Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 http://www.arsenal.com/match-menu/173009/youth/arsenal-yth-v-derby-yth?tab=report i feel sad for monteiro, it must be difficult for the boy to move country and keep making costly mistakes
Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 Villa, Arsenal, Liverpool all out. heady days at these larger academies. to just tack on to the above Arsenal conversation that's sparking up. their starting lineup tonight was comprised of just four English born players. you could throw Toral in there as a 5th, but he's been to those Spain U17 camps. Charles-Cook, Bellerin, Bihmoutine, Wynter, Monteiro (c), Angha, Rees, Toral, Ansah, Ebecilio, Gnabry. and 3 more on the bench Substitutes: Vickers, Hayden, Akpom, Olsson, Roberts ...i'd like to see more HG players appear in a youth team, honestly... similarities at Manchester United with the side they took to Brazil this past week. Wilkinson, Harrop, Rowley, Weir (+Coddington) - then there's a slew of Irish (including the incredibly named Noe Baba), NornIron, Welsh, and other foreign players. Callum Evans and Ashley Fletcher may be English, not sure though.
Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 I dont think anyone knows. But jeorge bird thinks hes probably still injured
Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 Scratch that... http://arsenalyouth.wordpress.com/ that is an utterly terrible decision from the club. Not judging from youtube highlights but having watched him live he deserved a contract far more than certain other players... hope he makes himself a success wherever he goes
Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 Another strange development in the Bunjaku drama. I guess this was always possible with the contract issues and seeing others getting contracts whilst he's been ignored. If you are just looking at it from his technical qualities you can't figure out why he's not been offered a contract. Usually at Arsenal if you have technique they persist with you for as long as they can regardless of your overall game. Must be a clash of sorts with the set up there. Dominic Samuel scored both of Reading's goals btw.
Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 Bit of an up and down performance from Chelsea from what I saw. Bit frustrating to see Kiwomya isolated.
Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 Bunjaku was quite unexpected news, just saw a tweet re that & came back to check. But in fairness Arsenal has a massive pool of players, one/2 such cases were bound to happen. Wonde if spurs will pick him up. Tarum Dawkins played for Chelsea u16s just few weeks ago, after leaving.
Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 Dawkins wasn't there long was he? i didn't really rate him that much tbf.
Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 I have to say that I agree with Juni, I have seen some worrying signs for the Academy for the last two seasons. The scholars that we have taken on for the last two years only 3(Ansah,Hayden,Rees) have represented England at International. For a club that wants to rely on the Academy for future players, this is not good enough. I also think that Liam Brady is not helping our Academy progress like he should be. There have been some instances in the last few years where we have lost members of stuff due to ‘power struggles’ with Brady, most notably our Head Scout Sean O’Connor. On top of this, we seem to bring in foreign talent for the sake of it and not because they are of exceptional quality. We are producing players of quality e.g Wilshere, Frimpong, Aneke, Afobe, Yennaris, Akpom, Jebb to name a few but our Academy really does need to take a look into the scouting, training and in house politics.
Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 honest and open question: do the Arsenal stalwarts on here think the EPPP will help? (with on-site academies, schooling, etc.)?
Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 Well at the moment we have no idea if we will be taking advantage of the changes by implementing on site housing and schooling. The only benefit I can see for us at the moment is that it will be as cheap for us to bring in an English player from another academy as it is to bring in a foreign one which will help reduce the amount of foreign players in the academy. The sticking issue with our Academy for me is that we revamped it 10 years ago but it doesn’t seem like there is a real drive to improve the academy.
Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 its kicked off on arsenalyouth.wordpress.com, accusation of racist abuse towards bunjaku flying around now
Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 At the moment all these claims on why Alban left are just specualtions o I wouldn't read into any of it. On a serious note though, do Bould and Banfield strike you as a pair of racists considering the multicultural make up of our playing staff?
Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 No they dont. One thing i would say about the bunjaku-bould relationship though is anyone whos seen the stick bunjaku gets from bould during matches wouldnt blame alban for wanting to get away
Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 I know it seems harsh on him but the lads train all week with Bould coaching them and if it gets to Saturday and they aren’t doing they have worked on he lets them know. We’ll have to see how this one pans out
Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 This is what his agent has to say - "he is still at this time an Arsenal scholar. Nothing else to say at this time out of respect for the club and the player."
Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 Re: my comments yesterday - I don't know whether it seems like it's something more than it actually is because of Arsenal's success at academy level in the past decade, but in the last two years or so there's been definite signs of a shift in philosophy and style, whether intentional or not. It's struck me in their matches against Chelsea (my first hand evidence) that an ever-increasing number of their players are more effective as athletes/because of their physical prowess than because of their footballing ability. A short list of Boateng, Monteiro, Fagan, Wynter, Monakana, Aneke, Hayden, Neita and Jeffrey are some examples that point that way, and all bar Monteiro have come through from Hale End. I appreciate that to a degree this is just a reflection of society (particularly in London with the ever-growing black community; I actually did some research into this for an article on it but never really found the right angle to approach it from) but by simple comparison to the sorts of players Chelsea have in their 18s and 16s (Nortey, Gordon, Bangura, Figueira, Seremba, Mitchell etc) they're giants if not by height then certainly by build. Even looking down their ranks at 16 and 15 level they're continuing on that way (have you seen Alfred Mugabo?!) and the likes of Jebb etc are seemingly the rarer quantity. A cursory glance at their lineup for a 2006/06 match at Cobham sees Parisio, Hoyte, van den Berg, Merida, Dunne, Gibbs, Murphy and Fonte involved, none of whom could at that point be labelled physically impressive. More markedly perhaps though is that I've witnessed them resorting more and more to a 'direct' style less in keeping with the club's supposed preferred style. Look at how someone like Bunjaku has apparently just been cast aside despite being very obviously talented and you begin to question things. Frimpong has been given a promotion to the first team ranks around the same time as Ozyakup, who is an infinitely better player if more attacking (yet a more comparable replacement for the injured Wilshere) but even at first team level the bigger Frimpong is afforded the opportunities. It's perhaps anecdotal evidence from myself but it's something seemingly backed up, if only by fellow Chelsea sources. The club's U14 coach noted the following after a recent game at Hale End, in which CFC won comfortably (as they did at the Nike Cup last summer, and at the Premier League tournament at Warwick in November, both competitions Arsenal would've swept up years ago but instead fell at the group stages this time around. Similar stories can be conjured for the Ferroli Cup and whathaveyou abroad) that the hosts were long ball merchants and had a terrible attitude about them. Perhaps a biased observation but in the fairly closed world of junior football we take them at face value. By no means am I suggesting that there's a crisis of any sorts but results and performances have undoubtedly slipped in the last 18 months. There's many extenuating circumstances behind that and one can rightly say that by simply looking at results Chelsea are even worse, but as I said, it's not just that, nor is is necessarily the lack of representation at national team levels. As much as anything it's the eye test which disappoints me from Arsenal and I'm not sure it's headed the right way at the moment. (Apologies for the excessive use of parentheses, it's a bad habit I've developed of late)
Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 thanks for the 2 pence Juni. so, in summary, there's more of an athletic mould for Arsenal's English players - and the technical/skill based players are few and far between?
Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 I often speak to our academy director, Nick Marshall, and I got into conversation with him about Bunjaku and he said one of our major scouts often goes to watch Arsenals academy side quite often. The scouts name is Alan Hill. Funnily enough a friend of mine has huge connections with our scouting network and in paricular Alan Hill so I suggested he go speak to Alan about Bunjaku and he was aware of him. So Forest were in contact with Arsenal today. By all accounts he is on trial with West Ham and he will play for them tomorrow. Forest are sending a scout to watch. Obviously there will be compensation involved and potentially sell-on fees.
Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 Cheers for that Juni. Very interesting indeed. You would think that potentially scouting could become a bit lazy but not a change in total philosophy on style of players preferred and style of play as a group. Do you look at the younger age group co-ordinators and coaches from 9-11 and 12-14 age-groups not doing their job properly as well? Almost resting on their laurels because what has come through already and what should still come through. Just off this topic but, With all the talent available in London, it will be interesting to see how the EPPP will effect sides like Charlton and Palace or even Watford in the area.
Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 Will touch on the new recruiting guidelines later as I've got a bit of info on them, but back to Arsenal for a second, something else I missed on was their overseas recruitment. It's nothing new, certainly at elite levels, but their most recent class was dominated by imports and they've already got some for next year as well. Of the current 18s squad (excluding schoolboys), 8 of them came from other clubs after U16 level whilst 12 came through Hale End. That's a fairly poor split imo. Chelsea, of course, have done this in the past but the difference there for me was that the club recognised that their academy was well behind the best and they bought big to catch up (and ultimately that policy was a failure, but that's a different debate). Arsenal have been field leaders for around a decade and have always spoken of their desire to bring players through 'the Arsenal way' but have seemingly moved away from that more than ever in recent years. It's one thing having additional imports to your core schoolboy intake and that's fine, but it's when the imports begin to be the core themselves that it becomes perhaps questionable. Anyway, Chelsea won at Palace today, six straight league wins to close out 2011. Certainly didn't see that coming a few months ago.
Re: FA Academy Pemier League 2011/12 been on the forum for a while, but don't contribute much - hope this helps (I know you are concentrating on english lads tho) From an Irish perspective the following (from both sides of the border) are joining academy clubs as 1st year scholars next season Norn Iron Liam Donnelly (centre back/defensive centre back) - Fulham, has already played in the N.I premier league (is only 15) and was captain of our victory shield squad this season. Christian Stewart (left back) - Aston villa - played in victory shield this year. Rory Croskey (striker/left wing) - man Utd, born in Dec so he is still an U15 - played victory shield this year. Rep of Ireland Jack Byrne (centre midfield) - man city Dan Cleary (centre back) - Liverpool Alex O'Hanlon (left back/wing back) - Liverpool - like the 2 above him, he is a current U16 international Noe Bada (centre back/centre midfield) - man Utd - captain of ROI U16's - originally from Cameroon Ryan McConnell (centre back) - man Utd - born in 95, is an U17 international. and there are 2 lads at forest whose names escape me. If i hear of any others i will post them, especially with the northern boys there are guys who I think have signed which hasn't been confirmed yet