth player must be the finished article before he can get games. However, PREMISE 2, means that guys like Nolan, Peter, Kane cannot become the finished article until they have first team games to develop their confidence. It's easier for a striker who needs only score a goal to boost his confidence. If they score, their performance is not judged particularly harshly, even if they are anonymous.

If Sergio Peter or Eddie Nolan had received the ultra-patient treatment Aaron Mokoena has received from Hughes, they could arguably be making a useful contribution to the first team now, probably as squad players. But Hughes has patience for Mokoena but not them.

PREMISE (4) By not persevering with reasonable-to-good youth players, their development is stagnating and their talent wasted. If a player sees no chance of progressing, chances are that he will become demotivated, lose confidence and not fulfil his potential.

PREMISE (5) We are not utilising homegrown guys who could make squad players and therefore missing out on their contribution and missing out on money that might be raised by selling them. We have reasonable-to-good players who, given the opportunity could become squad players, at least. However, we are not pursuing this internal progression policy with any genuine intent. Instead, sub-standard squad players are being recruited, at further cost. Hence, we have Berner, Mokoena, Enckelman and in the past, Nisse, Jeffers etc.

We are wasting money tranfer fees and wages on sub-standard players being signed to fill squad roles. We should be giving reasonable-to-good youth players opportunities to become squad players and then eventually, if surplus to requirements, sold off for good sums (Jay McEveley). Young British talent, with a bit of Premier LEague experience, carries a premium in the transfer market. This would be a good way for the club to raise much needed money.

CONCLUSION: Whilst the academy is not producing genius', they are producing reasonable-to-good players. These guys need first team action to develop their confidences and reach their potential. This potential is, in some cases, enough to make them useful squad players. However, because they are not persevered with by Hughes (unlike new signings) they are not given the chance to develop. Therefore, their development is halted. Rovers miss out on useful talent and instead spend money importing sub-standard players to fill squad roles.

Not every youth player should expect to get the perseverence treatment from Hughes. But the elite few should be given this patient approach to coax their potential out of them.

(There you go Den, tell me what stage of my argument you disagree with and, I promise, I will leave it at that - agreeing to disagree).

Rover6, you say reasonable-to-good in a nutshell this standard isnt high enough, it has to be very good-to-outstanding inorder to aspire to the demands of todays premiership football teams who have aspirations of European football.

The reasonable-to-good standard has proved to be sufficient to meet the criteria of a lower football league player but it falls well short of your modern day prem player. The development is a two way thing and both are failing big time at Rovers the raw materials are faulty and the management seems faulty too in allowing this to continually happen.

[waggy]

saturday summed this thread up perfectly,we produce nothing from our academy and west spam bring a little boy on who scores the winner.a citeh fan was telling me city have produced 26 players from the academy in the last 10 years,earning the club 40 million in transfer fees,watch one yesterday play brilliant for dundee utd willo flood,we need action at brockhall

[rover6]

Rover6, you say reasonable-to-good in a nutshell this standard isnt high enough, it has to be very good-to-outstanding inorder to aspire to the demands of todays premiership football teams who have aspirations of European football.

Matt Derbyshire is reasonable-to-good. Nothing more. Is he not a useful member of the first teams squad?

Aaron Mokoena is tripe-to-reasonable - some would say he was a useful member of the squad.

To be a first team regular, generally, you have to be better but to be a squad player...?

[Paul Mellelieu]

Hughes is a jerk. Get rid, and get the kids in.