The St George's Park National Football Centre thread

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11095_7235271,00.html

It's quite interesting when you see one of the teams with an emphasis on possession football in the Premiership have two midfielders that came through Lilleshall. Leon Britton and Mark Gower of Swansea.

Quite alot of the practices at Lilleshall seemed to be wrong but the basic idea created benefits.

http://www.swanseacity.net/page/InTheSpotlight/0,,10354~1381703,00.html

Glenn Roeder told Britton he wasn't big enough for the top flight and Gower suffered a very nasty knee injury at Spurs. Both have worked their way into the top flight which is a great story.

Video from Skysports News on the site -

http://www.skysports.com/video/inline/0,26691,12606_7377438,00.html

love that Swansea City link Barry.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo.../Charles-Sale-Every-man-says-Greg-Clarke.html

Well at least that's a silver lining. Sheepshanks was a pretty good chairman at Ipswich, at least the NFC has someone with a brain in charge. Shame they've still got the burden of Brooking though.

It all seems very haphazard. Those in charge have had years to create a philosophy or at least some direction for this place when it opens. They seem to have just waited for it to be ready before starting to do work though.

They haven't done very much as far as I can see. Just by hiring good people in roles isn't going to fully work (might help though). Everyone needs to be on the same wavelength. If some good foreign coaches come in then they aren't going to be able to do their jobs completely if for instance people like Pearce keep doing what they have been doing for years at the highest development level. It's counteractive.

It's obvious that we wouldn't have enough homegrown coaches of that level and experience to work at this place but then why have no young coaches been brought into the set up? I can't think of one person that has been offered a contract since Brooking took the job? I think Blake was already an assistant when Brooking took the job all those years ago and was just then promoted.

It makes these part time roles given to the likes of Alan Irvine seem even more strange when you think about the overall planning. Closer links with clubs and offering part time roles to their younger coaches that work with young players day in day out would have been ideal but they haven't done this.

It then means that when this place opens it will be Pearce, Eastick, Blake, Peacock and Swain. Throw in their assistant mates like Wigley etc. If you are going to invest so much then surely some coaches of a new generation should be involved when this opens? Or are they just saying they aren't good enough and we have to wait another ten years until this place churns them out? That would be another convenient excuse.

I know St George's Park is far more than just about the youth teams but I find the planning in this area quite incredible.

yeah they dont have any philosophy like Ajax or Barca. They are making it up as they go along.

The Ajax philosophy is that they take players at a young age and play them in every position on the pitch .So they have multi functional players with good technique . They also back it up with off pitch education as part of their setup. hence Holland having good depth for a smallish population .

English football often has the best facilities but idiots in the coaching positions.

yep, english a license coaches are generally ex players or related/know people in football

our youth coaches all fcuk off to america because we don't pay well here

coaches even fcuk off to japan ffs

we havn't adressed youth football still, hopefully st georges helps but our fa's incompetence knows no bounds

like barry said and sinner, we need an identity not the current athletic/tall/strong/kick and rush that we have now

I just hope they are planning on bringing an outside in to set the whole thing up. Someone like Glenn Hoddle would be a good move. I've seen him in action with his academy, and he fits the profile we need. There are no pressures on winning games etc, so the sole focus is on development.

FA to appoint technical director for first time in ten years to head up operations at new national football centre

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...erations-at-new-national-football-centre.html

Please don't let it be someone terrible. I know that's alot to ask

Pearce quotes on St George's -

http://www.thefa.com/St-Georges-Park/SGP-News/2012/pearce-interview-excitement-020412.aspx

He manages to mention trophies at youth level again but this quote is the best -

The next Pearce. Imagine that.

Yeah I read that yesterday, it made me cringe to say to say the least.

It's obviously a flippant comment but they usually put these types of things up. Maybe the person writing the articles is trying to mock Stuart.

Is always a possibility. Pearce feels really strongly about SGP, I really hope input into the teaching is kept to a minimum.

In order to get the best of the academy, it is important to have top coaches and very competent people running it. For this reason I hope that Trevor Brooking will not have any involvement whatsoever. Everything he has been involved in has been an absolute shambles.

Southgate 'favoured' for the technical director role -

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...first-fa-technical-head-in-years-7619285.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...cal-director-role-reach-Gareth-Southgate.html

Southgate destroyed Boro and their good youth setup so it figures the FA want him .Tragic!

what ius the point of creating this centre then hiring southgate in a 'technical director' role?

fcuk nationality, bring in top spanish/german/south american coaches to teach english coaches and the players! educate our ancient system for cnuts sake

for the love of p u s s y can we please make st georges not a complete disaster!?

The wage for the director of football role is reported to be £350,000. Southgate is the favourite. Imagine he gets the job and then ends up explaining why he can still keep his punditry job at ITV too?

The FA have a fixed set of criteria for these jobs -All FA posts are selected on this basis including referees
(1) Crony
(2) Uncontroversial
(3) Yes man

-Ability or aptitude are not factors. No experience or track record necessary.

The other thing is that they could have scouted and interviewed available options ages ago. Knowing that the place was going to be ready at a certain point.

Well the England manager position is at the moment a fiasco and has been for sevearl years & appointments. Wembley stadium cost many £millions over budget and took far too long to build. I think it was about 5 years after it closed that they even started demolishing it. (Brooking was involved in that one) The last few FA chief execs have resigned or in I think 4 cases been forced to resign for various failures and the standard of refereeing IMO is in the gutter absolutely the worst in the world by a distance. The FA couldnt to use a euphemism organise a booze up in a brewery. Except they probably could at about £200 a pint -2 years later.

The Wembley building farce also had a backlash on what Capello could demand too. The FA were in financial mess and then failed to qualify for Euro 08. So the FA gave Capello everything he wanted. Only stipulation being having an English coach. No matter how bad the coach was

If these people were culpable for their mistakes we might get somewhere but they aren't even brought up and we move onto the next disaster.

Brooking and Bevington both were an integral part of the team accepting Capello's terms and are now both claiming that we don't even need a manager until the last minute of a tournament. Nothing is even said of the hypocrisy of this.

I hadn't considered that saving salary is probably a big factor in the lack of appointment of a successor. It is likely that any savings will be wiped several times over by having to pay a compensation package to a club.
If Bernstein deliberately wanted Capello to resign, he handled it brilliantly it was totally wrong to take a decision about Terry without agreeing it with the manager. Man City are well rid of him and of course in contention for honours since he left, which thanks to him England will not be in the summer.
It is wrong to use Wembley for FA Cup semi finals or top damage the turf with pop concerts & motor racing all of these decisions made because the FA so grossly mismanaged the cost of Wembley and is now hugely in debt.