Palace's new Academy...

[Simon bristol]

We also share facilities with the bears, and their building looks amazing 

[TV Tom]

Can’t believe that people on here are comparing an always underachieving middle to lower end championship club that loses money year in and out with well established premiership clubs, be thankful for what we have got, it could be the quarters

[BS4 on Tour...]

4 hours ago, Coxy27 said:

To do that, we would have to transfer to the Scottish League system.

Yesssss! Thank you! It’s not just me then ...

[B-Rizzle]

6 hours ago, harrys said:

Can’t believe that people on here are comparing an always underachieving middle to lower end championship club that loses money year in and out with well established premiership clubs, be thankful for what we have got, it could be the quarters

Read what we’ve said. We are very thankful for what we’ve got.

Our comments are based on the club and its media team comparing us with prem teams - not us.

[Bobby kellard hero]

Absolutely fantastic for a club who’s history is in the 3rd division as ours is.

[reddoh]

I thought the Bored room was very apt.

[Kid in the Riot]

7 hours ago, harrys said:

Can’t believe that people on here are comparing an always underachieving middle to lower end championship club that loses money year in and out with well established premiership clubs, be thankful for what we have got, it could be the quarters

Rewind 10 or so years and that certainly wasn't the case. On a completely different level to us now though. 

[CyderInACan]

8 hours ago, Simon bristol said:

We also share facilities with the bears, and their building looks amazing 

Everyone knows that the Bears are Steve Lansdown’s first priority, yeah? 

[Bris Red]

That looks a great facility from Palace to be fair. Selhurst is a crumbling mess though and Ashton Gate is streets ahead of it as a stadium so you could argue that our infrastructure as a whole is actually better than Crystal Palace.

[Lrrr]

What we’ve been told is the HPC is a premier league standard facility, that’s what it is, others will have better naturally but the facilities are those adequate for a premier league club. And certainly above championship standard. 

[Lrrr]

53 minutes ago, billywedlock said:

Burnley too are investing heavily. I do not understand why we have not gone for Cat 1 so we play the top youth teams and outside of FFP. We have had great investment, but it was relative to the lack of investment in the past not compared to others. We have a good facility and ground for the championship, it is not Prem level. Look at what Leicester are doing with ground and training facility

We won’t go Cat 1, it goes against the policy the club holds of loaning players out, we’d need to keep our best team in house playing a false style of football seen in academy football with no stakes rather than out on loan playing in the leagues for starters and that’s only one reason why we won’t 

[Davefevs]

17 minutes ago, Lrrr said:

We won’t go Cat 1, it goes against the policy the club holds of loaning players out, we’d need to keep our best team in house playing a false style of football seen in academy football with no stakes rather than out on loan playing in the leagues for starters and that’s only one reason why we won’t 

Out of interest, and I’m asking because I don’t know….if we did go Cat 1 and played better opponents woukd that be better than loaning to Exeter or Weston, or whoever.  Would Towler develop better playing for our u23s than going to Grimsby?

I guess I’m asking is our loan model because we are Cat 2 or because it is right regardless of Cat status?

[Lrrr]

1 hour ago, Davefevs said:

Out of interest, and I’m asking because I don’t know….if we did go Cat 1 and played better opponents woukd that be better than loaning to Exeter or Weston, or whoever.  Would Towler develop better playing for our u23s than going to Grimsby?

I guess I’m asking is our loan model because we are Cat 2 or because it is right regardless of Cat status?

Personally I think loaning is better, a greater variation of styles/systems to play against, adult players so they have to be smart about how they play, they have to earn a spot in the starting XI going out and the importance of winning, an academies objective is to supply players for the first team at some point, not to win games. You can’t get promoted or relegation in academy football (apart from cat 1 under 23’s) so losing in academy football doesn’t mean as much as scrapping for 3 points to get promotion or avoid relegation 

[Supersonic Robin]

16 hours ago, B-Rizzle said:

Yep, on this…

It does frustrates me that we keep pushing our HPC as some out-of-this-world training complex that premier league clubs would envy. 

Yes, it is bloody brilliant and a massive step forward for us as a club and I expect there are some premier league training grounds that might be a bit dated now.

But you only have to look at this video and Brighton’s new training ground etc to realise that there are much bigger and much better training grounds at most clubs bigger than us.

When the media team ask new players or staff what they think of the the HPC and how it compares with other training complexes, it does make me laugh.

Agree, the HPC is a big step up *for us*, but many large championship teams and most premier league teams would have a chuckle when they see us marvelling at it.

People will of course point out that these teams ought to have better facilities since they're competing at a higher level, but that's the point!

Should we be a club who resign ourselves to never being able to compete with the likes of Brighton and Crystal Palace? I bloody hope not!

 

[Port Said Red]

5 hours ago, billywedlock said:

But Chelsea loan players out. Not sure the two are linked . That Palace and Burnley and Leeds have pushed for cat 1 , and primarily for-the quality of football and ability to sign players from a wider pool  , alongside our failure in a general sense I cannot see our approach is the winning one . 

I don't think Chelsea are a good comparison, they use players the way Hirerite use machinery, rent it out for a few years then sell it when new stock comes in.

Going back to Palace, how far out of London did they have to go to get that much land? I also didn't see much in the way of sustainability of materials or energy, I thought most organisations were quick to emphasise that these days? 

[grifty]

6 hours ago, Supersonic Robin said:

Agree, the HPC is a big step up *for us*, but many large championship teams and most premier league teams would have a chuckle when they see us marvelling at it.

People will of course point out that these teams ought to have better facilities since they're competing at a higher level, but that's the point!

Should we be a club who resign ourselves to never being able to compete with the likes of Brighton and Crystal Palace? I bloody hope not!

Why shouldn't the club be proud of the HPC? It's a facility which matches our club in terms of size and what it can offer us. Do you think we should have built a £100m facility like Leicester? Whats the point in that!? Do you think we should build a 60,000 seater stadium to compete with the top end Prem teams? No, we buy players and build infrastructure that fit in where we are now and that will allow us to grow into the next achievable level where we aim to be.

People are starting to get so desperate to knock anything about the club. There's a lot more to criticise than comparing our facility to a club which has had 7/8 years of Prem TV money and then crying about it.

[Kid in the Riot]

10 hours ago, bris red said:

That looks a great facility from Palace to be fair. Selhurst is a crumbling mess though and Ashton Gate is streets ahead of it as a stadium so you could argue that our infrastructure as a whole is actually better than Crystal Palace.

Depends what you prioritise I suppose, commercial revenue or success on the pitch.

[beaverface]

For all the Premier League money that allows clubs to build their  infrastructure, there's also the Boltons of the World who literally had a fire sale and sold everything they had when they went on a downward slope.

The premier league is great for those teams in it, but once outside, it's extremely difficult for the others.

Imagine having to pay the maintenance and upkeep of Leicesters or Palaces new training ground when in league 1.

Newcastle is years behind due to lack of infrastructure investment, and yet they've been in the premier league for a few years.

I just we need to live to our own means.

[B-Rizzle]

9 hours ago, Davefevs said:

Out of interest, and I’m asking because I don’t know….if we did go Cat 1 and played better opponents woukd that be better than loaning to Exeter or Weston, or whoever.  Would Towler develop better playing for our u23s than going to Grimsby?

I guess I’m asking is our loan model because we are Cat 2 or because it is right regardless of Cat status?

Good question. My understanding (and I can’t quite remember) was based on an interview Tins gave a while ago…

He basically suggested that, if we were to go cat 1, the quality of opponents we’d be up against would mean we’d have to keep our U-23 players on site, rather than on loan, in order to compete.

I guess the club have weighed up over the years whether Cat 1 is worth the investment. I suppose they’ve concluded that our best option for developing players for our first team is to stay one step behind (in Cat 2) and get players out on loan etc.

Don’t know enough about all the pros and cons myself to form a strong opinion.

Although SL clearly has the money make us Cat 1, perhaps it doesn’t fit in with our sustainability model as it would require so much extra funding each year which we cannot sustain whilst in the championship.

[Supersonic Robin]

1 hour ago, grifty said:

Why shouldn't the club be proud of the HPC? It's a facility which matches our club in terms of size and what it can offer us. Do you think we should have built a £100m facility like Leicester? Whats the point in that!? Do you think we should build a 60,000 seater stadium to compete with the top end Prem teams? No, we buy players and build infrastructure that fit in where we are now and that will allow us to grow into the next achievable level where we aim to be.

People are starting to get so desperate to knock anything about the club. There's a lot more to criticise than comparing our facility to a club which has had 7/8 years of Prem TV money and then crying about it.

Nothing wrong with being proud of the HPC, I just think we probably overhype it a bit sometimes. It's a good step forward for us, but as others have said, it's not THAT spectacular relative to what others (e.g. Palace, Brighton) have......others who, a decade ago, were also in the championship with us. 

The frustration is that the gap has grown, and we're now looking up at those teams in awe. You capture this well in your last sentence "comparing to a club which has had 7/8 years of Prem TV money" - look at what they've done, and look at what we've done. 

It's not about trying to knock the club, it's just interesting to occasionally step back and contextualise our "achievements".

[Davefevs]

2 hours ago, B-Rizzle said:

Good question. My understanding (and I can’t quite remember) was based on an interview Tins gave a while ago…

He basically suggested that, if we were to go cat 1, the quality of opponents we’d be up against would mean we’d have to keep our U-23 players on site, rather than on loan, in order to compete.

I guess the club have weighed up over the years whether Cat 1 is worth the investment. I suppose they’ve concluded that our best option for developing players for our first team is to stay one step behind (in Cat 2) and get players out on loan etc.

Don’t know enough about all the pros and cons myself to form a strong opinion.

Although SL clearly has the money make us Cat 1, perhaps it doesn’t fit in with our sustainability model as it would require so much extra funding each year which we cannot sustain whilst in the championship.

Ta, vaguely recall that.

My follow-up question is:

- are we developing our players for the first team of today, or the first team of tomorrow….and what is the best way of doing that?

To explain, we’ve come from a point not so far ago where an academy player needed be be Lg1 ability, now they need to be Champ ability….and in fairness we’ve been pretty good at getting them to that level, and in some cases (Bryan / Reid / Kelly) beyond.  So it looks like we are doing it right.  Can we get more through?

I do like that Kelly and Scott didn’t have loans…ready for first team almost immediately they came of age.