One man who never gets mentioned

For new manager

JOE JOYCE, Was head of PFA Coaches and since 2006 has been Newcastles academy manager

He never appears on any new manager betting.

Lets give him a call

 

I would be happy for someone like him to come and manage our academy not sure about the 1st team though. Always amazed me how many of our ex players have coaching positions at various places and we never try and get them here.

 

Would be an interesting choice as would Dave Watson who is obviously well thought of in the game. Won't happen for either. But would be good to see one of our own come home.

 

Branston and Burton seem to be doing a good job at the Academy though, so I don't see the need to change anything there.

 

Not specifically aimed at you and it may not be the right thread, but, what is a 'good job', what are our expectations from an academy and how can we gauge if they are doing a good job?

On the one hand if you look at our current first team none of them are home produced players. You could make a case for Digby and RNL to be involved more but currently they're not. In the last 20 years I can only remember Stones coming through and being sold on for anything like a good fee (there was that keeper who went to Chelsea(?) for a million and vanished). We've maybe had lads who've been here and then left, with their final development coming at other clubs (e.g. Jordan Rhodes).

So what is a good return; 1 every 20 years, 1 every 10 years, 1 every 5 years etc. How do the numbers we develop compare to other comparable clubs? What would the numbers be if the academy staff made no difference to their chances of developing into a Championship+ quality player (i.e. just chance alone based on the numbers of youngsters we take on)?

 

Question: did Chris Barker come through the yoof ranks cant for the life of me remember.

We sold Bambi for 50,000 when we were strapped.

Good question though PP.

 

The conveyor belt of good young talent moving from the youth set-up to the first team pretty much stopped when we took on our Academy status. Severely dried up at any rate.

Before the Academy (since I've been Watching): Chambers, McCarthy, Joyce, Banks, Speedie (although we didn't get anything out of him), Barrowclough, Hirst, Cross (before the injury), Agnew, Tiler, Liddle, Eaden, Moses, Morgan, Watson.
All the above held their own in the league we're in now or above. I think out of that lot only Joyce, Chambers and Cross never played in the Premier League.

Then there's the likes of Any Rhodes, Nicky Law, Scott Jones, Glynn Riley, who are probably a step down from the above, but played well for us and had very good careers.

Plus Burton, Jackson, Kiwomya and Knight whose careers were ended by injury or tragedy before they even begun.

Who have we had since we turned in to an academy that have played at this level or above? Antony Kay was OK but dropped down a division, The goalkeeper you were thinking of is Scott Flinders, who we got a lot of money for but is now playing further down the pyramid and then there's John Stones. We've filled non league football and the lower leagues with academy graduates, but produced hardly anything for this level.

 

Correct, thank you.

 

We signed Barker from Alfreton, although I think he did play in the Youth team. I believe Fallon and Jon Parkin were signed to the club before we changed to an academy.

 

Cheers Jay.

I liked Barker and I don`t think we`ve had a better left back since, although memory could be going again, but even he had his shortcomings defensively but dint haif cover some ground.

 

No fan of the academy system but wasn't Jacob Butterfield an alumni?

 

Me too and I can't think of one either.

We were fighting relegation and Steve bloody Parkin brings in Paul Gibbs to replace Chris Barker. How do these people get a job? Irony is, we learn from Gibbs' interview in West Stand Bogs that he thought Parkin was a nob head.

 

Yes, of course he was, forgot about him. I'm an eejit. There's probably some £10 million striker who plays for Chelsea who came up through our ranks that I forgot about too. Sort of destroys any credibility in my post really.

 

Chuckling.

Gibbs Jeezus mi teeth clench when ever I hear or read his name.

 

We signed Law from Arsenal.

 

I have to say after many years in the doldrums I think we have finally started to regain some impetus in terms of youth development. There is still a lot of room for improvement and we are a million miles from the system that developed a clutch of memorable players in the 80s and 90s but last few years has seen Butterfield, Stones as first team regulars. Digby in the England Team and Rose and RNL good enough to be on the fringes of the team. The system in the UK has been created to benefit the Premiership money men and is skewed against clubs like ours but I think there are sone signs of progress.

 

'kin 'ell. My post is about as accurate as a Tom Kennedy cross.

 

Obviously I don't have any first hand evidence to back it up, so I am just going by what I hear from the young players at the club and by the amount of decent young players that are coming through now, as opposed to any other time since Danny Wilson was boss. Stones is the obvious example, but there's also Digby, Noble-Lazarus, Rose and Butterfield (although I know he started off elsewhere). You have to go back to the Premiership season (I think) to find us producing two England internationals at U21/U19 level at the same time. And it's a while since we have produced 5 players over a couple of year period who look capable of having decent careers in the game. Stones is going to go on and have a much more than decent career, as should Digby.

So I don't think there's any need to get rid of the guys in charge. In fact, I think the new manager needs to work with the Academy with a definite plan to start blooding players into the first team, rather than freezing them out with loan signings, because it's looking likely that we are going down and we're not going to be able to afford to bring in many players if we do.

 

Dave Watson's got it made already, if anything he'd be taking a huge risk going into football management at the moment. Maybe in 10 to 15 years when he's ready to give up coaching, he'd make an excellent manager im sure.

 

Yes you're right there. I think he would be an excellent manager but I can't see him choosing that path.