We were once renowned for bringing in top class youngsters. We were patient putting them in early and developing them within the first team. But somehow we have lost this.

I have found it sad that most of the Youth Cup winning team of 2005 are no longer at the club. Surely some of those players were and are good enough?

With the arrival of Marcus Evans's money we have been far more focused on bringing in ready made players, leaving only Owen Garvan as a player brought up through the academy when, only four years prevuously we had 14 players out of a squad of 20 brought through the ranks.

This is a mistake. Evans's money will only take us so far. The losses we are incurring in bringing in these players on high wages isn't sustainable. We haven't a sheik's money, so careful planning and development of our youngsters is needed.

Up till now, our buys under Roy Keane haven't been great. There is always a risk of players you buy. Using youth more would improve our chances of getting the right players. They will also be more hungry and most of the time loyal to the club.

If we are to get ourselves into the Premiership and sustain ourselves there, we need to drag our youth policy into the 21st Century.

Watford have shown that with a top class academy, excellent facilities and set-up even when things are bad you can still compete. At time of writing they are 13th only five points off the play-offs, which is not a bad return for a club that have sold millions of pounds worth of talent over the last two years. The football they are playing is largely a joy to watch too.

What they have done is pick kids from 11-18 to be developed in schools, giving them much more time to develop them as people as well as their technical skills.

Rather than have tired kids after 5 o'clock at night, three times a week, they can train with them during the day, every day, improving the players a lot more than most academies in the country.

To have an excellent youth team needs money, we must invest in this area now. We would see the rewards within two years.

Up until a few years ago Atalanta invested over £3m a year in their youth set-up. It has paid dividends with players such as Riccardo Montolivo and Giampaolo Pazzini, two examples who have gone on to better things, earning big money moves in the last five years.

This is the way forward for our football club. Finding classy youngsters improving them, then selling them on at a massive profit, giving us the money to invest in our youth team and improve the squad as well.

With so many clubs in the Premiership and below struggling just to compete, spending ridiculous amounts of money on average players, on wages and transfer fees (let alone agents' fees!) we need another different way. Youth is it.

When we finished fifth in the Premiership back in the 2000/2001 season our team had a great crop of youth players - James Scowcroft, Titus Bramble and Richard Wright to name three.

It was only the following season we we started moving away from this bringing in expensive flops that we started to struggle.

Having an excellent youth team, once we are in the Premiership, would give us more money to invest in buying better players, far more money as you would not need to spend as much on your squad with youth players coming through.

We also would be more stable bringing in a lot fewer players into the club.

Even Norwich, who had to get relegated to realise this, are now developing their youngsters with players like George Francomb and Korey Smith coming through. They will be regular first team players for years to come.

I want this club to be admired again for being a progressive club that can show other smaller clubs you can compete in the Premiership.

The club is geared for it, so, why not plan for it? But this need to happen now. We will then reap the rewards for years to come. So many clubs neglect their youth players, we cannot allow this to continue.

We must learn from our mistakes. Change now. Before it's too late.

Blueknight85 added 21:31 - Jan 28 my spelling and grammer is not wrong its original and makes no difference to the points made even an uneducated man is aloud his oppinion
0

MBG added 11:05 - Jan 29 It seems most of the posts are personal slanging matches rather than a response to the actual blog. I don’t agree with the argument that we’re not giving our youth a chance. It’s just that the talent pool isn't so deep at the moment. Tommy Smith and Liam Trotter were given plenty of opportunities to prove they could cope with senior football but the evidence was they’re not ready yet. Connor Wickham can’t have any complaints either. He’s not ready either but shows the most promise. I agree with the general point that we need to have a strong youth policy because teams with a concentration of homegrown players strengthen the club on and off the field – they have greater fighting spirit and don’t cost nearly as much to assemble. Marcus Evans has already blown a lot of money on the team and he won’t keep doing it forever. Sooner or later we’re going to have to stand on our own two feet and a big part of this is developing our own players. I am a bit concerned at the departure of Klug without any explanation. I hope it wasn’t because he felt sufficient resources weren’t being devoted to the Academy. Still, there is no evidence the Academy is being downgraded.

0

DrJeckyll added 11:06 - Jan 29 well done blueknight, you saved me a job. Some of the blogs on here defy belief sometimes. Connor Wickham, 16, getting first team chances. When was the last time that happened at Town. This is not about an opinion it's about facts, like the blog that claimed Town's defensive improvement was achieved at the expense of attack, when it was well known that we had had more shots on goal than any other team in the league. Unfortunately these are the kind of 'supporters' we have now

0

naa added 21:43 - Jan 29 blueknight: fair enough, didn't mean to suggest you weren't allowed to post with poor grammar etc (but I am a pedant I'm afraid and I do have to say that your spelling and grammar is wrong. But agree that that isn't the issue). Still think you could have made the posts shorter. DrJekyll: I agree that youth is being given a chance to an extent. I guess the blog was more focusing on the fact that only one of the youth cup winning team has properly come through to the first team. There must be something wrong with that. Not Keane's fault though.

0

Guthrum added 13:06 - Jan 30 The problem with the Academy is that, by its very nature, it's invisible. You don't see the good Academy players until they appear in the first team, unless you attend youth games (which, I admit, I have not). From what I've seen of reports of their games, there is a good crop of youngsters being brought through (e.g. Clark, Eastman), beating prestigious youth teams such as Arsenal. Apart from Wickham, they're still just outside the first team, but the signs seem healthy. The main problem with the idea of an entirely home-grown team, is that it takes an awfully long time - years - to progress from being a raw, talented teenager to a fully-fledged and firing Championship (or higher) player. If you need a striker, you can't just grow one on the spot. A youth such as Wickham needs to be gradually blooded into the team. For all his talent, he can't be expected to drop into position and instantly be up to speed. Of necessity, any team at our level will primarily consist of bought players. And sometimes things you buy don't turn out to be as good as advertised, not work or fail to turn up altogether. I suspect, also, that there never has been a constant stream of Academy players flowing into the Ipswich first team. I haven't the time to do a detailed analysis (or I, too, would be composing blogs), but I suggest that there have been good and bad years, sometimes several players progress, sometimes none.

0

Blogs 297 bloggers