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The fabled pathway: it does exist!


Fordy62

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8 minutes ago, Fordy62 said:

It’s funny isn’t it? 

Weve always talked a lot about the pathway. It was a buzz word. But in reality, that pathway was anything but open in the tenure of previous incumbents. If we needed a player, the academy was the last place we’d look  we’d just buy another - a Diony, a Wells, dare I say a Rodri (god I had banished him to some far part of my brain!).

It’s taken years and years of over spending - buying players who ‘aren’t on the bus’, picking up nearly 30k/week for us to realise that the pathway actually was the answer all along. 

There were 7 clear pathways against Millwall and 5 against Cardiff yesterday. 

I think many of us agreed that we’d be prepared to fare slightly worse in the league if it meant that the pathway was genuinely open and genuinely open it now is. 

Whether it’s Nige’s eye, a particularly talented crop, being financially hamstrung  into it or just a simple win against Cardiff is anyone’s guess, but these are exciting times for the team. 

But we must remember that players so young will make mistakes. They may get the occasional drubbing, they will make silly mistakes and from time to time they’ll be anonymous… but so long as we remember they’re young and still learning and we have patience, then we’ll reap in the long term. 

It’s been a fantastic weekend. Here’s to Tuesday. ? 

Although I agree with your sentiment, it is great to see so many in the squad. Timing is everything, in any walk of life. Before this current group, who would of been ready for a first team place? Morrell possibly? After that, I’d struggle to name any in the last 5 years that didn’t have a chance & were worthy. I think this current crop have been talked about for 2 or 3 years, so great that it’s coming to fruition now. As you said, patience will be needed at times, but it really feels like we are on an upward trajectory at last! COYR 

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It was the cost. LJ and Ashton threw money down the toilet on dross , while SC and to some extent GJ picked up players at low cost. 
 

LJ screwed himself with the hubris of Europa League in five years then spent that time throwing money after his own bullshit which the hierarchy had already bought into. 
 

I’ll take a decent challenge in three years with SL keeping his money in his pocket. 

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10 minutes ago, REDOXO said:

It was the cost. LJ and Ashton threw money down the toilet on dross , while SC and to some extent GJ picked up players at low cost. 
 

LJ screwed himself with the hubris of Europa League in five years then spent that time throwing money after his own bullshit which the hierarchy had already bought into. 
 

I’ll take a decent challenge in three years with SL keeping his money in his pocket. 

In fairness to Cotts, him and Keith Burt made a conscious plan to go with Bryan, Reid and Burns in 14/15.  Only Bryan starred, but the plan was there.

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26 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

8 of yesterday’s squad were produced by us.

Amazing achievement, I’m sure there are a few other Championship sides doing similar (Derby? Millwall?) but ours in terms of both volume & quality is doing exceptionally well & personally I’d rather see a side with so much local representation in the Championship than a side with barely anyone British in the Prem.

Very much  in line to what SL said about 5 years ago - that he wanted a squad made up of home grown players combined with experience and yesterday was an example of that happening.

It was a bitter/sweet time for Nige when he took over from DH and inherited a dreadful injury list and a squad of unfit players. He was forced to play some of youngsters but that  gave him  the opportunity to see them perform in the Championship.

This season comes around and Nige already has an idea on what the youngsters could do and played some of them without hesitation. 

O’Leary, Pring, Benarous, Towler and  Semenyo have all featured so far and who knows how many more of our own will make the matchday squad during the second half of this season.

Its quite an achievement.

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26 minutes ago, CyderInACan said:

This must be the most home produced players in and around the first team since 1982? 
 

Think there was a spell under Wilson when he had spent all the money we he had on Lee Peacock, so Phillips, Carey, Coles, Hill, Doherty, Burrell & Aaron Brown were all around the first team at the same time, but that’s the only one I can think that comes close.

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It's been great watching this 'pillar' develop over the last few years.

It's fantastic that these players are now coming through.

It's an almost impossible task to develop youngsters from an academy set up into Championship level players.

Playing very young players in age groups above, to speed up their physical development has been a great move. Loaning out and getting competitive games under their collar so to speak has also been paramount.

The work Brian Tinnion has done can't be applauded enough. As well as the Academy coaches.

 

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I completely appreciate it isn’t possible but if fans could attend youth games in bigger numbers then the negativity around their ability might well not exist. It does, of course, rely on fans ability to realise that kids improve. The comments against every single one of our young players (apart from Scott, for whom I’ve never seen any) is disappointing 

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1 hour ago, GrahamC said:

Think there was a spell under Wilson when he had spent all the money we he had on Lee Peacock, so Phillips, Carey, Coles, Hill, Doherty, Burrell & Aaron Brown were all around the first team at the same time, but that’s the only one I can think that comes close.

Burnell, but yeah other than that spot on ^_^

That was the last time we had a "local" team, and it amazes me that we never got promoted with that squad. If only someone was able to sort out the drinking problem that existed at that time, I truly believe that we could have won promotion. Probably would have needed to invest a fair bit to stay up, but could have happened.

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6 minutes ago, And Its Smith said:

I completely appreciate it isn’t possible but if fans could attend youth games in bigger numbers then the negativity around their ability might well not exist. It does, of course, rely on fans ability to realise that kids improve. The comments against every single one of our young players (apart from Scott, for whom I’ve never seen any) is disappointing 

Putting stuff on Robinstv / YouTube has helped massively.  I knew names before but never seen them play as I don’t get time to go to games.  Now we get to see them play too.

I like the look of Knight-Lebel (Centre back), he was just 16 when he made his u23s debut.  Might be 17 now.

Being the geek that I am, I now have a database for all the youngsters too, tracking their loans, contract extensions etc.

Callum Wood(CB) just got Bath City player of the month too. Just turned 19.

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4 hours ago, Fordy62 said:

It’s funny isn’t it? 

Weve always talked a lot about the pathway. It was a buzz word. But in reality, that pathway was anything but open in the tenure of previous incumbents. If we needed a player, the academy was the last place we’d look  we’d just buy another - a Diony, a Wells, dare I say a Rodri (god I had banished him to some far part of my brain!).

It’s taken years and years of over spending - buying players who ‘aren’t on the bus’, picking up nearly 30k/week for us to realise that the pathway actually was the answer all along. 

There were 7 clear pathways against Millwall and 5 against Cardiff yesterday. 

I think many of us agreed that we’d be prepared to fare slightly worse in the league if it meant that the pathway was genuinely open and genuinely open it now is. 

Whether it’s Nige’s eye, a particularly talented crop, being financially hamstrung  into it or just a simple win against Cardiff is anyone’s guess, but these are exciting times for the team. 

But we must remember that players so young will make mistakes. They may get the occasional drubbing, they will make silly mistakes and from time to time they’ll be anonymous… but so long as we remember they’re young and still learning and we have patience, then we’ll reap in the long term. 

It’s been a fantastic weekend. Here’s to Tuesday. ? 

Seems like another excuse for Fordy to have a veiled pop at LJ! 
Yes, it’s brilliant that we’ve now got players graduating who seem to be good enough for the first team. 
LJ played Kelly when many fans were getting on his back for being too young and error prone. He played him knowing that mistakes would be made but also in the knowledge that he was putting him in the shop window. 
LJ tried to play a few others - Dowling, Morrell, Hinds. Others were on the fringes and regularly being reviewed to see if they were ready - Holden, LemonheighEvans, McCoulsky and the like. 
Perhaps the crop of youngsters during 2015-2020 (Kelly aside) were nowhere near good enough, hence they weren’t thrown in.

Proof is in the pudding - Kelly aside, name 1 academy player during the LJ era, that he should have ‘blooded’ who has gone on to better themselves? 
There are none. 
 

Yes, we should all be really pleased that we’ve now got so many youngsters in the first team squad on merit. But the youngsters during the LJ era were nowhere near good enough, and I feel that Fordy is using a positive situation to slant a negative at LJ (again). 

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3 hours ago, Fordy62 said:

It’s funny isn’t it? 

Weve always talked a lot about the pathway. It was a buzz word. But in reality, that pathway was anything but open in the tenure of previous incumbents. If we needed a player, the academy was the last place we’d look  we’d just buy another - a Diony, a Wells, dare I say a Rodri (god I had banished him to some far part of my brain!).

It’s taken years and years of over spending - buying players who ‘aren’t on the bus’, picking up nearly 30k/week for us to realise that the pathway actually was the answer all along. 

There were 7 clear pathways against Millwall and 5 against Cardiff yesterday. 

I think many of us agreed that we’d be prepared to fare slightly worse in the league if it meant that the pathway was genuinely open and genuinely open it now is. 

Whether it’s Nige’s eye, a particularly talented crop, being financially hamstrung  into it or just a simple win against Cardiff is anyone’s guess, but these are exciting times for the team. 

But we must remember that players so young will make mistakes. They may get the occasional drubbing, they will make silly mistakes and from time to time they’ll be anonymous… but so long as we remember they’re young and still learning and we have patience, then we’ll reap in the long term. 

It’s been a fantastic weekend. Here’s to Tuesday. ? 

But we still have to accept that when a player shows real potential he's very likely to be snapped up by one of our rivals with parachute payments, you know the Fulham's Bournemouth's it's the old catch 22 we can't progress because we lose our best young players and we keep losing them because we don't progress. I have no idea what the solution is but hope that one day we manage to miraculously hold on to enough of them to make it to the top flight so we can start doing to other teams what they have for years been doing to the likes of us with no parachute payments, I know almost every club apart from the very top teams sells their best players but it would be nice to compete with the likes of the Norwich Watford and the Burnley's of this world.

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8 hours ago, And Its Smith said:

I completely appreciate it isn’t possible but if fans could attend youth games in bigger numbers then the negativity around their ability might well not exist. It does, of course, rely on fans ability to realise that kids improve. The comments against every single one of our young players (apart from Scott, for whom I’ve never seen any) is disappointing 

Semenyo is the obvious example of that. League 1/2 at best was mentioned by literally hundreds on here if you can be arsed to go back a couple of years. As you say there is no consideration by so many fans that when you are looking at a young player who is considered good enough by the Management you have to factor in that Championship football is brutal and it takes time for the majority of them to get to grips with it.........that's why Scott was subbed after half an hour earlier in the season and why Benarous is being rested at the moment. There are a handful of exception's at most, Scott being one of them, in the top two divisions where kids of that age get their chance and establish themselves very quickly. You certainly won't see three or four 18 year old kids from the same Academy of that standard when the truth is you are extremely lucky to get one.

The fact that some fans can only see what is in front of them at the exact moment they see it is disappointing but not surprising and that is why we get these uneducated comments quite regularly on our younger players.

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1 hour ago, Numero Uno said:

Semenyo is the obvious example of that. League 1/2 at best was mentioned by literally hundreds on here if you can be arsed to go back a couple of years. As you say there is no consideration by so many fans that when you are looking at a young player who is considered good enough by the Management you have to factor in that Championship football is brutal and it takes time for the majority of them to get to grips with it.........that's why Scott was subbed after half an hour earlier in the season and why Benarous is being rested at the moment. There are a handful of exception's at most, Scott being one of them, in the top two divisions where kids of that age get their chance and establish themselves very quickly. You certainly won't see three or four 18 year old kids from the same Academy of that standard when the truth is you are extremely lucky to get one.

The fact that some fans can only see what is in front of them at the exact moment they see it is disappointing but not surprising and that is why we get these uneducated comments quite regularly on our younger players.

Fair comment. I was one of those who thought Semenyo wasn't up to it at this level, and I'm delighted to see him prove me wrong. His development has been extraordinary when you consider he's only really played the last six games and missed the first half of the season. Long may it continue. 

I suspect Benarous will become a quality attacking midfielder. He looks like he's got the brain, the tenacity, the technique to succeed. Scott's exceptional and tying him down to a new four-year deal could turn out to be the best deal the club's ever done. 

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