Has another batch of young talent fallen by the wayside ???

We are talking football and not pork pies are we not .

 

I think part of the problem with RNL was precisely putting him in the first team when he was still so young.

 

The point about our academy must surely be this. It must be more cost effective to raise players through the academy than it is to buy players in the open market, that is from other clubs. If it is not cost effective, then we are operating at a disadvantage as compared to clubs that operate a different strategy.

I am sure that I recall Ben Mansford saying recently that a quarter of BFC budget was spent on our academy. Effectively, this sum of money is part of our transfer budget because it is money that, if the academy did not exist, could be spent on buying talent in the market place, or indeed on funding the pay costs of better players. Now, I am not against the academy. Quite the opposite in fact. But I am for the long term measurement of academy success and for the accountability of academy management and staff based upon that long term performance. It would be quite easy to say following the sales of Butterfield and Stones that the academy is performing satisfactorily, but before those two sales there was a long fallow period, during which time the academy has generated very little income from player sales, or indeed provided players capable of holding down first team places.

The final point that I would make is that historically, the most successful teams to play at Oakwell have contained a large proportion of players raised from within the club. If you do not believe me, just go through the players in your favourite team and count the number of players raised at Oakwell. Historically, therefore, the performance of the academy has been very important to the overall success of the club. The performance of the academy management is therefore at least as important as the performance of the first team manager. And yet, when was the last time supporters questioned the performance of the academy management. When was the last time supporters called for the academy management or staff to be sacked. When was the last time the academy management was held to account either inside or outside the club.

There will be those who argue that the academy is producing talent, but that the 18 year olds produced in the academy are not getting the chance to stake a place in the first team. Frankly, I do not believe it. In the past few years, several players have left the academy with great potential, only to fall away and fail to establish places in the first team. However, potential is just that. There is no automatic route to success and potential is largely a matter of opinion. I suspect that you could look at a player and see great potential and I could look at the same player and see little. There is also the point that players have graduated from the academy simply because it looks bad if they produce no-one for a year's effort.

No, the success of the academy must be judged upon its success at producing first team players, and over the last 15 years, the academy has failed in this respect. Just compare the budget (based upon say £1m per year) to transfer income generated plus transfer expenditure saved.