Football 16-17

[mjsell]

2 hours ago, eFestivals said:

OK.

in which case, for picking talent aged 11 in footie in this country, all clubs have dreadful judgement. Utterly utterly dreadful.

The occasional gem that comes thru can't make that constant bad judgement gleam.

 

Are they? By what measuring stick are you using? 

They very well could be, but the only way of proving it is to find out if we are above or below average for the rate of success globally. 

[pink_triangle]

30 minutes ago, mjsell said:

Are they? By what measuring stick are you using? 

They very well could be, but the only way of proving it is to find out if we are above or below average for the rate of success globally. 

It's difficult to prove one way or another, but I'm not convinced that premiership academys hoovering up any young player with any potential is the best for youth development in this country. My instinct is that we lose a load of talent by kids who are spat out by the premiership sides and fall out of football who would flourish joining their local team further down the pyramid.

[ThomThomDrum]

6 hours ago, mjsell said:

That's not luck, thats bad judgment of future potential.

The Pats were extremely lucky he turned out to be what not one person in the NFL could see he could be. That is very much luck. A big hefty pile of it. 

And I don't actually agree it's bad judgment. Some talents are hidden and can not be easily judged at a young age. 

[jammy2211]

Don't post often - and will probably regret getting involved in this luck debate, but couldn't resist the temptation to get involved, as it something I've thought about quite a few times recently, specifically with regard to Kane and Alli! To me, there are two ways to view youth recruitment in the context of 'luck':

1) A select few youth players are ultra talented super-stars to be who are destined to 'make it' (with Kane and Alli being a great example of a club scoring two in a short space of time). In this instance, Tottenham (or whatever club signs / acquires said player) were extremely lucky to gamble on the signing and nature of this player, as with the many thousands of youth players that all the mega-clubs are fighting to sign, its clear no one has any real hope nor the scouting prowess to pick out 'the stars' intentionally.

2) Alternatively, you could take the view that every youth academy has many players who have the potential to be 'stars' (at the level of Kane, Alli or better), and that the coaching, facilities and opportunities given to those players determines how many of them, on average, actually 'make it'. In this scenario, I would argue there is actually very little luck associated to the club - its their infrastructure which determines how many good players come through their youth setup. Luck and circumstances can be attached to the individual players, sure, but with a large enough sample of potential youth super-stars its statistically inevitable great players come through if the infrastructure is in place.

The two scenarios above are two extremes and I'm sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle. However, to me, when you look at Poch's record of bringinig youth through its hard to argue against the second view point. In less than 3 years at Spurs, he's brought (off the top of my head) 8 players through the first team (Kane, Alli, Bentaleb, Winks, Carroll, Davies, Dier, Mason). Sure, not all of them were good enough in the end (and were sold on for a handsome profit), but I don't believe we can rigidly argue that things are this completely stochastic luck-driven thing given Poch's record thus far. Of course, I'm also basing this on his shorter spell at Southampton, where he built the entire Liverpool starting 11 in a year !

So, I guess I would ask Neil, if Spurs have another Kane or Alli come through next year, and another the year after, would you continue to regard it as 'luck'? When does one have to turn your head and ask 'why arn't these players coming through at City / Chelsea / United / Arsenal?', and begin to question if its their methods and policies that are the problem?

 

[thetime]

Ali didn't come through at spurs.

[Comfy Bean]

5 hours ago, thetime said:

Ali didn't come through at spurs.

Any thoughts on the wider points contained in jammys post ?

I found myself agreeing with most of it. Some clubs, at all levels, have a good reputation when dealing with youth development where others prefer to invest in the short term pursuit of what they see as first team success.

If a good youth infrastructure is in place with investment in facilities and coaches and.....a kid knows they will get a chance of first team football compared to at a club who looks to spend big on a finished product type player then for me the club are improving their long term future. Some kids don't make it of course but in the long term, that will be more sustainable than when some of the big money buys don't work out.

As a footy fan, I take more pleasure in seeing a kid from our academy making it in to the first team. To be clear, my team has no dosh and currently sit bottom of the table :-(

Did the EPL ever experiment with having a certain number of kids included in the first team match squad ?

[eFestivals]

9 hours ago, jammy2211 said:

Don't post often - and will probably regret getting involved in this luck debate, but couldn't resist the temptation to get involved, as it something I've thought about quite a few times recently, specifically with regard to Kane and Alli! To me, there are two ways to view youth recruitment in the context of 'luck':

1) A select few youth players are ultra talented super-stars to be who are destined to 'make it' (with Kane and Alli being a great example of a club scoring two in a short space of time). In this instance, Tottenham (or whatever club signs / acquires said player) were extremely lucky to gamble on the signing and nature of this player, as with the many thousands of youth players that all the mega-clubs are fighting to sign, its clear no one has any real hope nor the scouting prowess to pick out 'the stars' intentionally.

2) Alternatively, you could take the view that every youth academy has many players who have the potential to be 'stars' (at the level of Kane, Alli or better), and that the coaching, facilities and opportunities given to those players determines how many of them, on average, actually 'make it'. In this scenario, I would argue there is actually very little luck associated to the club - its their infrastructure which determines how many good players come through their youth setup. Luck and circumstances can be attached to the individual players, sure, but with a large enough sample of potential youth super-stars its statistically inevitable great players come through if the infrastructure is in place.

The two scenarios above are two extremes and I'm sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle. However, to me, when you look at Poch's record of bringinig youth through its hard to argue against the second view point. In less than 3 years at Spurs, he's brought (off the top of my head) 8 players through the first team (Kane, Alli, Bentaleb, Winks, Carroll, Davies, Dier, Mason). Sure, not all of them were good enough in the end (and were sold on for a handsome profit), but I don't believe we can rigidly argue that things are this completely stochastic luck-driven thing given Poch's record thus far. Of course, I'm also basing this on his shorter spell at Southampton, where he built the entire Liverpool starting 11 in a year !

So, I guess I would ask Neil, if Spurs have another Kane or Alli come through next year, and another the year after, would you continue to regard it as 'luck'? When does one have to turn your head and ask 'why arn't these players coming through at City / Chelsea / United / Arsenal?', and begin to question if its their methods and policies that are the problem?

 

I'm pretty much with your idea that it's somewhere in the middle.

Spurs might have had a lot come thru under pooch, but given that he's not responsible for them being there in the first place - and they have to be there to come thru - you can't really credit pooch for the players, only for giving them the chance. The club, perhaps.

(tho it has to be also recognised, at least some of the chances given to kids aren't really because they club wants that player or rates that player, but because they know it's the best way to get a decent price for that player - something fergie was exceedingly good at doing [often with ex-Utd-players-now-managers as the buying mugs]).

If Spurs are (compared to other clubs) having more come thru at the moment then they're then either they've had a run of luck around those kids or they're doing something better

It would be the constant that would reveal it as better, and if only-for-a-time as mostly-luck.

Fergie brought thru 'the kids', and got a fantastic rep for it - but he couldn't do it again. Even Wenger - probably the best for bringing kids thru - seems to have lost the touch (tho there's also a number of bigger club issues that might be part of that). They suggest luck more than skill.

So it seems to be the case that a particular club has a run of luck, and then they don't, and another club does.

What a club does of course has an impact onto the finished product, but there's still a lot of luck around it. A club might have the next Messi, but if the luck of that club runs poorly that next Messi might prefer time with his g/f to putting in the graft to become that next Messi - so even if a club is doing everything right it still might count for nothing.

The fact that no club can do it constantly suggests it's more luck than skill in my book. The fact that they play a numbers game with the kids they take on also suggests that the clubs know it too.

If I had to take a plump at a club that might be doing it just that bit better than other clubs I'd go for Soton - as they appear to be the ones that have had the greatest success with kids over the longest time period (and while pooch was there too, again, it's not him that got those kids to the club).

But perhaps there is a club that does better than Soton, and soton's rep comes about more because of their generally-lowly status, and (say) Utd actually produces more players that play at higher levels than soton's kids get to. After all, a big money transfer to (say) Utd creates a big focus on that single player, while a single player coming thru at (say) Utd doesn't get the same plaudits in the same way.

[eFestivals]

6 hours ago, thetime said:

Ali didn't come through at spurs.

No one is saying he did come thru solely there, and I'm sure Spurs would claim they saw every ounce of his potential when signing him.

But did they really? Or did they only think he was definitely good enough for Spurs while not having that bit extra that makes him something particularly special?

(I have little doubt they'll be someone at spurs who did rate him that highly, but i also have little doubt that same geezer will have rated others as highly and been wrong ... so why does getting it right about Alli show it as high skill, when the greater number of wrong ones should really say low skill?).

[Comfy Bean]

I'm sure your right that a slice of luck is required and the kid has to be able to handle the pressure, big money etc. 

I see a wee bit of academy football up here and the standard and style of football is excellent. The problem seems to come when the kids start mixing with the first team squads. Their progress seems to stop and we see very few making it. Possible win at all costs, fear of relegation etc.

Hamilton have a good reputation in Scotland. Much less resources than the bigger clubs. Neil's point about Southampton reminded of them.

PT I think mentioned earlier about the bigger clubs hoovering up all the young talent. Maybe something could be done about that leaving kids to be developed where they started and would also get a chance of first team football.

Up here, from 12 ( I think ) kids can be signed on pro youth contracts. The first thing the spl clubs do is ban them from playing with their mates at the boys club they've been at since they started school. Going my the number of players Scotland has produced recently I'm not sure this is proving to be a good idea.

[eFestivals]

25 minutes ago, comfortablynumb1910 said:

I think mentioned earlier about the bigger clubs hoovering up all the young talent. Maybe something could be done about that leaving kids to be developed where they started and would also get a chance of first team football.

The FA operate a load of rules around what can be done with kids.

Originally they said a club could only sign kids who lived in quite a small 'local area' - so one of the solutions the big clubs used for that was to move whole families to the local area.

After lots of pressure from the bigger clubs, the areas have been expanded quite significantly to give big clubs a bigger area to recruit kids from, and so footie-mad kids are spending their teenage years on long drives in cars to/from training at clubs sometimes hours away from home. Some stuff i read around it a while back was quite depressing.  

[CRW5252]

1 hour ago, eFestivals said:

No one is saying he did come thru solely there, and I'm sure Spurs would claim they saw every ounce of his potential when signing him.

But did they really? Or did they only think he was definitely good enough for Spurs while not having that bit extra that makes him something particularly special?

(I have little doubt they'll be someone at spurs who did rate him that highly, but i also have little doubt that same geezer will have rated others as highly and been wrong ... so why does getting it right about Alli show it as high skill, when the greater number of wrong ones should really say low skill?).

I think that just suggests that judging someones potential is very difficult and that mistakes are inevitable. Spurs haven't signed many 18 year olds for £5 mil (in fact I can't remember any, I could be wrong) which means they must have thought he was special.

[eFestivals]

12 minutes ago, CRW5252 said:

which means they must have thought he was special.

not necessarily. It only has to be that they thought he was worth taking a risk on at that price.

It's not only kids they're playing a numbers game with. Some working out and some not is how every club knows it will go. To end up finding the good ones you know you have to buy what will turn out to be (comparative) shit too. You never know for sure they are the good one until they become that good one.

[zahidf]

Spur's team are one if the youngest teams in the league as well though. None of their first X11 is over 30, and last season Vorm's one apperance was the only over 30 who played for them in the league

For a team to be that good, who are that young and that good, has more to do with the individual players, coaching and youth academy scouting. Luck is a  factor  of course, but a relatively minor one IMO

[Comfy Bean]

58 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

The FA operate a load of rules around what can be done with kids.

Originally they said a club could only sign kids who lived in quite a small 'local area' - so one of the solutions the big clubs used for that was to move whole families to the local area.

After lots of pressure from the bigger clubs, the areas have been expanded quite significantly to give big clubs a bigger area to recruit kids from, and so footie-mad kids are spending their teenage years on long drives in cars to/from training at clubs sometimes hours away from home. Some stuff i read around it a while back was quite depressing.  

Bloody hell. Didn`t know that. money talks of course and the big clubs have the power now. I used to think that pressure from fans of football would lead to changes if / when our International sides do shit but international footy plays second fiddle now which is a shame......in my opinion.

TV meaning that internationals also get played on all nights of the week also annoyed me. Unless you live in London, Glasgow etc how can you go to the game on a Monday night never mind take your weans on a school night. It`s crazy 

[CRW5252]

21 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

not necessarily. It only has to be that they thought he was worth taking a risk on at that price.

It's not only kids they're playing a numbers game with. Some working out and some not is how every club knows it will go. To end up finding the good ones you know you have to buy what will turn out to be (comparative) shit too. You never know for sure they are the good one until they become that good one.

Why was Alli the one they decided to spend more on? It's because they thought he was a level above the other youngsters they've signed (or at least most of them). They thought there was very little risk of him failing (compared to other youngsters).

Of course no one knows for sure but that doesn't mean that their isn't a massive skill element. I think luck is less of a factor than you make out. There would not be clubs with consistently great transfer policies if skill wasn't a major factor. 

Edited April 14, 2017 by CRW5252

[CRW5252]

1 minute ago, comfortablynumb1910 said:

Bloody hell. Didn`t know that. money talks of course and the big clubs have the power now. I used to think that pressure from fans of football would lead to changes if / when our International sides do shit but international footy plays second fiddle now which is a shame......in my opinion.

TV meaning that internationals also get played on all nights of the week also annoyed me. Unless you live in London, Glasgow etc how can you go to the game on a Monday night never mind take your weans on a school night. It`s crazy 

I would like to see the world cup and euro qualifying moved to the end of the season and it all done at once. It would mean the games could be played at sensible times and the international players will actually be able to practice as a team together for a prolonged period of time. At the moment international breaks are nothing more than an annoyance to the majority of football fans 

[eFestivals]

4 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Spur's team are one if the youngest teams in the league as well though. None of their first X11 is over 30, and last season Vorm's one apperance was the only over 30 who played for them in the league

For a team to be that good, who are that young and that good, has more to do with the individual players, coaching and youth academy scouting. Luck is a  factor  of course, but a relatively minor one IMO

Yep, you can't really knock spurs, for improving that last most-difficult bit without having spent a shed-load to do it with. At this moment in time it's definitely come right for them.
(just think back a few years, where they wasted all the Bale money).

But ... if (hypothetically) everything was solely luck, then sometimes it would all come together in that way, anyway.

So the fact of them doing well right now with all the things you've pointed out doesn't actually prove anything towards luck or not.

[eFestivals]

3 minutes ago, CRW5252 said:

Why was Alli the one they decided to spend more on? It's because they thought he was a level above the other youngsters they've signed (or at least most of them).

Nope, it doesn't have to be that, tho I accept it's likely to have been a large part.

As one example: he'd got a good record already, so he already had a pretty solid resale price to sell back down the league if he'd not worked out, and that's rarely the case with other youngsters they might buy. They might have lost a million or two, but there's million quid 14 year olds nowadays.

But actually, my take on Alli (and i mentioned further back) is that his already-good record makes Alli one of the few no-brainer buys that happen now and then, where they did identify & buy him for all the right reasons and it was just about guaranteed to work out well.

So it's the opposite of luck from one side, but lucky there was a no-brainer player to take that no-brainer decision about. There isn't always, which is why they play the numbers game for the more general finding the best players.

[CRW5252]

2 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Nope, it doesn't have to be that, tho I accept it's likely to have been a large part.

As one example: he'd got a good record already, so he already had a pretty solid resale price to sell back down the league if he'd not worked out, and that's rarely the case with other youngsters they might buy. They might have lost a million or two, but there's million quid 14 year olds nowadays.

But actually, my take on Alli (and i mentioned further back) is that his already-good record makes Alli one of the few no-brainer buys that happen now and then, where they did identify & buy him for all the right reasons and it was just about guaranteed to work out well.

So it's the opposite of luck from one side, but lucky there was a no-brainer player to take that no-brainer decision about. There isn't always, which is why they play the numbers game for the more general finding the best players.

It's easy to say it's a no-brainer in hindsight. If it was such an obvious signing why did he end up at spurs? Surely a bigger, richer club would have signed him. The scouts at spurs used their knowledge to identify him. Then once a deal was agreed, Alli was attracted by Spurs due to the size of the club and their willingness to bring young players through. Then lastly once he's at the club the coaches have done a great job at developing him and keeping his morale high. All of these factors are major parts of whether a transfer will be successful. The element of luck in each of them is very small. 

[eFestivals]

41 minutes ago, CRW5252 said:

It's easy to say it's a no-brainer in hindsight.

Oh c'mon. he was the stand out player in his league. There's not many players in the lower leagues I know the name of, but I'd heard of him long before he hit Spurs, and there's not many players who make the impact he did.

At the very least he was always going to be good enough to be a squad player at Spurs. Purchase price justified!

 

[eFestivals]

47 minutes ago, CRW5252 said:

The scouts at spurs used their knowledge to identify him.

I reckon they read it in the papers myself, but perhaps newspapers aren't big in north London...?

 

[CRW5252]

3 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Oh c'mon. he was the stand out player in his league. There's not many players in the lower leagues I know the name of, but I'd heard of him long before he hit Spurs, and there's not many players who make the impact he did.

At the very least he was always going to be good enough to be a squad player at Spurs. Purchase price justified!

 

There are plenty examples of players who have been good at the lower leagues aged 18 and then flopped when they made the step up (or just not given the chance as they were deemed not good enough). Nick Powell being a prime example. The fact you say you know very little about the lower leagues is quite telling. 

Before you try to say that shows the large luck element in recruitment. Nick Powell was mismanaged badly by United and could have had a top career in my opinion. On the other hand, Spurs have done brilliantly with Alli by giving him the chance he needs and not dropping him as soon as he drops form a little. This has given belief he is good enough to be a top player. That's the most important thing for young players in my opinion. I'm talking from experience here as well. 

[eFestivals]

7 minutes ago, CRW5252 said:

There are plenty examples of players who have been good at the lower leagues aged 18 and then flopped when they made the step up (or just not given the chance as they were deemed not good enough). Nick Powell being a prime example.

there's few who make the kind of immediate impact Alli did.

 

7 minutes ago, CRW5252 said:

The fact you say you know very little about the lower leagues is quite telling. 

Sorry, didn't realise we had an expert about everything in the house. You must clearly be right and there's no luck involved anywhere. Spurs are only 2nd now because they planned to have a player as good as Alli, and they couldn't be bothered to plan for that in earlier years. 

[pink_triangle]

2 hours ago, zahidf said:

Spur's team are one if the youngest teams in the league as well though. None of their first X11 is over 30, and last season Vorm's one apperance was the only over 30 who played for them in the league

For a team to be that good, who are that young and that good, has more to do with the individual players, coaching and youth academy scouting. Luck is a  factor  of course, but a relatively minor one IMO

I think there is a danger of overhyping this spurs team. They have won nothing, failed in Europe and we're the only team in the group stages that didn't advance despite being in the top 2 richest league.

I sometimes feel spurs and some of their best players have the tendency to be flat track bullys.

[pink_triangle]

2 hours ago, CRW5252 said:

I would like to see the world cup and euro qualifying moved to the end of the season and it all done at once. It would mean the games could be played at sensible times and the international players will actually be able to practice as a team together for a prolonged period of time. At the moment international breaks are nothing more than an annoyance to the majority of football fans 

I think putting it at the end of the season would result in widespread withdrawals as players think about their holiday. I agree with the principle, but would have the window much earlier in the calender. I also am one of the few I'm favour of Qatar moving the world cup earlier as I think it will be interesting seeing an international tournament without all the players knackered.