Summer transfer window 2021.

[Hoochie Bloochie Mama]

Just now, Ewood Ace said:

We have a Category 1 academy that is at best producing mid table second tier players. I'd have thought given we have an elite academy we would be producing players better than that. You could run an academy much cheaper and at a lower level than Cat 1 if your aim is to just produce decent Championship players.

If you're producing players via the Academy who are good enough for your 1st team you are saving a hell of lot of money in transfer fees. Travis, Lenihan, Nyambe etc would not be cheap, especially now as British players will be at a premium post-Brexit. And all that for the £2m a year it costs the club to run the Cat 1 Academy (grant excluded)

Be careful what you wish for. 

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Ewood Ace said:

You could run an academy much cheaper and at a lower level than Cat 1 if your aim is to just produce decent Championship players.

Yet there's no evidence to support this. Nobody running a Cat 2 or Cat 3 academy is managing to produce the same amount of Championship quality footballers. We wouldn't be able to get your Travis',  Rankin-Costello's, Butterworth's and more without that Cat 1 status.

There's only us and Derby continuing to produce a high volume of first team players from the academy and we're the only two PL2/Cat 1 academies in the league, I think that speaks for itself.

If we did run a Cat 2 academy, you might produce a Hayden Carter once in a blue moon, but you won't have even half the talent we have now. You simply couldn't produce what we produce without it.

[Exiled_Rover]

11 hours ago, bluebruce said:

You don't always need power. He is pretty fast, could get faster yet, with a terrific shift of pace. Great work ethic, clearly a lot of hunger. But what I like most is he has the fastest feet, widest array of dribbling tricks, and not far off the best ball control I've seen in a Rovers shirt (started watching in the 90s before anyone wades in with Douglas etc), at just turned 19. If he doesn't get to the top flight without an injury or moronic manager interfering with his best development years, I'll be astonished.

And to head off some probably inevitable replies to this - Duff competes for fastest feet, but whilst I'd say he was a better overall dribbler for sure, I dont think even his feet shifted the ball quite as quickly, it was his reading of opponents and probably pace that made him better at beating a man. Rochina is up there for the tricks, and I said not far off for the ball control because Tugay was the king of that. However you slice it, and whichever players I might have forgot, I've not seen many that best young Dolan for those categories. That doesnt make him a better player than than them and others yet, but he has so much potential. Once he learns to read the game and how best to use his attributes, he will be frightening. He really should be starting for us now whenever fit though, and I think some people have taken the fact he doesnt as a slight on him rather than on TM's bungling.

Oh and Sparks, if you meant Jack Wilshere, a lot of his failing to fulfil the hype was his injuries. Still had a much better career than nearly all of our players will have though, power or not. 34 England caps.

Come off it. We've clearly been stuck in the mud for too long.

Literally nobody in our current side would get a sniff in our PL sides. Dolan might have quick feet down here (his only one real 'super strength' tbh), but he's not a patch on a while host of ex-players I could mention.

I'm glad we got him for free and that he's making a go of his opportunity, but he'll never play in the Prem.

[chaddyrovers]

Rovers's head of recruitment Stuart Harvey leaves us for Sunderland..

Rovers are advertised the position. Fully expected Bruno Reis or Glyn Chamberlain will get the role

[Exiled_Rover]

16 hours ago, JoeH said:

All of those players could, would and will sell for millions of pounds. On free deals at a young age it’s top recruitment.

Our youth recruitment team continue to find the best of the areas released players and continue to develop them into good Championship footballers for our first team. 

As I said previously, whoever is in charge of scouting / signing the released players from other Academies can stay. They're doing a brilliant job.

Everyone else on our coaching staff can go though.

Sadly that's where we find ourselves - even with a Cat 1 Academy we're low down the totem pole on resources / attraction for any NW players. Why sign for Rovers if City / Utd / Liverpool / Everton offer you a contract?

We just have to continue to polish up their discarded gems to promote to our first XI (I think Mowbray has been incredibly conservative with the Academy prospects, I'd have more of them playing for the first team) while we remain in the Championship.

[Sparks Rover]

51 minutes ago, Hoochie Bloochie Mama said:

He's posted a few isolated instances.

Rovers 1st team could be half filled with Academy lads next season, all good enough for the Championship. Name me another club doing that in the Championship? Criticising the Academy is bizarre, it's the only part of the club that actually appears to function to it's full potential. 

Dolan is a product of nobbers shit academy up UCLAN.  Ours has under performed for years....I can find us 2 more U18s at nobbers now that are as good if not better than Dolan, relative to their positions.

Our academy is flabby, needs trimming.

[Exiled_Rover]

4 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Rovers's head of recruitment Stuart Harvey leaves us for Sunderland..

Rovers are advertised the position. Fully expected Bruno Reis or Glyn Chamberlain will get the role

Brilliant, it gets better and better at Ewood(!)

[bluebruce]

4 hours ago, Sparks Rover said:

No, the Jack who was here a few seasons back., I certainly wasn't comparing Dolan to Wilshire....not in the same stratosphere. 

The nobbers let him go after having him for several seasons, you are describing him as a world beater with control better than you've seen in a long time.  My view is that they let him go for a reason.  He has had a decent 6 months and that's it.  Hopefully he will develop but I'm not convinced. 

You can have outstanding attributes without being a world beater. Yet. I think he will be going very far, although obviously not everyone fulfils their promise ( I'm sure we all remember what happened with Freddy Adu).  I also think Preston made a huge mistake, and I don't care why they did it. They're far from the first. And I'm certain they already regret it.

Newcastle let Shearer go at youth level, so whilst he isn't Shearer, if that can happen clubs can drop the bollock on young players to any extent.

[Sparks Rover]

4 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Rovers's head of recruitment Stuart Harvey leaves us for Sunderland..

Rovers are advertised the position. Fully expected Bruno Reis or Glyn Chamberlain will get the role

We would do well to get Stevie Nickson from Newcastle...local lad, rovers fan and his dad still works down Brockhall....Good lad is Stevie...

[Sparks Rover]

1 minute ago, bluebruce said:

You can have outstanding attributes without being a world beater. Yet. I think he will be going very far, although obviously not everyone fulfils their promise ( I'm sure we all remember what happened with Freddy Adu).  I also think Preston made a huge mistake, and I don't care why they did it. They're far from the first. And I'm certain they already regret it.

Newcastle let Shearer go at youth level, so whilst he isn't Shearer, if that can happen clubs can drop the bollock on young players to any extent.

Let's see and revisit this in 12 months.👍

[bluebruce]

10 minutes ago, Exiled_Rover said:

Come off it. We've clearly been stuck in the mud for too long.

Literally nobody in our current side would get a sniff in our PL sides. Dolan might have quick feet down here (his only one real 'super strength' tbh), but he's not a patch on a while host of ex-players I could mention.

I'm glad we got him for free and that he's making a go of his opportunity, but he'll never play in the Prem.

Lmao ok, whatever you say. Not going to debate it, made my opinion clear, you've made yours clear. I feel confident about which of us will look silly in 5 years.

[Hoochie Bloochie Mama]

Just now, Sparks Rover said:

I can find us 2 more U18s at nobbers now that are as good if not better than Dolan, relative to their positions.

There's a vacancy at Rovers for Head of Recruitment. You should apply. 

[bluebruce]

3 minutes ago, Sparks Rover said:

Let's see and revisit this in 12 months.👍

3-5 years, but you may have a different view in 12 months too. Hard to say how quickly players will kick on, development is funny like that. I'm sure Preston didn't expect Dolan to be slotting one past them a few months after release. He might continue to develop at that rate, or he might get Mowbrayed, injured, not have the capacity to learn more in the game, whatever.

[Hoochie Bloochie Mama]

'Mowbrayed' should be in the Dictionary. 

[JHRover]

So Head of Recruitment off to a 3rd division club. 

I hope Mowbray is not involved in appointing his successor.

Why should either of the existing scouts get this job?

Promote from within and save money will be the focus here i suspect.

[Guest]

SH will be replaced in-house

[chaddyrovers]

24 minutes ago, JHRover said:

Why should either of the existing scouts get this job?

Glyn Chamberlain has been head of scouting at clubs before being appointed Head of European scouting here. Here is his CV

https://www.linkedin.com/in/glyn-chamberlain-19660abb?originalSubdomain=uk

Edited March 31, 2021 by chaddyrovers

[Ewood Ace]

1 hour ago, JoeH said:

Yet there's no evidence to support this. Nobody running a Cat 2 or Cat 3 academy is managing to produce the same amount of Championship quality footballers. We wouldn't be able to get your Travis',  Rankin-Costello's, Butterworth's and more without that Cat 1 status.

There's only us and Derby continuing to produce a high volume of first team players from the academy and we're the only two PL2/Cat 1 academies in the league, I think that speaks for itself.

If we did run a Cat 2 academy, you might produce a Hayden Carter once in a blue moon, but you won't have even half the talent we have now. You simply couldn't produce what we produce without it.

We are only producing so many first team players because the bar is so low. The academy is no better now than it was 10-15 years ago but the bar has dropped so low now that players are getting into the team, 10-15 years ago none of the current crop in the first team that have come from the academy would have got near the first team.

 Look at other clubs in the Championship. Norwich, QPR, Barnsley, Swansea and Birmingham I have already highlighted. Nottingham Forest have made big money over the years selling the likes of Brereton, Burke, Osborne, Cash and Appiah. Middlesbrough made £15 Million from Gibson, Luton got a club record fee for James Justin who is every inch a Premier League player. Bristol City made getting on for £30 Million on Bryan, Reid and Kelly. Yet all our academy is producing is at best mid table Championship players.

Being able to produce a player/players to sell for big for sums of money is a great help to club's finances, to FFP and can if used correctly can improve your team. You do have to question why one of the supposedly elite academies in the country has not produced a top player since Phil Jones over a decade ago. As I said earlier Exeter have produced two better players in the last 5 years in Ampadu and Watkins than we have managed to with cat 1 status.

Look at the players in the England squad there are 3 players in it who comes through at Sheffield United when they were a 2nd/3rd tier club and they aren't category 1. Two players came through at Southampton when they were a 2nd/3rd tier club. Pope came from Charlton, Stones came through at Barnsley who aren't cat 1. Phillips came through at Leeds when they were 2nd tier and they weren't category 1. Bellingham came through at Birmingham who aren't cat 1, Watkins came through at Exeter who aren't near being cat 1. The majority of those academies I assume you would say are inferior to ours yet they have been able to produce players who have gone on to play at the top level and yet we haven't been able to so for over a decade. 

I think a lot of our fans hugely overrate our academy. I doubt that there are many fans of Championship clubs looking on enviously at the standard of player we are producing from our academy. 

Edited March 31, 2021 by Ewood Ace

[JHRover]

8 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Glyn Chamberlain has been head of scouting at clubs before being appointed Head of European scouting here. Here is his CV

https://www.linkedin.com/in/glyn-chamberlain-19660abb?originalSubdomain=uk

It that his role at Rovers? Head of European Scouting? 

Only I've never seen any mention of him from the club either in interviews or on the website under 'whos who'

Is his position a full time one? 

Who decides who gets the Head of Recruitment job? 

[chaddyrovers]

6 minutes ago, JHRover said:

It that his role at Rovers? Head of European Scouting? 

Only I've never seen any mention of him from the club either in interviews or on the website under 'whos who'

Is his position a full time one? 

Who decides who gets the Head of Recruitment job? 

Yes that is his role at club and its fulltime one. 

The head of recruitment position is being advertised on the Rovers website. 

https://www.rovers.co.uk/club/job-vacancies/

[Ewood Ace]

1 hour ago, Hoochie Bloochie Mama said:

If you're producing players via the Academy who are good enough for your 1st team you are saving a hell of lot of money in transfer fees. Travis, Lenihan, Nyambe etc would not be cheap, especially now as British players will be at a premium post-Brexit. And all that for the £2m a year it costs the club to run the Cat 1 Academy (grant excluded)

Be careful what you wish for. 

We are producing mid table Championship players. If you could produce at player that goes for the sort of fees that I have mentioned previously, then you have a nice sum of money to put towards transfers but also balance out FFP and improve the clubs finances. I think it's a fair question why can clubs with supposedly inferior academies to ours produce players who Premiership clubs want and are prepared to pay significant money for but we have not been able to for over a decade.

[Mike E]

2 hours ago, Ewood Ace said:

We are producing mid table Championship players. If you could produce at player that goes for the sort of fees that I have mentioned previously, then you have a nice sum of money to put towards transfers but also balance out FFP and improve the clubs finances. I think it's a fair question why can clubs with supposedly inferior academies to ours produce players who Premiership clubs want and are prepared to pay significant money for but we have not been able to for over a decade.

Have they? Off the top of my head, I can only think of Delle Alli, Grealish, and Henderson who have been of top PL quality equivalent to Jones from academies inferior to ours to attract top 4 interest.

I'm probably missing a few, mind

[Sparks Rover]

2 hours ago, JHRover said:

It that his role at Rovers? Head of European Scouting? 

Can you imagine the interview. "So, in your role as European Head of Scouting, can you give me your top 3 European recruits?"

[Sparks Rover]

I hear we have some interest in Otis Khan at Tranmere.  Might sort our right wing back problem out on the cheap. Worth a punt I'd say. Ex Utd so brought up well. Will have good technique 

[rigger]

8 minutes ago, Sparks Rover said:

I hear we have some interest in Otis Khan at Tranmere.  Might sort our right wing back problem out on the cheap. Worth a punt I'd say. Ex Utd so brought up well. Will have good technique 

Have we got a right wing back problem? I didn't realise we played with wing backs.