how good is the AVFC academy really?

[Jarpie]

Part of the problem with our young crop of the players (Bannan, Albrighton, Clark, Baker, Delph, Weimann, Lichaj etc) is that they weren't given enough games starting 3-4 years ago, starting with MON.

They would now be more mature and experienced to play week-in week-out if they would've been given more playing time alongside of Barry, Petrov, Milner, Dunne, Collins etc and learn from them. Houllier did that to some extent but ultimately had to throw them into the deep end in some parts of his season due injuries.

Clark and Baker have potential for becoming good or at least decent premier league defenders if they get to play alongside of Vlaar and another commanding defender to show them the ropes. Delph and Weimann are probably our most determined and mature young players but they need other players taking off the pressure from their shoulders, and I think Benteke, Gabby, N'Zogbia and Bent will do that for Weimann but we don't have anyone else than Westwood to do that for Delph.

[dcdavecollett]

Thanks to Karl and OCD for putting me right on Weimann's loan spell.

Isn't it strange that we send lads like Johnson on loan for a single month? I'm not sure what 'development' we're expecting to see in such a short period.

[SoccerHQ]

Thanks to Karl and OCD for putting me right on Weimann's loan spell.

Isn't it strange that we send lads like Johnson on loan for a single month? I'm not sure what 'development' we're expecting to see in such a short period.

Johnson was sent back by Yeovil wasn't he? He seems another highly rated but obviously they weren't impressed.

[Monty]

The problem is exactly the same as with all our academy lads. Arsene Wenger (who, whatever you may think of him, knows a thing or two about bring through young players) says that there are two most important age phases, in general: 0-5 and 18-22, the former because that's the entire instinct of playing the game and the latter because it's the entire reality of playing the game. Our players' 18-22 has been utterly and hopelessly disrupted, and you can see it in all of their flaws: Bannan's difficulty in picking the right pass, Clark's lack of reading the game, Delph's positional sense, Baker's positional sense, Albrighton's final third decision making - all game realities rather than talents. These players need patience and time we cannot afford in order to get them back on track, and they'll probably never reach their potential.

Why are they like this then? MON, to a huge extent, whose prejudices about certain players are well-documented. GH's attempts to clear up his predecessors' messes often did more harm than good, and in any case he didn't get the chance to enact his plans long term. The major fault then? Randy Lerner, for appointing the man least likely in the world to continue Houllier's line of thought but more competently than the Frenchman. How is Alex McLeish going to be Guardiola to Clark's Pique? How is he going to champion Bannan like Pirlo was by Carlo Ancelotti? How is he even to sponsor Albrighton in the way Rodgers took the punt on Scott Sinclair? By the time Lambert has come in, it all feels a bit too late to throw them in together, and you feel that what a lot of them need is just a change of scenery to relaunch their careers and frankly their lives.

All young players who make it, at any stage of the game, have had people who believe in them at the right time of their development, and our guys have not had that. Whether it's MON's mistrust, Houllier's interrupted plan or McLeish's incompetence, something has gone wrong every step of the way. Two games against Fulham stick in the mind: Clark's debut at centre-back at Villa Park in an injury crisis under MON, where we won 2-0 and he looked un-troubled; and the away game of GH's season, where Bannan's Beckham-like pass was controlled and finished by Albrighton like Aaron Lennon on a good day. That is the potential we're talking here, and that is the potential that sheer incompetence from the top down at the club has wasted.

[PaulWinch again]

Weimann is the only one who will make it as a good/great top level player. The rest in the first team squad won't.

[Lastfootstamper]

The problem is exactly the same as with all our academy lads. Arsene Wenger (who, whatever you may think of him, knows a thing or two about bring through young players) says that there are two most important age phases, in general: 0-5 and 18-22, the former because that's the entire instinct of playing the game and the latter because it's the entire reality of playing the game. Our players' 18-22 has been utterly and hopelessly disrupted, and you can see it in all of their flaws: Bannan's difficulty in picking the right pass, Clark's lack of reading the game, Delph's positional sense, Baker's positional sense, Albrighton's final third decision making - all game realities rather than talents. These players need patience and time we cannot afford in order to get them back on track, and they'll probably never reach their potential.

Why are they like this then? MON, to a huge extent, whose prejudices about certain players are well-documented. GH's attempts to clear up his predecessors' messes often did more harm than good, and in any case he didn't get the chance to enact his plans long term. The major fault then? Randy Lerner, for appointing the man least likely in the world to continue Houllier's line of thought but more competently than the Frenchman. How is Alex McLeish going to be Guardiola to Clark's Pique? How is he going to champion Bannan like Pirlo was by Carlo Ancelotti? How is he even to sponsor Albrighton in the way Rodgers took the punt on Scott Sinclair? By the time Lambert has come in, it all feels a bit too late to throw them in together, and you feel that what a lot of them need is just a change of scenery to relaunch their careers and frankly their lives.

All young players who make it, at any stage of the game, have had people who believe in them at the right time of their development, and our guys have not had that. Whether it's MON's mistrust, Houllier's interrupted plan or McLeish's incompetence, something has gone wrong every step of the way. Two games against Fulham stick in the mind: Clark's debut at centre-back at Villa Park in an injury crisis under MON, where we won 2-0 and he looked un-troubled; and the away game of GH's season, where Bannan's Beckham-like pass was controlled and finished by Albrighton like Aaron Lennon on a good day. That is the potential we're talking here, and that is the potential that sheer incompetence from the top down at the club has wasted.

This. They've all shown, at one point or another, that they have the talent. But worse than merely wasting potential, their mismanagement over the last few years has destroyed some careers. None of them will get that time back to try again

[django]

I think it's down to a mentality, we have a good number of players who have grown up together but don't have the mental side to their game right. We've seen them all show talent at different times but all of them are mentally fragile apart from Weimann. Probably it's in large part down to the way they've been introduced to a struggling team.

[jonzy85]

Part of the problem with our young crop of the players (Bannan, Albrighton, Clark, Baker, Delph, Weimann, Lichaj etc) is that they weren't given enough games starting 3-4 years ago, starting with MON.

They would now be more mature and experienced to play week-in week-out if they would've been given more playing time alongside of Barry, Petrov, Milner, Dunne, Collins etc and learn from them. Houllier did that to some extent but ultimately had to throw them into the deep end in some parts of his season due injuries.

Clark and Baker have potential for becoming good or at least decent premier league defenders if they get to play alongside of Vlaar and another commanding defender to show them the ropes. Delph and Weimann are probably our most determined and mature young players but they need other players taking off the pressure from their shoulders, and I think Benteke, Gabby, N'Zogbia and Bent will do that for Weimann but we don't have anyone else than Westwood to do that for Delph.

The reason they weren't given game time is because they weren't good enough and probably never will be. Imagine MON had thrown one or two of them into a league game when we were serious contenders for Champ League. We would have gone bats*** and rightly so.

I agree, though, that to get the best out of the current youngster we need some old heads beside them to bring them along. But then again everyone can see that apart from Paul Lambert and Randy Lerner seemingly.