Reserves and Academy 2025-26

[Dogtanian]

Speaking of young Josh. He's just joined Huddersfield on a season-long loan.

https://www.htafc.com/news/2025/june/16/loan--josh-feeney-joins-town/

Good luck, Josh!

[jwarry]

Ornstein

🚨 Man City set to sign Freddie Lawrie when scholarship expires at Aston Villa this summer. #AVFC made strong offer but England U16 int’l (mainly centre-mid but also plays centre-back) on course for #MCFC - who would need to pay compensation @TheAthleticFC

[cdbearsfan]

Fuck him, then.

[Chap]

Obviously his advisors just seeing the £ signs.🤔

[Drummond]

Obviously his advisors just seeing the £ signs.🤔

Which is the same thing that will be said of players of a similar age moving to us from other clubs.

[ChicagoLion]

Obviously his advisors just seeing the £ signs.🤔

Which is the same thing that will be said of players of a similar age moving to us from other clubs.

They might , but some will take a decision on where they feel they have the best chance of progressing in the game, if they are well advised of course.
The problem is that advice is pretty rare at academy level and Money becomes the big / only determinant.

[Rotterdam]

Ornstein

🚨 Man City set to sign Freddie Lawrie when scholarship expires at Aston Villa this summer. #AVFC made strong offer but England U16 int’l (mainly centre-mid but also plays centre-back) on course for #MCFC - who would need to pay compensation @TheAthleticFC

Not quiet correct.
He'll be on schoolboy forms currently and have been offered a scholarship by Villa, The offer ups the compo slightly.
He's obviously rejected the scholarship but Citeh are willing to pay a fee to register him as a scholar. As he hasn't been at Villa long, that compensation won't be massive. £500-750k?
It's a gamble refusing a scholarship as the assumption is 'someone will come and get me'...if they are willing to pay.

The offer from Citeh would be something like a guaranteed pro contract on his 17th birthday, two to three years on 5, then 10, then £15k per week. Plus a signing on fee. An extra year in the clubs favour. He'd be a millionaire at 20yo.

[DeKuip]

We’re in the Southern Section of the EFL Trophy again and will be drawn into one of these groups tomorrow afternoon.

Southern section

Group A: Cardiff City, Exeter City, Newport County

Group B: Bristol Rovers, Cheltenham Town, Plymouth Argyle

Group C: Northampton Town, Shrewsbury Town, Walsall

Group D: Milton Keynes Dons, Reading, Swindon Town

Group E: AFC Wimbledon, Bromley, Stevenage

Group F: Crawley Town, Leyton Orient, Peterborough United

Group G: Colchester United, Gillingham, Wycombe Wanderers

Group H: Barnet, Cambridge United, Luton Town

All three will be away, so a chance to hopefully go somewhere new - in my case if we can avoid groups B, C & D.

[cdbearsfan]

Boooo.

[Clampy]

I did the Fleetwood and Blackpool games last season so I'll try and get to a game or two.

[spk]

Group C would save a bit of petrol money.

[SaddVillan]

From The Athletic

THE ASTON VILLA COACHING SYLLABUS, WHO IMPLEMENTED IT AND HOW IT WORKS

“He may be Villa’s best-kept secret because he keeps himself to himself and is not involved in a club’s politics,” says one Aston Villa academy staff member.

“Ryan’s very good at what he does. A lot of people don’t know that his work with the FA was instrumental. What he did at West Brom and then at Villa goes unnoticed, but it’s really important.”

Ryan Maye is Villa’s head of coaching and development, an all-encompassing post he has held since September 2019.

Maye does not directly coach, but he writes and implements the coaching syllabus and oversees every session put on by every age-group coach at the club, from under-nines to the under-21s.

Born in Portsmouth on England’s south coast, Maye is a little-noticed cog at Villa as far as the outside world is concerned — but within football, he is highly regarded, to the extent that clubs in the divisions below the Premier League have expressed an interest in the 44-year-old becoming their manager.

Maye’s career started as a football development officer at Chelsea nearly a quarter of a century ago. It was there he learnt how to build an effective culture and curriculum under their long-time academy manager, Neil Bath. He spent four years at Chelsea before stepping up to the role of senior development officer at leading Scottish side Rangers.

Two stints with West Bromwich Albion were sandwiched by four years at the English Football Association as a youth-coach educator, tasked with teaching professional coaches as well as assisting England youth-team get-togethers.

“His FA background has helped,” says one Villa employee. “He helped write the coaching A and B licence courses.”

Maye returned to West Brom, a Premier League side for much of the previous decade but in the second tier one for most of the current one, in 2017 but was among the steady stream of players and coaches who defected to top-flight neighbours Villa two years later, led by academy director Mark Harrison.

Harrison had developed West Brom’s coaching philosophy, with Maye successfully implementing it. In a competitive catchment area in England’s West Midlands, the club began to be its dominant talent producer. Tim Iroegbunam, Finn Azaz, Saido Berahino and Izzy Brown advanced there under Harrison’s watch. As did Villa’s biggest asset at present, Morgan Rogers.

“Morgan came through the programme we’ve now got at Villa but it’s been taken to another level here,” adds the Villa worker. “If people joined up the dots, they’d probably realise these guys (Harrison and Maye) are good.”

Rogers’ growth has provided immense satisfaction, so it was fitting he watched from the stands as Villa Under-18s won the FA Youth Cup final against Manchester City last month. Rogers congratulated the players on the pitch, as well as their coach, Jimmy Shan, who worked at West Brom for 13 years in a variety of roles before coming to Villa last July.

That Youth Cup win was an illustration of Villa’s coaching template. This was affirmed by the under-18s going on to become the second team to complete the youth treble two weeks later, winning the league’s southern division title and then, again by beating their City counterparts, the national final.

The academy’s cohesion is aided by the tried and trusted formula transplanted from West Brom that has reunited Shan, Maye, Harrison and head of player talent identification Steve Hopcroft. “There is a lot of water under the iceberg,” says a senior source.

Maye will spend weekends at academy matches and watching players Villa have sent out on loan. There will be no more than 10 days over the summer when none of the club’s age groups are in training, so moments of pause are scant.

“The structure he implements includes coaching analysis,” explains an experienced Villa coach. “All sessions get filmed and analysed. You’ll then get reports generated. Ryan will watch every session. He’ll tell you what areas to think about. Other clubs do it, but not to the level he does.

“We have a philosophy document he wrote. It’s more than 100 slides, but it’s easy reading and you’ve always got that to refer to.”

A vacuum was created in West Brom’s academy system upon the mass of departures that strengthened Villa’s own.

Maye and Shan are among the clearest examples. As an executive coach, Maye had supported Shan’s natural coaching intuition under Harrison’s framework. Shan reached a point where he was appointed first-team coach in 2018, tasked with doing a lot of the coaching under manager Darren Moore, before becoming caretaker manager when Moore was fired late in the 2018-19 Championship season.

After that spell in the hotseat at The Hawthorns, Shan began making his first forays into management. He was in interim charge at Kidderminster Harriers for three months the following season before spending just over a year with Solihull Moors, another non-League side in the Midlands, from February 2020.

They were career mistakes in hindsight, not befitting his expertise. Accepting two jobs in the fifth-tier National League was, according to an employee who works closely with Shan, “too low”, with his ideas belonging at higher levels of the game with players who can follow his coaching in greater detail.

Shan is well-liked among peers, players and senior figures. It was decided at the end of last season, following the under-18s’ treble, that the 46-year-old would be promoted to under-21s head coach, replacing first-team manager Unai Emery’s close friend, Josep Gombau.

“The way football is going, players need more head coaches than managers,” says one senior source. “Shan is overflowing with knowledge. He is oven-ready to step up, because of the detail, small tweaks and how he can instil methodology into players.”

Maye’s remit can be delicate. Though every team at the club must play in Villa’s image, coaches have to be careful about how much information they give to youngsters and be age-appropriate. His job is not to control the content of their training sessions, but to ensure every coach is following Villa’s overarching philosophy.

Broadly speaking, there are three ways in possession and three without the ball. Details include the formation of every age group and how each Villa junior side should look on the pitch, be it from goal kicks, in general shape and the various methods of build-up play, while reminding players to remain expressive and instinctive.

Those final points are pertinent. Villa’s academy staff are mindful that they do not want to produce robotic players, instead seeking to strike a balance of imparting tactical understanding while allowing those with instinct to thrive.

Villa’s methods can be boiled down to wanting to be dominant on the ball, to create central overloads and for the players to solve issues when on the field.

“Players must recognise triggers but have freedom to make decisions on the ball,” adds one academy staff member. “Formations don’t take onus; you rarely see the on-paper formation during games, aside from goal kicks and at kick-off.”

Villa’s coaching syllabus is important in teaching players how to recognise space and, in turn, adapt in-game. For instance, if there is a three versus two in defence, the Villa side will have an extra player to build from the back. Or if the opposition are pressing centrally, players must realise the best way to counteract this is possibly by passing either wide or over the top into the ‘No 10s’ (attacking midfielders).

In the league-decider rematch against City a fortnight after the FA Youth Cup final, Shan’s under-18s had to solve a different puzzle.

City were playing with three No 10s, creating a midfield overload, and Villa were struggling to apply pressure. The onus on the players on the field was to figure out what needed to change. The solution was central defender Leon Routh stepping up into midfield and getting tight on one of City’s attacking midfielders.

Whether through fortune or design, the academy blueprint aligns with Emery’s philosophy. The similarities in players’ responsibilities and decision-making are striking. The academy is not there to copy the first team as such, but for young players at the club to know the expectations of Emery’s environment. This is critical, with young players needing to gain the manager’s trust.

There is an acceptance that making the leap from age-group football to the senior game has grown vast in recent years. Now, players must be operating at Champions League level to get into the first team, focusing on reliable decision-making and supreme athleticism.

The next step for Emery is to integrate an academy graduate into his plans. How that happens, though, is uncertain. Luck may be needed, be it through taking opportunities as a result of injuries.

Villa’s academy coaches view their role as serving Emery, who concentrates solely on first-team matters. Young players only become relevant to him when he sees them benefiting his senior squad.

Maye is the one tasked with bringing together Harrison’s academy philosophy. They are among the impressive academy figures who provide the foundation for Villa’s youngsters to flourish.

[Anthenagin]

Thanks for sharing. Another piece in the academy set up jigsaw for me. I knew about Harrison and Shan but not about Ryan Maye. They’re doing a great job, let’s hope we can benefit from these youngsters in the first team. There’s usually a high attrition rate when moving from academy to first team but we should see some of them coming through. Borland comes to mind and Young maybe on his way. Obviously it’s a big bonus that we nicked them all off the Baggies too!

[rougegorge]

We’re in the Southern Section of the EFL Trophy again and will be drawn into one of these groups tomorrow afternoon.

Southern section

Group A: Cardiff City, Exeter City, Newport County

Group B: Bristol Rovers, Cheltenham Town, Plymouth Argyle

Group C: Northampton Town, Shrewsbury Town, Walsall

Group D: Milton Keynes Dons, Reading, Swindon Town

Group E: AFC Wimbledon, Bromley, Stevenage

Group F: Crawley Town, Leyton Orient, Peterborough United

Group G: Colchester United, Gillingham, Wycombe Wanderers

Group H: Barnet, Cambridge United, Luton Town

All three will be away, so a chance to hopefully go somewhere new - in my case if we can avoid groups B, C & D.

We are in Group F - so away games at Crawley, Leyton Orient and Peterborough

[Somniloquism]

Crawley is at Horsham ground.

Orient at Whitbread Sports Ground.

Peterborough at Nene Park Academy.

(assuming no moves to main ground for any reason).