weeyin Posted October 30, 2018 Report Share Posted October 30, 2018 The question is which leagues do better than this? (I don't know, but if any do, we need to follow). The biggest issue I can see is the increasing impatience of fans. You need look no further than than here to see to people complaining about lack of youngsters in one post and slagging off young players in the next post on a different thread. Fans say they are willing to accept the massive swings in form from youngsters and the stupid mistakes they make while they are developing, but when they do happen, most of the same people are up in arms. It's not an easy problem to solve at either end of the table. The only team that has had some success with it in recent times was Hearts - and that was because they had a massive points deduction and no money at the time, and were already doomed to relegation. As soon as they overcame that, they went back to throwing money at their problems. Let's face it - if teams could achieve the same level of success with less money spent on players, they'd be all over it. As I've said before, I agree our game needs a complete overhaul, but I doubt those at the top have any real interest in addressing the problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winning by Name Posted October 30, 2018 Author Report Share Posted October 30, 2018 On 10/27/2018 at 12:51 PM, mwellhighland said: Not to shit on your post or anything, but it was 30 months ago and not 18 Getting too old for the maths, apologies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weeyin Posted October 31, 2018 Report Share Posted October 31, 2018 12 hours ago, weeyin said: The question is which leagues do better than this? (I don't know, but if any do, we need to follow). To answer my own question, I came across this article today. Apparently Athletic Bilbao's Academy has produced 85% of their team. For the past 5 years, at least 2 academy players have graduated to the first team (and they have never been relegated). That's pretty impressive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MelvinBragg Posted October 31, 2018 Report Share Posted October 31, 2018 4 hours ago, weeyin said: To answer my own question, I came across this article today. Apparently Athletic Bilbao's Academy has produced 85% of their team. For the past 5 years, at least 2 academy players have graduated to the first team (and they have never been relegated). That's pretty impressive. They're a special case though as they only allow players from the Basque region to play for their team, although I gather they've been stretching the definition of Basque origin recently... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weeyin Posted October 31, 2018 Report Share Posted October 31, 2018 6 hours ago, MelvinBragg said: They're a special case though as they only allow players from the Basque region to play for their team, although I gather they've been stretching the definition of Basque origin recently... I would say that makes it even more impressive given their relative success from vastly reduced pool of players. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wellfan1984 Posted October 31, 2018 Report Share Posted October 31, 2018 19 hours ago, weeyin said: To answer my own question, I came across this article today. Apparently Athletic Bilbao's Academy has produced 85% of their team. For the past 5 years, at least 2 academy players have graduated to the first team (and they have never been relegated). That's pretty impressive. Bilbao Athletc and Baskonia are also key to their continued development (Aka Athletic B and Athletic C) - who both compete in the Spanish league system. Not to mention they also have right to sign (not buy) with almost 10 other Basque regional clubs. Could you imagine Airdrie, Albion Rovers and other Lanarkshire clubs agreeing to this with Motherwell with a nominal fee going to them each year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weeyin Posted October 31, 2018 Report Share Posted October 31, 2018 I think the posters here are secret members of the SFA from the "Aye, but" school of player development. If we don't think we can learn from a Spanish club who has graduated at least 2 players per season from the academy in the past 5 years, then we should just give up. It doesn't matter where the players came from, it matters how they made sure their talent was nurtured along the way. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wellfan1984 Posted October 31, 2018 Report Share Posted October 31, 2018 13 minutes ago, weeyin said: I think the posters here are secret members of the SFA from the "Aye, but" school of player development. If we don't think we can learn from a Spanish club who has graduated at least 2 players per season from the academy in the past 5 years, then we should just give up. It doesn't matter where the players came from, it matters how they made sure their talent was nurtured along the way. I'm a huge advocate of the Spanish way. B teams for all who want it in the league system, hell even C teams like Athletic Club if clubs choose to finance it. We should also make links with our neighbours taking their talent for nothing at the time but pay a sum of 4-5 figures a year. Don't think many fans of those clubs and others would go for it - just look at the seethe generated by B teams in Irn Bru Cup (B team also enters the Spanish version of the Irn Bru Cup). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gadgey Posted November 1, 2018 Report Share Posted November 1, 2018 On 10/31/2018 at 6:41 AM, MelvinBragg said: They're a special case though as they only allow players from the Basque region to play for their team, although I gather they've been stretching the definition of Basque origin recently... There was a time when that wasn’t wholly unrealistic if there was the desire. I’m old enough to remember the days when a huge proportion of players playing in the Scottish premier were born in Lanarkshire....particularly Bellshill maternity. As YaBezzer has said, there was a conscious decision to move away from Scottish talent and buy supposedly cultured journeymen from England and abroad. Clubs like Dunfermline have never fully recovered and we nearly died because of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weeyin Posted November 1, 2018 Report Share Posted November 1, 2018 Different demographics when Bellshill maternity was the feeder for Lanarkshire clubs. The movement of players exploded long before the Bosman situation when clubs looked overseas for cheap options. The biggest driver was the removal of the maximum wage cap when, overnight, players could double or triple their wages by moving to a different club. That happened in the 50s when Scotland removed the cap before England. (I stayed at a B&B in Felixstowe for work and the landlord there was an ex Ipswich player. He moved to Falkirk when the wage cap was lifted as he could earn much more in Scotland. He played for the 1956/57 cup winning team all the way to the semis, then was dropped for the final; not that he mentioned that much!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mfc88 Posted November 2, 2018 Report Share Posted November 2, 2018 I'd say our youth setup is pretty fruitful tbh. The athletic Bilbao stat above is indeed impressive, but look at our own graduates to cement a first team spot in the last 5 seasons: 14/15 - Erwin 15/16 - Cadden, Hall 16/17 - N/A 17/18 - Campbell 18/19 - Turnbull? Ross McLean was unlucky with injury in the 16/17 season, and currently got Maguire firmly knocking on the 1st team door. Averaging 1 a season seems reasonable to me, I think..... that said I've no idea what the aim/ expectation is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clackscat Posted November 3, 2018 Report Share Posted November 3, 2018 I'd say our youth setup is pretty fruitful tbh. The athletic Bilbao stat above is indeed impressive, but look at our own graduates to cement a first team spot in the last 5 seasons: 14/15 - Erwin 15/16 - Cadden, Hall 16/17 - N/A 17/18 - Campbell 18/19 - Turnbull? Ross McLean was unlucky with injury in the 16/17 season, and currently got Maguire firmly knocking on the 1st team door. Averaging 1 a season seems reasonable to me, I think..... that said I've no idea what the aim/ expectation is.And 4 played on Wed night Cadden, Campbell, Turnbull, and Maguire.Sent from my SM-A320FL using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weeyin Posted November 3, 2018 Report Share Posted November 3, 2018 22 hours ago, mfc88 said: Averaging 1 a season seems reasonable to me, I think..... that said I've no idea what the aim/ expectation is. A few years ago I remember someone saying we needed to sell one player a season and bring through 1 academy player a season. On that basis we have done pretty well. As it turned out it has been some of our academy players we sold (like Hall, Henegan and Erwin). That skews our perception somewhat as those guys only had one (or part of one) season in the first team. Whereas the fact they were sellable after such a short spell shows we are doing Ok. You could make an argument that Kipre was another success of our development programme. I do still believe, however, that we need to overhaul the country's general approach to youth development. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ONeils4oyarder Posted November 5, 2018 Report Share Posted November 5, 2018 On 11/3/2018 at 7:28 PM, weeyin said: A few years ago I remember someone saying we needed to sell one player a season and bring through 1 academy player a season. On that basis we have done pretty well. As it turned out it has been some of our academy players we sold (like Hall, Henegan and Erwin). That skews our perception somewhat as those guys only had one (or part of one) season in the first team. Whereas the fact they were sellable after such a short spell shows we are doing Ok. You could make an argument that Kipre was another success of our development programme. I do still believe, however, that we need to overhaul the country's general approach to youth development. Its stretching it a wee bit to say that Hall and Heneghan came through our Academy surely? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weeyin Posted November 5, 2018 Report Share Posted November 5, 2018 Maybe, but it's another couple of examples of Robinson putting youngsters into the first team. (And Hall did play in the U20s for a couple of seasons when he joined us at 16 years old). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
that hat Posted November 6, 2018 Report Share Posted November 6, 2018 Adding to this discussion is today's news: BBC Sport Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Welldaft Mk1 Posted November 6, 2018 Report Share Posted November 6, 2018 Interesting stats. Not least the fact that there are actually 7 teams with a younger playing squad. Kind of makes a mockery of Robbo insistence we have the youngest squad in the league ! At least we are in top 6 for homegrown players / minutes played.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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