Summer Transfer Thread and Gustavo Cisneros Type Rumours.

[cdbearsfan]

Pape Starr is following Villa on Twitter, can see him signing, maybe...

[Toronto Villa]

Pape Starr is following Villa on Twitter, can see him signing, maybe...

I want us to sign Pape Sarr and have him change his name to Starr eventualy.

[ADVILLAFAN]

Is he a winger or central midfielder?

Have heard him described as "the new Manè" or the "new Idrissa Gueye".

[Toronto Villa]

Is he a winger or central midfielder?

Have heard him described as "the new Manè" or the "new Idrissa Gueye".

He’s a central midfielder from what I’ve seen who has a superb range of passing and can get up and down the pitch. I’d say he’s the love child of Vieira, Pirlo, Pogba, Makelele. Something like that.

[ADVILLAFAN]

Yeah, but can he take freekicks?

[Toronto Villa]

Yeah, but can he take freekicks?

Ward Prowse will be handling those

[OCD]

Aliou Cisse (his manager for Senegal) compared him to Mane on the basis that he could play anywhere. Perhaps he uses Mane in a number of different positions but as we only see him for Liverpool where he's a wide forward it seems a bit odd to us.

His first position seems to be as a defensive midfielder who's capable of getting up and down the pitch. He's got quite a physical frame for an 18-year old so he could be a bit scary as he develops and does a bit of strength and conditioning work.

He seems to be the type that we should be looking at but as Paul said earlier, I've not seen him play...I'm just going off YouTube videos and what I've read about him.

[OCD]

Yeah, but can he take freekicks?

Yep. Some of the YT clips show him scoring freekicks and penalties.

[Russ aka Big Nose]

Read somewhere that the clubs know that the vast majority of them have no hope of making it, but they need enough for a team to play with the couple that do have a chance. Quite a sad way of looking at it really.

Academies have a good idea who will make it and who will not - though that in part is because they can (unconsciously) focus on the players they have identified as being a real prospect. There can also be exceptions, though not many.

Provided expectations are appropriately managed and youngsters are supported with their education and wider development, then maybe the risks are not that great. Viewed positively, a youngster enjoys professional coaching in a positive environment knowing there is perhaps only a 1% chance of becoming a professional player.

The downside is that expectations are not managed and insufficient focus is placed on academic studies, alternatives to football and most especially the life experience of growing up.

Coaches and academics are beginning to realise that elite athletes (in all sports) need to be given the time and space to develop as young people rather than thinking 'normal' adolescent experiences are a potential hinderance to athletic performance and hence something to seek to avoid or mitigate.

[SoccerHQ]

One thing I quite like doing from time to time is looking through old FA Youth Cup final squads and seeing what happened to all of the players.  E.g. if you look at the Liverpool FA Youth Cup winning side from 2009 - so all players who are either at, just or past, their peak now:

GK - Dean Bouzanis - now playing non-league football, probably made a living but nothing more
DF - Steven Irwin - knocked around Europe playing a handful of games for random lower league sides, now playing non-league
DF - Jack Robinson - one of the more succesful ones, played about 200 games in the Championship for various clubs
DF - Daniel Ayala - similar to Robinson - 250 games, mostly in the Championship
MF - Andre Wisdom - couple of seasons on loan in the Premier League, now dropped down to the Championship & doing alright
MF - David Amoo - journeyman career spent mainly in League One & Two
MF - Christopher Buchtmann - made a decent career playing in the Bundesliga.2 for St Pauli
FW - Lauri Dalla Valle - lower league journeyman career across Europe, neer played more than about 30 games for one club
FW - Tom Ince - arguably the most successful, 350-odd games coming mainly in the Championship
MF - Alexander Kačaniklić - looked like he might break through at Fulham for a bit, plays a bit for Sweden, not really played for anyone notable though
FW - Nathan Eccleston - short career playing a handful of games for a myriad of teams, now playing non-league football
DF- Alex Cooper - played mainly lower league Scottish football, now playing in Ireland

Of that entire squad, only one made a double figure number of appearances for the Liverpool first team (Andre Wisdom, who played 14 times).  Only half a dozen have seen football in the top division of one of the big 5 leagues after they left, and for all bar 2 of those of those it's literally been a couple of games early on in their career.

The losing finalists, Arsenal, did better - they've had Jack Wilshire, Henri Lansbury, Luke Ayling (currently at Leeds), Kyle Bartley (stripeys), Francis Coquelin (Villareal) ... but it's still a similar story for the majority of their players.  Of the 32 players who were in both teams for that final, only Jack Wilshire and Francis Coquelin played more than 100 games for their parent club.

This is an interesting post Algy, amazing how few make it.  Hopefully some of ours will - to me some of them look too good not to, but I guess it's better not to expect too much.

We properly got sucked in by the 2002-04 crop. Was reading stuff like Liam Ridgewell was going to be our FA cup winning captain and Moore brothers of course better than Rooney etc when they all came through but big underachievement there with likes of Stephen Cooke completely fading out of game as soon as he got released.

In fairness the next crop between 2005-09 were much better even if not all showed it here. Gabby up to 2011 was pretty effective after all, Cahill CL winner and 50 odd caps for England (and given how he played when he broke through here not a huge shock to me he eventually reached those heights) Albrighton premier league winner and Steven Davis a very solid prem midfield and record holder of caps for Northern Ireland.

Even some of the ones who didn't quite make it like Bannan and Hogg become solid championship players so only really the Fonz who didn't do much with his career so that's a much better strike rate.

Carney looks very special and think the same of Louie Barry aswell so would be really disappointed if those two don't kick on and become first choice players in three years (probably sooner in Carney's case) so those are the two for me. Likes of Kesler, JBP and others could go either way, I mean we've seen plenty of Ramsey this season yet still don't know what his level is at prem level (especially if we want to be pushing for top 6 soon) so important not to rush judgements although every so often a Grealish comes along and looks at home from first match they play for us, Barry was the same aswell years back.

[paul_e]

One thing I quite like doing from time to time is looking through old FA Youth Cup final squads and seeing what happened to all of the players.  E.g. if you look at the Liverpool FA Youth Cup winning side from 2009 - so all players who are either at, just or past, their peak now:

GK - Dean Bouzanis - now playing non-league football, probably made a living but nothing more
DF - Steven Irwin - knocked around Europe playing a handful of games for random lower league sides, now playing non-league
DF - Jack Robinson - one of the more succesful ones, played about 200 games in the Championship for various clubs
DF - Daniel Ayala - similar to Robinson - 250 games, mostly in the Championship
MF - Andre Wisdom - couple of seasons on loan in the Premier League, now dropped down to the Championship & doing alright
MF - David Amoo - journeyman career spent mainly in League One & Two
MF - Christopher Buchtmann - made a decent career playing in the Bundesliga.2 for St Pauli
FW - Lauri Dalla Valle - lower league journeyman career across Europe, neer played more than about 30 games for one club
FW - Tom Ince - arguably the most successful, 350-odd games coming mainly in the Championship
MF - Alexander Kačaniklić - looked like he might break through at Fulham for a bit, plays a bit for Sweden, not really played for anyone notable though
FW - Nathan Eccleston - short career playing a handful of games for a myriad of teams, now playing non-league football
DF- Alex Cooper - played mainly lower league Scottish football, now playing in Ireland

Of that entire squad, only one made a double figure number of appearances for the Liverpool first team (Andre Wisdom, who played 14 times).  Only half a dozen have seen football in the top division of one of the big 5 leagues after they left, and for all bar 2 of those of those it's literally been a couple of games early on in their career.

The losing finalists, Arsenal, did better - they've had Jack Wilshire, Henri Lansbury, Luke Ayling (currently at Leeds), Kyle Bartley (stripeys), Francis Coquelin (Villareal) ... but it's still a similar story for the majority of their players.  Of the 32 players who were in both teams for that final, only Jack Wilshire and Francis Coquelin played more than 100 games for their parent club.

This is an interesting post Algy, amazing how few make it.  Hopefully some of ours will - to me some of them look too good not to, but I guess it's better not to expect too much.

We properly got sucked in by the 2002-04 crop. Was reading stuff like Liam Ridgewell was going to be our FA cup winning captain and Moore brothers of course better than Rooney etc when they all came through but big underachievement there with likes of Stephen Cooke completely fading out of game as soon as he got released.

In fairness the next crop between 2005-09 were much better even if not all showed it here. Gabby up to 2011 was pretty effective after all, Cahill CL winner and 50 odd caps for England (and given how he played when he broke through here not a huge shock to me he eventually reached those heights) Albrighton premier league winner and Steven Davis a very solid prem midfield and record holder of caps for Northern Ireland.

Even some of the ones who didn't quite make it like Bannan and Hogg become solid championship players so only really the Fonz who didn't do much with his career so that's a much better strike rate.

Carney looks very special and think the same of Louie Barry aswell so would be really disappointed if those two don't kick on and become first choice players in three years (probably sooner in Carney's case) so those are the two for me. Likes of Kesler, JBP and others could go either way, I mean we've seen plenty of Ramsey this season yet still don't know what his level is at prem level (especially if we want to be pushing for top 6 soon) so important not to rush judgements although every so often a Grealish comes along and looks at home from first match they play for us, Barry was the same aswell years back.

I think a big part of the problem, for a number of years, has been how the transition from U23 to first team has been handled, lots of youngsters have been allowed to stagnate for years stuck between the 2. It's a problem all through the premier league because it's easier to just buy players to sit on the bench than to work with your academy to fill those spots.

[cdbearsfan]

I still think Luke Moore, at least, could have gone on to have a fantastic career with the right manager to put his arm around him. Instead, we had that twat O'Leary dropping him not long after he scored a hat-trick at Middlesbrough and generally treating him, much as he treated the rest of the club, as an inconvenience.

That said, he still went onto have a more successful career than probably 90% of Premier League Academy players. So did Ridgewell.

[eamonn]

Luke had all the talent, just not enough of the hunger.

[cdbearsfan]

I think that's where a better manager would have got more out of him.

[eamonn]

Many tried, he went through quite a few clubs in the end. Remember him scoring the winner for Swansea against Man Sheikhy, years after leaving us. You'd be willing him to push-on and fulfill his potential but it just didn't happen.