Southampton

[Gym Beglin]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/southampton/11199367/St-Marys-is-the-perfect-academy-for-youngsters-at-the-Southampton-dream-factory.html

 

Makes me weep. They've nailed it and we look amateurish in comparison,

 

In recent years, Soithampton could have fielded a squad built around local youngsters including:

Walcott, Bale, Lallana, Chambers, Shaw, Oxlade Chamberlain, Ward Prowse,

Preposterous rate of player production.

[Paco]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/southampton/11199367/St-Marys-is-the-perfect-academy-for-youngsters-at-the-Southampton-dream-factory.html

 

Makes me weep. They've nailed it and we look amateurish in comparison,

 

In recent years, Soithampton could have fielded a squad built around local youngsters including:

Walcott, Bale, Lallana, Chambers, Shaw, Oxlade Chamberlain, Ward Prowse,

Preposterous rate of player production.

sold them all didnt they

[Paco]

Wanyama and schneiderlin injured. Last time schneiderlin was out they went on their poor run

[Trumo]

Spent most of the past decade in the Championship. Not exactly a like for like comparison is it? Any English club that wants to compete regularly in the Top 4 and play in the Champions League tends to buy in its players rather than promote from within.

[Major Tom]

Spent most of the past decade in the Championship. Not exactly a like for like comparison is it? Any English club that wants to compete regularly in the Top 4 and play in the Champions League tends to buy in its players rather than promote from within.

 

Pretty much this. And their big improvement obviously came when they were taken over by a billionaire.

 

Their youth productivity has been excellent lately. You (one) can't argue with that.

[El Rojo]

It's been a Dortmundesque emergence.

 

If we can't get top four, I hope they do.

[Bjornebye]

I fucking hate the scummer twats.

 

 

 

Play up Pompey, Pompey Play Up

[Dr. J]

Koeman's class, he hired Sammy Lee while we're stuck with second rate dross as assistants.

[magicrat]

It's been a Dortmundesque emergence.

 

If we can't get top four, I hope they do.

We will both be out with the washing where the top 4 is concerned

[El Rojo]

We will both be out with the washing where the top 4 is concerned

 

Most likely, yes. Hopefully not though. 

 

Big test for them with Schneiderlin and Wanayama both out for around the next month, men who made Lovren look like a £20m centre half.

[magicrat]

Most likely, yes. Hopefully not though. 

 

Big test for them with Schneiderlin and Wanayama both out for around the next month, men who made Lovren look like a £20m centre half.

They're likely to drop points. No easy games for them coming up and last nights cup win may proved to be a double edged sword.. I think we will be battling against them and the Spuds for 5th come the end of the season

[stringvest]

If they manage to hold their position while they're without their best players I'll be gobsmacked.  

[Jairzinho]

They were unlikely to finish third even without injuries. United and Arsenal will end up above them.

[stringvest]

They were unlikely to finish third even without injuries. United and Arsenal will end up above them.

 

they were, but hats off to the cunts - I'm almost wishing them well.

[Dr Nowt]

Saints have been doing it since I was a kid in terms of developing talent and getting top dollar for it.  They must have consistently done the best selling business of any club in the top-flight in the past 25 years I would have thought, and it only really cost them when the move to their new stadium keelhauled them for a few years.

[Jairzinho]

they were, but hats off to the cunts - I'm almost wishing them well.

 

I'd imagine the vast majority of clubs, and LMA managers, must absolutely detest them.

 

They're making the league look shit. Koeman, and Pochettino before him, are making most of the LMA managers look fucking clueless. They make a profit in the transfer window by having a great academy, and then giving players a chance, plus selling their players for three times what they're worth to clubs that don't do any scouting. Then they do some actual scouting and sign replacements that are worth what they pay. They don't do anything particularly innovative tactically. They're just solid, retain possession well, play people in positions they can play, and everyone does knows their job.

 

How tedious.

[Section_31]

I've always thought our Academy was pretty shit, it was the Stark Labs of academies when it opened but has produced virtually nobody of note ever since while even the shite have managed to buy some decent players.

 

Sure I read Bascombe article years ago that said when Rafa arrived, the club had 70 scouts, 3 of them were spread across the globe and the rest were all in the North West, which makes the academy's failure even more startling. Surely there's more to this shit than watching Crewe.

[Jairzinho]

Things that would help, and this is for all our young players that came through the academy or otherwise -

 

Stop buying shit squad players. It's a waste of money, because they're shit, and contribute fuck all. It limits the amount we can spend on players that improve the first team. It prevents someone from the academy playing.

 

Stop loaning players out without much of a plan. Ilori has gone from La Liga to Ligue 1. In what fucking way would taking a step down improve his chances of developing? To be honest, we'd have been in much better shape this season having Skrtel and Sakho as first choice, Toure as the experienced back up, Ilori as 4th choice, and not spunking £20m on Lovren.

 

Stop buying so many players. We can't afford, like Chelsea and City can (although the latter doesn't tend to), sign players for £5m-£15m, farm them out on loan, or just letting them rot (Salah, Sinclair, etc) then perhaps end up having to sell them at half what they cost a year or two later, or even releasing them. The absolute bulk of our transfer budget should be spent on players who improve the first team, immediately.

 

Our academy probably isn't as good as Southampton's, but I refuse to believe we couldn't get a lot more out of it now, or at any point in the last 15 years, by simply being less fucking retarded in the transfer market.

 

What was the point in loaning out Wisdom, and loaning in a less experienced player in Manquillo?

 

Just baffling.

[Bjornebye]

Southampton have a much wider catchment area than we do and pretty much have priority over most talented kids across the south coast. Even the decent lads from Portsmouth play for Saints academy. Oxlade-Chamberlain being the best of the bunch obviously.

[TheDrowningMan]

It's been a Dortmundesque emergence.

 

If we can't get top four, I hope they do.

 

And if they do and we don't, I wouldn't be horrified to see us scoop up their management team in the summer.

[INTORRESTING]

You have to be a prodigy to break through at a big club, they have been through the leagues with no pressure. It's massively different.

[Gym Beglin]

Southampton have a much wider catchment area than we do and pretty much have priority over most talented kids across the south coast. Even the decent lads from Portsmouth play for Saints academy. Oxlade-Chamberlain being the best of the bunch obviously.

This is my only answer for why Southampton are producing such quality on a regular basis. And coupled with the fact that Portsmouth have not had a youth academy in years. Pompey are now to re-open it, as I heard on The Football Ramble.

 

But let's give credit where it's due, if we were producing talent as regularly as them then we'd be creaming ourselves. And we're not talking average talent, we're talking top quality players, elite level, the level just below Suarez, Aguero, Messi et al, but top fucking quality nonetheless.

 

And maybe it's not about how well they are doing, because the likes of Everton, West Ham and Spurs seem to be producing the odd gem themselves, so maybe it's yet another indication of just how shit we are doing in yet another area of the club.

 

Whereas I note Sterling's emergence, he isn't from Liverpool or even the North West of England.

 

We are, in the main, talking about our talent belt producing the following players for the first team in the last 10 years:

 

Flannagan, Spearing, Kelly.

 

Obviously slightly further back and we can talk about Gerrard, Carragher, Owen, Mellor, Warnock and I would include Murphy, just, from the 'region'.

 

But we also produced lesser talents who still got a handful of appearances under their belt, like Darby, Welsh, Raven, Otsemobor, Potter, Peltier, Guthrie. We're not including the lads bought from abroad, that's not the point, we're talking about regional lads.

[The Guest]

Jairzinho has nailed it above.  We've been buying mediocre squad players for decades and doing all of the above for a long time.  We should never be buying a player which we are already thinking about loaning out either.

 

I don't think any player in the past 20 years that we've loaned out has become a first team regular.  If we don't rate them sell their potential on to somebody else.  Suso was a prime example.  We could have got 5-8M for him a few years ago I reckon but instead we seemed scared he might come good so just kept hold of him and loaned him out.  I just hope the curse doesn't keep running with Ibe.

 

We've seen with Sterling and with a lot of the manc youth players over the years, just fucking throw them into Premier League games.  The benefit they receive from that will far outweigh being farmed out to lower level teams.  Rafa's biggest problem in the end with the youth set up was that he just didn't give any of them an actual go.  We won the youth cup while he was boss and not one of them came through.  He would play them all in one off games in the league cup instead of playing just one of them in the prem for a few games.

 

I hoped it had all changed with Rodgers when he just threw Sterling in.  He should have done the same with Ibe.  He shouldn't be on loan.  He should be here taking absolute grief off all the mongs in the crowd while he's young, arrogant and won't give a shit.  He needs to get used to playing prem level football to be able to produce what he has at youth level.  We've seen the sort of benefit we get from doing that sort of thing with Sterling.

[INTORRESTING]

Southampton have a much wider catchment area than we do and pretty much have priority over most talented kids across the south coast. Even the decent lads from Portsmouth play for Saints academy. Oxlade-Chamberlain being the best of the bunch obviously.

Bournemouth pick up a lot too and then saints poach them like lallana.

 

Saints also bought plenty from other clubs which doesnt seem to get reported.

 

Walcott for £1,000 from Swindon, Leon Best and David McGoldrick from Notts County, Mike Williamson from Torquay, Dexter Blackstock from Oxford etc

 

They do very well but we have bought in sterling who is one of the best around and we also have the likes of Ibe and a few others on the brink of breaking through so we are doing pretty well too. It's not all doom and gloom.

 

They dont have the whole of the south coast as the area is huge but they do well in their catchment area.

[ngogswilly]

I'd imagine the vast majority of clubs, and LMA managers, must absolutely detest them.

 

They're making the league look shit. Koeman, and Pochettino before him, are making most of the LMA managers look fucking clueless. They make a profit in the transfer window by having a great academy, and then giving players a chance, plus selling their players for three times what they're worth to clubs that don't do any scouting. Then they do some actual scouting and sign replacements that are worth what they pay. They don't do anything particularly innovative tactically. They're just solid, retain possession well, play people in positions they can play, and everyone does knows their job.

 

How tedious.

 

Great post, try telling that to some people though. Fucking crazy.