3 New Academy Coaches...

[Drummond]

Aston Villa is pleased to announce the appointments of three new coaches to the Club’s Academy.

Tony Carss will join as Under-23 Senior Professional Development Phase Coach, Gerrard Nash will become Lead Under-18 Professional Development Phase Coach and Adem Atay who will take up the role of Under-18 Professional Development Coach.

Carss moves to Villa from Blackburn Rovers where he was Head of Coaching. He has also worked as a senior coach in the Huddersfield Town Academy and will now lead the Under-23s at Aston Villa.

Nash has most recently been working with the FA of Ireland as their High Performance Coach and previously worked at Ipswich Town as both Under-18 Lead Professional Development Phase Coach and Under-23 Senior Professional Development Phase Coach.
 
Atay will join from Ipswich Town where he was the Under-18s Head Coach and Assistant Academy Manager.
 
Nash and Atay will work alongside Karl Hooper who currently works with our Under-18s, while Sean Verity will take on the role of Assistant Academy Manager and Assistant Head of Coach Development.

Mark Harrison, Academy Manager, said: “We are delighted that Tony, Gerrard and Adem are joining us after a thorough recruitment process.

“They will bring with them a wealth of experience in player development and their appointments will also strengthen our player development coaching strategy.

“This will allow us to support individual player development further as we will now have three outfield coaches at both Under-23 and Under-18 level.”

He added: “These appointments underline again the central importance which the Board place on the constant evolution and development of our Academy."

[Brazilian Villain]

There's already a thread on the new U-23 coach.

[dave.woodhall]

It seems a bit strange to be fixing something that doesn't seem broke.

[cdbearsfan]

Well all the academy teams have been rubbish this year.

[dave.woodhall]

Well all the academy teams have been rubbish this year.

It's about players coming through, not results.

[cdbearsfan]

But if the players aren't good enough to win games every now and then, they won't come through.

[dave.woodhall]

As we've said before, the best ones are on loan and in any case, looking at what we've got it's a bit knee-jerk to decide the entire policy isn't good enough.

[cdbearsfan]

Football is based on results. If they aren't good enough to beat Stoke's youth team they're unlikely to help us make the Champions League. Other clubs have players on loan too. Our under-18s finished near the bottom of the league. Our under-23s finished near the bottom and they're in the second division.

Aston Villa shouldn't settle for such dross. Hopefully they do much better next year and in the coming seasons.

[LeonW]

Football is based on results. If they aren't good enough to beat Stoke's youth team they're unlikely to help us make the Champions League. Other clubs have players on loan too. Our under-18s finished near the bottom of the league. Our under-23s finished near the bottom and they're in the second division.

Aston Villa shouldn't settle for such dross. Hopefully they do much better next year and in the coming seasons.

Results are not a barometer of quality at youth level. That’s not the purpose of youth development. The best young players are not playing youth football; they're either on loan somewhere or in the first team or moving between the two which is what a good manager or coach will be able to spot and manage accordingly, depending upon the individual. An effective youth set up is based upon moving people through those levels at the right time. And at youth level, you’ll learn more through losing and making mistakes for the right reasons then just winning easily against inferior opponents.

[cdbearsfan]

I disagree. The top youth teams in recent years have tended to be Man City and Chelsea. In Spain, it's Barcelona and Real Madrid, in the Netherlands, Ajax. And so on. Our players should have it drilled into them that they're expected to win. Finishing one place clear of Small Heath is unacceptable. If it isn't a barometer of success, we may as well just withdraw from the leagues and play friendlies.

[Drummond]

There's already a thread on the new U-23 coach.

Yep, and then there's this one about the three new coaches at different levels. ;-)

[Drummond]

And I can sort of see the plan, bring on the best talent to develop everything. I guess now is the right time of year, but it's a whole lot of new blood. Fresh chances for everyone I suppose, though I think the younger players coming through are doing pretty well.

[pauliewalnuts]

Mark Harrison was considered a coup when we poached him so if these are his choices fair enough

[LeonW]

I disagree. The top youth teams in recent years have tended to be Man City and Chelsea. In Spain, it's Barcelona and Real Madrid, in the Netherlands, Ajax. And so on. Our players should have it drilled into them that they're expected to win. Finishing one place clear of Small Heath is unacceptable. If it isn't a barometer of success, we may as well just withdraw from the leagues and play friendlies.

They’re just hovering up talent for the purposes of stockpiling or re-selling. That is not the same thing as having a development pathway.

Mount and Reece James only became Chelsea regulars because Lampard gave them a pathway. Before that, they hadn’t had a kick at Chelsea and the last player they brought through, was what, John Terry, over 20 years before?

Same with Barcelona. A.Fati and Pedri only came through because of financial issues forced them to be played. Before those guys, who came through to become a first team regular? Pique and Fabregas left because there was no pathway, so it was what, Iniesta and Messi? With Busquets and Pedro a couple of years later? Barcelona were bringing in players that didn’t suit what they were trying to do time after time after time. Thiago and I believe Raphina left, because there was no pathway. Now Barcelona want to bring back Raphina.

In the case of Ajax, most quality young players are already been hoovered up by foreign clubs meaning that in Holland, they have little competition grabbing those remaining because they know they’ll be playing pretty immediately if they’re good enough. And if not, they’ll be helping Ajax win youth tournaments.

For Manchester City, Sancho left because there was no pathway. Foden has come through, but who else have I missed?

Hovering up talent to win youth football and for the purposes of stockpiling or re-selling is not the same thing as having a development pathway. The parents of those kids that join such clubs know they will get a better education and start on a better salary, but it doesn’t mean they will develop into first team players for those clubs. The majority of the time, they don’t.

[boozey182]

Isn't part of the 'issue' with our youth set up that we are pushing players to play at a higher age. So our U23s is filled with 17/18 year olds, our U18s with 16/17 year olds.

I think that is a great policy for developing our players, but surely we have to accept that we will probably struggle to win a lot of matches as a result. I watched a few of the U23 games last year, and it seemed to me that we always struggled against more physical teams, even when we had some of our better prospects (Barry, JPB, Young etc) in the team. I don't know this for sure, but I would imagine a lot of those teams are made up of 20/21+ year olds whereas we don't have many at all in ours.

Having said that, if Harrison is the driving force behind these appointments, we have to back him - he has presumably has been planning these changes for a while. My initial worry was that Gerrard was taking too much control, but that doesn't seem to be the case, thankfully.