Testament to the shambles of how we are being run at the minute. Especially the academy. Brian McClair still hasn't been replaced after nearly a year. The academy is currently being run by the clubs secretary and people wonder why we can't field an XI for some matches. We are a mess from top to bottom at the moment.Tweet
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Academy head of recruitment set to quit after becoming disillusioned.
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
Maybe it's needed. From what i have read he has been here since around year 2000, we have not had many(any?) class players coming through our youth system.
Probably wont be replaced either. The tea lady will take over the recruitment.
Yeah, United's youth record hasn't been very good in the 00's/10's. Hopefully we'll see something good come out of this in the next decade or so.
Ok...safe to say we're in trouble now...who is running this show?
The bloke on the left looks like one of those computer generated regen faces in Football Manager.
I remember Fergie doing a revamp in the youth department shortly after his retirement u-turn in 2002, part of which was to bring in coach Francisco Filho. Can't say it made a noticable different, at last in terms of first team players, but at least something was bring done.
Currently the feeling is we're... what, waiting for Van Gaal to have the time to deal with it? It should be out of the hands of the manager.
Currently the feeling is we're... what, waiting for Van Gaal to have the time to deal with it? It should be out of the hands of the manager.
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/twitter-discussion.383154/page-146#post-15769667
United advertised this role on the PFA website and accepted applications for it in May 2014 so to claim its because of Langleys disillusionment with how things are going recently is a bit of a stretch
United advertised this role on the PFA website and accepted applications for it in May 2014 so to claim its because of Langleys disillusionment with how things are going recently is a bit of a stretch
Position still has not been filled 20 months later...
So this is a complete over-reaction. First off, Welbs and Cleverley, those are his head line academy grads? Welbs and Cleverley were local lads and they were in United's academy/system well before this guy was at United, if he was at United since 2000.
In addition, I've just had a look see on manutd.com. There is a job vacancy at Carrington, which closes in four days. So the youth academy is/has been under-going change and it looks like this bloke will not be part of it.
Title of job: Development Centre Coordinator.
Role of job (but limited to):
The purpose of this role is to manage and co-ordinate a Pre- Academy Development Centre Programme, identifying and recruiting elite young players of the quality required for Manchester United’s Academy.
Working closely with the Academy recruitment department, the Development Centre Coordinator will ensure the Development Centres have a continual stream of young players attending for talent assessment, regularly assessing the quality of those players, whilst providing a safe development and working environment for them, their parents and staff.
In addition, I've just had a look see on manutd.com. There is a job vacancy at Carrington, which closes in four days. So the youth academy is/has been under-going change and it looks like this bloke will not be part of it.
Title of job: Development Centre Coordinator.
Role of job (but limited to):
The purpose of this role is to manage and co-ordinate a Pre- Academy Development Centre Programme, identifying and recruiting elite young players of the quality required for Manchester United’s Academy.
Working closely with the Academy recruitment department, the Development Centre Coordinator will ensure the Development Centres have a continual stream of young players attending for talent assessment, regularly assessing the quality of those players, whilst providing a safe development and working environment for them, their parents and staff.
Why would it have been filled when he's still there?
Hadn't realised this was Langleys role, I was thinking of McClairs my bad
Let's be honest... Our academy can't get any worse than it's been these last 15 years.
LvG said when he became United manager that due us being 7th season before he cant focus on ranks below first team in 1st season or 2...and for me that should be his number one task on priority list,sadly it isnt. While we chase/demand top 4,title,entertaining football,things under all that are falling apart. If i am not wrong Fergie when he came made some calls regarding number of scouts and so on.
No, it's not like we've had many make their debuts over the past 2-3 years...
Some of the comments here are ridiculous. We may not have had another class of 92, but we've produced a staggering number of players who are currently doing well at PL and championship clubs.
Of the traditional big four, we're giving more game time to youth players than anyone at the moment. Over the last ten years we've been the most successful club in the youth competitions (U21 league, Youth Cup). The Premier League is absolutely riddled with former Manchester United youth players - I read an article on the topic a year or two ago, can't remember the actual numbers but we're ahead of everyone else by an insane distance. We're producing an ever-greater density of talents like Welbeck, Januzaj, Lingard, Wilson, Pereira - and only recently are these kids regularly getting the chances necessary to demonstrate their talent and potentially make their way into the first team, which is an incredibly difficult thing for clubs with trophy ambitions to do, more now than ever.
Oh, maybe the players just aren't that good and that's why they weren't getting chances in the team until recently?
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Indeed. It's actually quite difficult for elite sides to bring through top players.
Anyone got a transcript of the full article? I wouldn't be surprised if this guy was being binned since the academy has been mediocre for quite a while.
Pretty sure there's an agenda in the media currently to depict about our academy like something sort of a catastrophe.Everytime we have been linked with a youth player it's "to restock the lack of talents currently in the rank" despite we have been doing it (importing talents) every year and some of the names aren't even better than what we have at the same age group.
We have been linked with names like Arsenal's Jonker,Spur's McDermott who has quite a good relationship with our academy or Chris Casper (who's working for the PL to support the academy system of North West PL clubs) for the academy head role, which suggest that we're going to find the most suitable (available) candidate for the job instead of just let the old boys like Butt to do it single-handedly.
About Langley he's retiring anyway and I guess he has something to do with some of the mess in the foreign recruitment in the U18s in the last 2-3 seasons so wouldn't be surprised if we're trying to overhaul a bit in that department (this is a pure guess anyway)
We have been linked with names like Arsenal's Jonker,Spur's McDermott who has quite a good relationship with our academy or Chris Casper (who's working for the PL to support the academy system of North West PL clubs) for the academy head role, which suggest that we're going to find the most suitable (available) candidate for the job instead of just let the old boys like Butt to do it single-handedly.
About Langley he's retiring anyway and I guess he has something to do with some of the mess in the foreign recruitment in the U18s in the last 2-3 seasons so wouldn't be surprised if we're trying to overhaul a bit in that department (this is a pure guess anyway)
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The reason McNair, Borthwick-Jackson, Blackett, Pereira, Lingard and even Januzaj have made their debut is more to do with a lack of strength in depth of our squad, rather than that they are actually top talents. All of them should be on loan at Championship or lower end Premier League teams.
The purpose of our academy isn't to churn out mediocre players who will do a job for Stoke, Sunderland or Burnley. It's to produce the next Scholes, Giggs, Iniesta, Beckham, Terry, Xavi etc. To that effect we've not had a single successful graduate integrated into the first team since Scholes in 1994. In terms of strikers we've not had a successful graduate since Mark Hughes in 1983.
Of the traditional big four, we're giving more game time to youth players than anyone at the moment. Over the last ten years we've been the most successful club in the youth competitions (U21 league, Youth Cup). The Premier League is absolutely riddled with former Manchester United youth players - I read an article on the topic a year or two ago, can't remember the actual numbers but we're ahead of everyone else by an insane distance. We're producing an ever-greater density of talents like Welbeck, Januzaj, Lingard, Wilson, Pereira - and only recently are these kids regularly getting the chances necessary to demonstrate their talent and potentially make their way into the first team, which is an incredibly difficult thing for clubs with trophy ambitions to do, more now than ever.
Oh, maybe the players just aren't that good and that's why they weren't getting chances in the team until recently?
We've been fantastic at giving mid table clubs a few decent players, but we've been tragic when it comes to bringing players through to make a difference to our first team. I can't name a single player that's currently in our squad (so would have graduated in the last decade) who'd be worth more than £6-7m if we tried to sell them.
I just hope this is the catalyst for change.....
Youth Development simply must be a priority at the club......
Youth Development simply must be a priority at the club......
We need hire the guy who can find the next Messi, right @nick2004?
O'Shea,Brown,Fletcher,Evans,Welbeck,Cleverley?People are deluded if they think players need to stay at the club for their whole career to be considered "successful graduate".
It's hilarious that people did not complain in the 2000s period when we were absolutely terrible at producing players but there're a lot of talks now when things actually are much better.The current hyperbole on everything regarding the academy without much actual insights is getting ridiculous.
Regarding the article, the claim that Langley is disillusioned working under John Alexander might be well true as I've heard some not really good things about our secrectary.
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That's a tough ask even for Barcelona which is why you rarely see clubs replicating what we did with the Co92 or what Barcelona did with that all conquering team, there is all sorts of rules that curtail what clubs can do because at the end of the day we are talking about children hence these transfer bans we are seeing now. The fact that our academy is well represented in the PL and the championship is a good achievement considering the circumstances and it is not for naught either because the development and transfer fees gained do add to our budget, albeit a touch insignificantly, and the few that made it like Evans, Fletcher, Brown and JoS made significant contributions to the trophies we won so it's not fair nor true to state that Paul Scholes was our last successful graduate when the players I'v mentioned have contributed to the first team for at least five season each.
So, no information on why he might be disillusioned, just a random assertion. A story of doom without a basis in fact.
The academy should be targeting the development of Manchester United first team regulars, which hasn't been happening all that regularly.
So not pushed about the news.
So not pushed about the news.
I saw a documentary on MUTV years ago, when Welbeck was still in the academy, and the head of the the academy said their responsibility was to the lads, ideally to get them a career in the game, at whatever level but failing that, to a decent education level (they go to a local college).
That's like saying, the purpose of a university is to churn out people with first class degrees or a school, A* star students. That would be a ridiculously narrow purview; unworkable for a number of reasons. Chief among them is the fact that talents like Scholes are rare; an academy will thus only produce such players once a decade or so. Second, talents like Scholes have to learn their trade alongside lesser, 'supporting cast', players. Therefore, even when you are producing a Scholes, you will be simulteneously producing mediocre players.
Just what's required. The philosophy of tumescent football lacking imagination and creativity ingrained at every level of the club.
One of the few saving graces of the Van Gaal era is that he has left the academy well enough alone.
I'm not saying we produce three of them every year. Hell I'm not even saying we produce one every year. However I'd like to think with our scouts scouring the entire globe and us bringing 16 year old talents who are already highly developed from all across Europe, that once in every 5-10 years we could produce a player that would make a real difference. A player that would walk into our rivals' first teams. The fact we haven't produced this player since Paul Scholes must be somewhere between a huge concern and gross incompetence.
The fact that you're highlighting Cleverley as one of our crowning achievements over the past 20 years is exactly what I'm talking about.
Maybe this is where we need to change our approach. Our responsibility shouldn't be to invest a load of time and money to give Stoke or Sunderland a good player now and again. Our primary responsibility should be to providing our first team with quality players, our secondary concern should be covering the costs of running the academy (player wages, coach wages, groundsman, rent, depreciation etc) in transfer fee's received. We certainly aren't fulfilling our primary objective and I'd be surprised if we're even covering our secondary one.
The difference is students pay for their university education; our academy "graduates" don't pay us for the privilege of training them. Instead it costs us millions of pounds every year investing in them in the hope that they'll make an impact on our first team, or at the very least sell for a price to cover our costs.
If we're producing one player like Scholes a decade and that's our aim, fair enough, but we've still massively failed. The last time we produced a player like Scholes... Was Scholes... in 1994. So we haven't produced a once in a decade player in 22 years. Then there are also the level of players who aren't once in a generation but would be worth maybe £25m on the open market; quality first team players who cement themselves as a permanent fixture in the team without being one of the best in the world (Southampton have produced maybe 5 of these recently as a comparison). We haven't produced any of these either. So apart from somewhat mediocre squad options who could be bought for £5-10m if we didn't have an academy, who've we produced?
I'd love to know the criteria that says our academy has been good these past 20 years, unless that criteria is that a few players saved us spending £5m here and there.
I don't think we've done bad at bringing players through considering it gets harder and harder to be able to include them enough.
Dont the Dutch still have a good name for developing youth players these days as well as historically ?
Maybe some fresh blood and ideas are needed for our youth set up.
Maybe some fresh blood and ideas are needed for our youth set up.
does anyone know if the radius / mileage limit from Carrington to sign youth players still applies or was that lifted? I remember back in the 90's / early '00s there was no limit (ie. we could sign players from the South coast etc) but then the FA put a rule in place that clubs could only sign "local" youth players. This obviously had an impact on us.
I'm assuming it's been lifted but wasn't sure.
I'm assuming it's been lifted but wasn't sure.
@finneh the standard for a Paul Scholes type of player is pretty high and the youngsters might have potential but the need games to fully develop from around 19 to 22 games we do have to invest in them because we'd be in the hunt for trophies and high league finishes and this is why you see clubs like Atletico and Dortmund churning them out by the dozen. It's the nature of the beast we've become and we can't have it both ways.
@finneh You don't "produce" players like Scholes, you develop them. The problem is that if you don't have those talents in the first place, you have nothing to develop. The question that people should ask is, did we missed a talent in the last 20 years, is there an other local club who developed him?
Three recent academy graduates are an integral part of the team that's joint top of the Premier League. Meanwhile, United have a couple of academy players sat on the bench while we're in 6th place.
the player you find and develop is always going to have a deep affinity with the club and understand what it means to be part of Manchester United.....
valuable in today's game given the loyalty and attitude of some players
guys like Brown, O Shea, Nevilles, Butt, Evans, Fletcher etc have been crucial cogs in our squad at times without being world beaters like Scholes......
give me a homegrown Wes Brown or John O Shea over Rojo, who we spend about 16 million on(?) every day of the week
valuable in today's game given the loyalty and attitude of some players
guys like Brown, O Shea, Nevilles, Butt, Evans, Fletcher etc have been crucial cogs in our squad at times without being world beaters like Scholes......
give me a homegrown Wes Brown or John O Shea over Rojo, who we spend about 16 million on(?) every day of the week
I wasn't referring to the cost, rather the scope, which would be restrictively narrow if the aim was to produce only elite level players: I think it would be unworkable since you cannot find enough elite level talents to populate an academy.
What is the annual cost of the academy, btw? Is it more than the income generated in sales and the cost saved in incoperating players such as McNair in the first team squad?
Not saying Pogba is equal to Scholes, but I would argue he is elite level.
@finneh
I think your mindset is idealistic and a bit simplistic.
There is a great deal of luck involved in getting world class players out of your academy. Look at Barca, their well has gone dry, they have imported their two most recent superstar players in Suarez and Neymar. Rakatic and Turan being their big imports into midfield.
I think your mindset is idealistic and a bit simplistic.
There is a great deal of luck involved in getting world class players out of your academy. Look at Barca, their well has gone dry, they have imported their two most recent superstar players in Suarez and Neymar. Rakatic and Turan being their big imports into midfield.