Lrrr

5 minutes ago, DaveInSA said:

as opposed to the Mark Ashton approach of pinning players on a dart board, putting on a bilndfold, and then signing all the players you manage to hit in the temple.

As long as they were from a favoured agency first 

Doubt any first teamers will travel away, especially as far as Ipswich 

Maldon and Tiptree owned by the same family as Colchester United, a lot of interlinking between the clubs. Not to imply Britton would have a chance of moving between or anything. 

1 hour ago, TBW said:

2 of 16, made it to regular first team football and one of those didn't come all the way through it. Academy showing its value. 

Picking a single game probably not the best way to make a point

1 hour ago, W-S-M Seagull said:

Data is just that, data. Now I like data. But data doesn't tell you everything. Football is still a game that's full of randomness and emotions. 

Data might tell you that Sykes has made less runs than normal. It doesn't tell you why. But a good manager doesn't need data to tell him that Sykes has made less runs. He should just know that by what he sees with his eyes. 

Even Pep and Man City who have the best data available to them and Pep uses it himself, doesn't simply rely upon the data. 

The best managers have all that data in their head without the need of a spreadsheet to tell them it. 

Its very well documented and researched that coaches in sport can only recall something like 20% - 30% of a game after it, so how are coaches supposed to know everything about every player in any exact moment? Its simply not possible, when you're talking about match data, physical data etc there's just too much without other people feeding it into him or any head coach.

24 minutes ago, Portland Bill said:

I was there tonight, City stopped Stoke from being able to play, it wasn’t an organised press of any kind, just really quick closing down all over the pitch. As said above, City’s no 7 is ‘very’ pacy, and Stoke’s  left back really struggled against him all evening. 
City controlled the game for 75% of the time, and looked decent all over the pitch.

Thought the referee was superb as well. 

 

It’s usually what happens when Cat 1 teams play teams from other categories. Different styles of play in Cat 2 and below whereas Cat 1 is usually very similar and struggles against pace and intensity if they’re not good enough to play through it 

Real shame this wasn't played at Ashton Gate, its always a great experience for academy players to get to play in stadiums but more and more clubs now seem to be choosing not to for the youth cup given you actually have to apply for exception not to play at your ground. 

5 hours ago, BS15_RED said:

Dale Benkenstein gone, good riddance!

 

15 year old on the bench for Blackburn

18 minutes ago, TonyTonyTony said:

He has played 6 First class matches. Good luck to him, but a bit of a weird one. Id have taken Will Jacks. Also Foakes has to take the gloves, surely?

Dawson would have been my choice, bringing a bit with the bat as well 

I know we’re taking 4 front line spinners but Bashir really England quality? Wouldn’t have said so yet. 

Just now, Mr Popodopolous said:

Is that right? The accounts will be instructive.

Was told every department which worked with the team would have to slash their budgets by 50% if they didn't go up

Well given he almost ruined Ipswich gambling everything on promotion last year I'd say criticism is still fair, he just got lucky this time. 

Just now, Davefevs said:

What were his recovery runs today versus his forward runs like from the numbers?

Can take a good few days for games to come online, usually don't have access to forward/recover runs though, more a case of the total distance/running distance/high speed running distance/sprint distance and then the amounts of them as well as peak speed.

17 minutes ago, Harry said:

They may well say that but to me it’s currently a myth. I’ve not once witnessed pure pace from Sam Bell. 
 

His physical data stacks up fairly well against other quick players in the league 

35 minutes ago, TV Tom said:

Semenyo went along the same path didn't he ? Bath & Newport rings a bell

A lot do, Sam Pearson is the youngest I remember at the highest level out on loan with Bath when he was still 17. 

4 minutes ago, formerly known as ivan said:

Is this not part of the issue though? They are not championship ready but have to be involved.

Yeboah is a prospect but clearly not ready to championship football and ideally would suit a lower league loan, but we can’t afford him that.

Yes he has energy and has shown glimpses, hence me saying he is a prospect, but he looks out of his depth when he plays ability wise.

He's 17 so we wouldn't be sending him out on loan anywhere yet anyway until he's 18, a non league loan like Bath would have been the max. 

Add the fact that there's more prospective test match grounds then there are test matches per year so you're not even guaranteed a return.

13 minutes ago, Countryfile said:

Very interesting post from Pete, obviously knows a lot about youth football.

I’ve already commented on the hype around the academy, and it’s doing no favours to those lads who are learning their trade.

We must stop using Scott and Semenyo as a yardstick, one a once in a generation player, the other a player bound for a top six club.

Both incidentally rejected by other clubs at a young age.

My understanding was that we have a number of local scouts so I am surprised that they aren’t more visible.

The question I would ask is, is it worth concentrating on recruiting older lads rather than 8,9,10 year olds?
 

The failure rate amongst that age group must be very high, so is the time and money spent of value?

Perhaps they just don't like wearing City branded clothing while out scouting...?

And I agree, a large part that is looked over is that even 5 years ago a lot of City's failed academy players would at best play in non league, now it seems to be every year that more and more are ending up in L1/L2, each of these will retain a sell on to City in future if they do well, so the more we churn out to this level over the next 5 years or so hopefully we could start to see a steady trickle of sell on fee income. Not to mention that its also good that we're helping young lads realise a career path of professional football, some may say 'who cares if its not City' but its still a good thing. 

1 hour ago, petehinton said:

The one thing I do roll my eyes at a bit, and I understand why they do it, is HPC this, HPC that. It’s a lovely building. Nice facilities. They are brilliant pitches. But you are cramming in first team, all academy ages, the womens side and all non playing staff into that building. Pearson made reference to it in his final days, which also probably went down like a bucket of sick seeing as it’s heaven on earth to the club, essentially saying if we were to grow as a club and operation which is ultimately the aim, it’s not really fit for purpose. So I don’t know what the expansion potentially is, or if it’s even possible?
 

Is it a damn sight better than first team being in failand in crap facilities and the academy being on the motorway? Without a doubt, but the narrative it’s best in class for the division, that it’s somehow saved the academy and it’s the reason that Semenyo, Scott etc flourished is baloney, imo. They flourished because they’re good enough and were blooded really, really well at the perfect time for their development. 

The HPC is plenty fit for purpose, the building is sectioned in first team and academy areas so you don't have crossover, not sure which side the womens team use but will be at times when the first team aren't using the same section. Every academy age group won't be inside, only 18's & 21's will be around day by day and then their pitches along with women and rest of academy (when light) will be based down on the old pitches, the top pitches are first team only barring the show pitch for matches. I won't comment on the 'saving the academy' stuff as I agree players flourished because of talent and opportunity, but take away say Leicester, Southampton etc who've spent plenty of time in the Prem and yes, our training facilities will be right up amongst the best in the league. 

They apparently did it for running stories without giving the club a chance to provide their side of it. Having said that I'm not sure Sky are one I'd try and pick on.

57 minutes ago, Robbored said:

That’s why it’s useful to have  players who’ve experienced managerial changes at previous clubs.

Well it’s near impossible to have a squad without it given the average time a manager spends at a club 

3 hours ago, Ziderarmy said:

Fair play. So you’ve gone from Robin Hood to Robin Smith. Interesting dynamic to go from a completely individual sport to a team game. 

Played cricket since I was 8 and only got into archery at uni funnily enough because I got a broken toe not getting the bat on a Yorker. 

2 hours ago, And Its Smith said:

Depends who they appoint I guess. They seem to have someone lined up. Maybe a foreign manager. 

Wonder if Parker would take the job 

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

I see you niche sport isn’t on this list, but please tell me you took up no4.

https://list25.com/25-dumbest-sports-ever-created/

Think I could have a career in belly flopping 

1 hour ago, Ziderarmy said:

@LrrrWhat did you / do you play out of interest? 

archery, ended up being ranked around the top 60 in Britain but it involved a lot of driving due to events being spread around and some hotels for big competitions, whereas now I’d probably rather play cricket and have a good time playing sport with the same group of people week in week out and have a drink at the end.