Samir Carruthers joins MK Dons

[b23]

Why play him in pre season? Must have known he was off

Mostly likely that was his last chance to make an impression....and he clearly failed

He was useless at Chesterfield.

[cdward]

A professional footballer earning a good wage in division 1, who used to be on the books of a Premier League club. There are plenty around. Not every player will be our next err Agbonlahor?

[silhillvilla]

Maybe he asked for a move ? He may be earning more at MK Dons ?

[steffo]

The words 'winger' have been mentioned in this topic. Alas - a redundant species under our Scottish managers.

[mike]

Bit odd to not even give the kid a real chance whilst at the same time we are buying washed up garbage like Joe Cole.

Did we pay money for Joe Cole?

[paul_e]

Since MON arrived 7 years ago how many youth/U21 players have appeared for us in the PL.  Of those, how many have gone on to play more than 10 games or moved on to other clubs for a reasonable amount of money.

Compare that with Everton over the same period.  People go on about how good the academy is at getting players through to U21 level but is there something fundamentally amiss.  Are we developing strong U21 teams to the detriment of the individual.

Have we failed all that badly? How many youngsters have come through at Villa in the last 10-15 years and gone on to make 50+ premier league appearances with someone, I reckon it's more than most clubs. What we haven't had is a genuine superstar, Cahill is probably the best of the lot.

[silhillvilla]

Bit odd to not even give the kid a real chance whilst at the same time we are buying washed up garbage like Joe Cole.

Did we pay money for Joe Cole?

No but we've invested a lot into him over his 2 year deal.

[Lastfootstamper]

Bit odd to not even give the kid a real chance whilst at the same time we are buying washed up garbage like Joe Cole.

Did we pay money for Joe Cole?

No but we've invested a lot into him over his 2 year deal.

Maybe give him a chance before referring to him as "washed up garbage"?

[Lastfootstamper]

Since MON arrived 7 years ago how many youth/U21 players have appeared for us in the PL.  Of those, how many have gone on to play more than 10 games or moved on to other clubs for a reasonable amount of money.

Compare that with Everton over the same period.  People go on about how good the academy is at getting players through to U21 level but is there something fundamentally amiss.  Are we developing strong U21 teams to the detriment of the individual.

Have we failed all that badly? How many youngsters have come through at Villa in the last 10-15 years and gone on to make 50+ premier league appearances with someone, I reckon it's more than most clubs. What we haven't had is a genuine superstar, Cahill is probably the best of the lot.

Don't we have the best rate of all kids coming through the system that then go on to forge a professional career, something around 10%? If so, it shows we must be doing something right. But with so many, our inability to uncover that one truly mercurial talent is baffling. I believe that real footballing ability is a gift, not learned. We're just bastard unlucky in my book.

Our time will come.

[ChicagoLion]

I don't trust Lambert with home grown talent, he would much rather buy crap from wherever than develop talent.

[old man villa fan]

Since MON arrived 7 years ago how many youth/U21 players have appeared for us in the PL.  Of those, how many have gone on to play more than 10 games or moved on to other clubs for a reasonable amount of money.

Compare that with Everton over the same period.  People go on about how good the academy is at getting players through to U21 level but is there something fundamentally amiss.  Are we developing strong U21 teams to the detriment of the individual.

Have we failed all that badly? How many youngsters have come through at Villa in the last 10-15 years and gone on to make 50+ premier league appearances with someone, I reckon it's more than most clubs. What we haven't had is a genuine superstar, Cahill is probably the best of the lot.

Don't we have the best rate of all kids coming through the system that then go on to forge a professional career, something around 10%? If so, it shows we must be doing something right. But with so many, our inability to uncover that one truly mercurial talent is baffling. I believe that real footballing ability is a gift, not learned. We're just bastard unlucky in my book.

Our time will come.

In the last 7 years the following have made their debuts and gone on to make more than 10 PL appearances:

2008/09 - Delfouneso
2009/10 - Albrighton, Clark
2010/11 - Weimann, Bannan, Baker, Herd
2011/12 - none
2012/13 - none
2013/14 - none

Not exactly brilliant and according to some, those that remain should be nowhere near the 1st team.

[Matt Collins]

I agree - I don't think our youth system has lived up to the hype.

The best recent crop, in hindsight, was Cahill, Ridgewell, Davis, Gardner, whittingham, gabby who I think were roughly all the same time

It was just our luck that they came through when we were at our strongest and we flogged all of them bar gabby. If they'd come through 2-3 years later we wouldn't have struggled so much.

Cahill ahead of baker / Clark? Gardner ahead of bannan? Ridgewell ahead of herd? Davis ahead of carruthers?

You'd have to take that

[Gregorys Boy]

Don't think you can really judge the youth stystem right now until we see how some of the players turn out.  Also when you are a top six club like we were during the MON years or in the process of rebuilding, it does make more sense to go with proven players or experience. 

Didn't see enough of Carruthers to form an opinion.  The manager clearly doesn't fancy him, and since he is going to be our manager for awhile then it makes sense to move him on.  The lower leagues are the best place for him to try and iron out any flaws.  Good luck to him.

[RussellC]

Don't think you can really judge the youth stystem right now until we see how some of the players turn out.  Also when you are a top six club like we were during the MON years or in the process of rebuilding, it does make more sense to go with proven players or experience. 

Didn't see enough of Carruthers to form an opinion.  The manager clearly doesn't fancy him, and since he is going to be our manager for awhile then it makes sense to move him on.  The lower leagues are the best place for him to try and iron out any flaws.  Good luck to him.

I know it's been mentioned before, but the clubs lack of long term thinking (even since Randy arrived) is frightening. The way that they've changed direction in their managerial appointments has killed-off any kind of continuity for the youth policy. 

For example, under MON, I don't think there was any remit to bring youth players through, or even get top dollar for selling them. £4.5m for Davis was decent business at the time, but I don't think anyone saw the sense in selling Cahill to Bolton for £5m.

Houllier, in my opinion, did an excellent job in this area. Not only in playing a number of them (albeit often due to circumstance) but also by talking them up (e.g. Bannan as the Scottish Iniesta!) he developed the likes of Clark and made players like Jonathan Hogg sellable assets.

I'll gloss over McLeish as I'm not sure that he even realised we had a Youth Team, but Lambert seems to be doing what he can to give youth a chance.

I fully appreciate that each of the above manager's has worked under different circumstances, but it does bug me that there hasn't been some kind of club-strategy here.

[supertom]

I felt that our young and hungry experiment was mishandled in many ways. We went and bought a whole host of young, cheap players from overseas or lower leagues, rather than spending wiser on a selection of better players and then trying to intergrate our youngsters into the side more.
That has been a problem since Lambert took over. If you're telling me our academy can't produce better players than Sylla, Tonev, Dawkins, Westwood, Bennett, and Luna, then it really is in a mess. We've truly bought some dross, and at best average players.
Over the last decade we've raised a fair few average premiership players from our academy, most of whom have gone onto other pastures.

Carruthers has ability, if not, seemingly the aptitude.
In terms of the current batch on the brink of the first team, they're not quite as impressive as perhaps 5-10 years ago. Grealish stands out. Robinson is very raw but could make it. Johnson has ability but seems destined to float under the radar. Donacien couldn't be any worse than Baker, and at least has pace in his arsenal. Gardners on last chance saloon really. It's this season or never.

We need to get our players out on loan and benefitting from it, then integrating them better. I'll say at least Lambert seems to be doing that with Robinson and Grealish. I suspect Robbo will get a loan or two this season and perhaps feature tail end. He may feature early season too, while we're without Benteke and Kozak.

I just hope that the current batch of players around 16-18, the next sort of wave will be better. We've got to use them right, help them. In a couple of years they need to be ready for league football loans, and then a year on from there, integration to our first team. I think largely, we've screwed the pooch with a lot of our current 19-23 year olds.