| Swans Academy 13:34 - Dec 15 with 6392 views | arnnie |
My 12 year old nephew has been on trial with Swans academy and cardiff Academy for the last couple of weeks. Cardiff Academy seem to be light years ahead at his age group. Is this normal throughout the age groups? |  | | |  |
| Swans Academy on 13:41 - Dec 15 with 3908 views | blueytheblue |
Are you talking academies or development centres? Big difference. Development centres are there to get income for the clubs...
Define what you mean by "light years ahead". We do have some pretty good players coming through the rank at the lower age levels. Rabbi Matondo was poached by Man City, Sion Spence turned them down, both aged 15.
It's cyclical to be brutally honest. Some years the clubs have good intakes, others not so. I can't comment on your setup, but with regards to ours Warnock hasn't been happy with the lack of players coming through. He dislikes the U23 / DVP games as not preparing players enough. Also, you tend to have players drifting at that age range, not good enough for first team. So he's purging the older players at that level, pushing players from u18 level up - to be fair, we routinely play younger players at higher age levels.
What we've also done recently is appoint Craig Bellamy as Player Development Manager. Basically, oversee the youngsters, work with them, assess who can be pushed up along with getting younger players into training with the first team if they seem to be developing well enough.
It's no secret Tan wants to field sides with Welsh, home grown talent over time. Will take a long time to develop, but it's progress. I'd say we certainly seem to be putting the effort in to take the youth setup a lot more seriously these days. I obviously can't compare it with your setup; I'd imagine others can. | |
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| Swans Academy on 13:47 - Dec 15 with 3876 views | londonlisa2001 |
It's probably because the Cardiff Academy have the opportunity across all age groups to play against and learn from the likes of Colchester or Brentford whereas the Swans academy have to put up with Chelsea and Arsenal and so on.
Can't believe you answered this as though it was a Swans fan posting Bluey :-) | | | |
| Swans Academy on 13:52 - Dec 15 with 3854 views | blueytheblue |
Could be a swans fans for all I know, Lisa.
As for who the clubs play... eh. Doesn't always mean much. I remember Mad Frankie Burrows loaning Earnie out to Morton to toughen him up by playing against cloggers in the Scottish cold...
Rightly or wrongly, we're putting more emphasis on bringing players through the ranks with our setup having drifted over recent year. | |
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| Swans Academy on 13:53 - Dec 15 with 3846 views | arnnie |
| Swans Academy on 13:41 - Dec 15 by blueytheblue |
Are you talking academies or development centres? Big difference. Development centres are there to get income for the clubs...
Define what you mean by "light years ahead". We do have some pretty good players coming through the rank at the lower age levels. Rabbi Matondo was poached by Man City, Sion Spence turned them down, both aged 15.
It's cyclical to be brutally honest. Some years the clubs have good intakes, others not so. I can't comment on your setup, but with regards to ours Warnock hasn't been happy with the lack of players coming through. He dislikes the U23 / DVP games as not preparing players enough. Also, you tend to have players drifting at that age range, not good enough for first team. So he's purging the older players at that level, pushing players from u18 level up - to be fair, we routinely play younger players at higher age levels.
What we've also done recently is appoint Craig Bellamy as Player Development Manager. Basically, oversee the youngsters, work with them, assess who can be pushed up along with getting younger players into training with the first team if they seem to be developing well enough.
It's no secret Tan wants to field sides with Welsh, home grown talent over time. Will take a long time to develop, but it's progress. I'd say we certainly seem to be putting the effort in to take the youth setup a lot more seriously these days. I obviously can't compare it with your setup; I'd imagine others can. |
Talking Academy football, over the last few weeks I've watched Cardiff Academy v Swans Academy and last night swans Academy v Cardiff schools . On both occasions it looked like the cardiff boys were miles ahead in all aspects especially game awareness and technically. I was amazed at how good cardiff schools were to be honest . | | | |
| Swans Academy on 14:00 - Dec 15 with 3813 views | londonlisa2001 |
| Swans Academy on 13:52 - Dec 15 by blueytheblue |
Could be a swans fans for all I know, Lisa.
As for who the clubs play... eh. Doesn't always mean much. I remember Mad Frankie Burrows loaning Earnie out to Morton to toughen him up by playing against cloggers in the Scottish cold...
Rightly or wrongly, we're putting more emphasis on bringing players through the ranks with our setup having drifted over recent year. |
Could be. But generally speaking, if someone''s only post ever is along the lines of 'I can't believe (insert something about Cardiff) is light years ahead of the Swans' then chances are it's one of yours...
Re the clubs playing different teams, it was a throwaway point that the Swans Academy is category 1 status and Cardiff''s is category 2. Given the independent auditing that goes on to come up with the categorisation, it follows that the the Swans academy is of a higher standard across the board than the Cardiff academy. That doesnt mean that each team will necessarily be better or worse of course, however, if you look at the selections for the various Welsh age groups, they tend to be dominated by kids from the Swans academy at the moment (or at least they were the last time I looked). While we have different status academies that would tend to continue, as our academy can simply take the best players from yours as has been happening quite a lot in the last couple of years I believe. | | | |
| Swans Academy on 14:06 - Dec 15 with 3787 views | arnnie |
| Swans Academy on 14:00 - Dec 15 by londonlisa2001 |
Could be. But generally speaking, if someone''s only post ever is along the lines of 'I can't believe (insert something about Cardiff) is light years ahead of the Swans' then chances are it's one of yours...
Re the clubs playing different teams, it was a throwaway point that the Swans Academy is category 1 status and Cardiff''s is category 2. Given the independent auditing that goes on to come up with the categorisation, it follows that the the Swans academy is of a higher standard across the board than the Cardiff academy. That doesnt mean that each team will necessarily be better or worse of course, however, if you look at the selections for the various Welsh age groups, they tend to be dominated by kids from the Swans academy at the moment (or at least they were the last time I looked). While we have different status academies that would tend to continue, as our academy can simply take the best players from yours as has been happening quite a lot in the last couple of years I believe. |
I appreciate that it's only one age group that I'm talking about. Anyone else know what it's like for the other swans age groups particularly younger? What with all the investment in to the Academy you would have thought that standards would have risen substantially. | | | |
| Swans Academy on 14:14 - Dec 15 with 3754 views | blueytheblue |
| Swans Academy on 14:00 - Dec 15 by londonlisa2001 |
Could be. But generally speaking, if someone''s only post ever is along the lines of 'I can't believe (insert something about Cardiff) is light years ahead of the Swans' then chances are it's one of yours...
Re the clubs playing different teams, it was a throwaway point that the Swans Academy is category 1 status and Cardiff''s is category 2. Given the independent auditing that goes on to come up with the categorisation, it follows that the the Swans academy is of a higher standard across the board than the Cardiff academy. That doesnt mean that each team will necessarily be better or worse of course, however, if you look at the selections for the various Welsh age groups, they tend to be dominated by kids from the Swans academy at the moment (or at least they were the last time I looked). While we have different status academies that would tend to continue, as our academy can simply take the best players from yours as has been happening quite a lot in the last couple of years I believe. |
Prem teams can poach youths from lower division teams and pay minimum compensation - it's pegged at a very small amount. Matondo, for example, was offered a big deal by Man City. We'd get compo of at most ( from memory ) 100k. That and the 90 minute commute rule were both force by the prem threatening to withhold TV money from lower div clubs unless they agreed.
I'd tend to disagree with the auditing issue. Auditting just means you've hit criteria that can be measured. You lot being Cat 1, us Cat 2 doesn't in itself mean that the quality of coaching is any different for example. Equally, any academy setup is useless unless it gives players a route into the first team. Prem teams are more likely to buy Johnny foreigner ( well, till Brexit... ) rather than promote youngsters unless that's more your foucs, ie Southampton.
Very brief research showed at u21 level, last squad we had 2 players ( 22 caps ) against your 3 ( 4 caps). U19, again 2 v 3 but we had 9 caps against 2. U17 as far as I could tell it was 5-2 to you. Not sure about levels below that, but think it's fairly close. | |
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| Swans Academy on 14:18 - Dec 15 with 3727 views | blueytheblue |
| Swans Academy on 14:06 - Dec 15 by arnnie |
I appreciate that it's only one age group that I'm talking about. Anyone else know what it's like for the other swans age groups particularly younger? What with all the investment in to the Academy you would have thought that standards would have risen substantially. |
Why would you necessarily believe that?
Any academy producing a player a season capable of getting into first team squad is doing well. Academies don't produce a Ramsey year on year. All they can really do is increase the chances of a player to progress. Don't forget there are many kids who are treated like stars by parents, family, think they are berty big b*llocks at lower levels then bomb out because they don't have the mentality.
Equally, as Warnock pointed out, DVP / u23 games don't prepare good youths for the leap to first team games in the way the old reserve leagues did - where youngsters learnt playing with experienced pros. | |
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| Swans Academy on 14:20 - Dec 15 with 3719 views | Jack_Kass |
He's 12 years old. They are 12 years old.
There is a whole boat load of variables at play, that makes it impossible to compare one child to another, let alone a whole team. | |
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| Swans Academy on 14:29 - Dec 15 with 3577 views | waynekerr55 |
| Swans Academy on 14:20 - Dec 15 by Jack_Kass |
He's 12 years old. They are 12 years old.
There is a whole boat load of variables at play, that makes it impossible to compare one child to another, let alone a whole team. |
This, in buckets full.
Besides, winning games at DVP level means...f*ck all. It is about developing 1 or 2 players who can challenge for the first team.
Winning is a very very very small part of youth development. |  |
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| Swans Academy on 14:37 - Dec 15 with 3648 views | blueytheblue |
| Swans Academy on 14:29 - Dec 15 by waynekerr55 |
This, in buckets full.
Besides, winning games at DVP level means...f*ck all. It is about developing 1 or 2 players who can challenge for the first team.
Winning is a very very very small part of youth development. |
It's a truism you learn more from losing than winning - you learn more about your weaknesses.
Equally though, you do need to win games to reaffirm that what you're doing is working, breed a winning mentality.
DVP doesn't develop players for the first team. All it does is generate a swell of players between 19 and 23 who aren't going to get into the first team, are in a comfort zone of getting paid. Also blocks younger players in the process. We've basically purged our 2nd and 3rd year pros recently. | |
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| Swans Academy on 14:40 - Dec 15 with 3630 views | TailGunner |
| Swans Academy on 13:53 - Dec 15 by arnnie |
Talking Academy football, over the last few weeks I've watched Cardiff Academy v Swans Academy and last night swans Academy v Cardiff schools . On both occasions it looked like the cardiff boys were miles ahead in all aspects especially game awareness and technically. I was amazed at how good cardiff schools were to be honest . |
I am pretty sure that Swansea City Academy do not play fixtures against schoolboy teams?
I saw a game at Llanrumney on Tuesday night.
Cardiff Schoolboys 1 Swansea Schoolboys 3 - maybe this is the game you saw?
Cardiff side contained 4 CCFC academy players & 1 SCFC academy player (1 Cardiff & 1 Swans Academy player missing through injury)
Swansea side contained 1 CCFC player & 1 SCFC player (1 Cardiff player missing through injury.
Technically Cardiff schools had the edge as you would expect with more academy players, but in terms of on the ball thinking and game management.....well the score line did not lie. | | | |
| Swans Academy on 14:41 - Dec 15 with 3528 views | waynekerr55 |
| Swans Academy on 14:37 - Dec 15 by blueytheblue |
It's a truism you learn more from losing than winning - you learn more about your weaknesses.
Equally though, you do need to win games to reaffirm that what you're doing is working, breed a winning mentality.
DVP doesn't develop players for the first team. All it does is generate a swell of players between 19 and 23 who aren't going to get into the first team, are in a comfort zone of getting paid. Also blocks younger players in the process. We've basically purged our 2nd and 3rd year pros recently. |
The key is, as you say, competitive football. The players have a desire to win every game, they get tournaments.
It's a simple formula. Effective training, regular fixtures (not travelling 6 hours for 20 minutes football). Repeat.
Get the players playing mens football as soon as possible. And repeat. | |
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| Swans Academy on 14:43 - Dec 15 with 3612 views | arnnie |
| Swans Academy on 14:37 - Dec 15 by blueytheblue |
It's a truism you learn more from losing than winning - you learn more about your weaknesses.
Equally though, you do need to win games to reaffirm that what you're doing is working, breed a winning mentality.
DVP doesn't develop players for the first team. All it does is generate a swell of players between 19 and 23 who aren't going to get into the first team, are in a comfort zone of getting paid. Also blocks younger players in the process. We've basically purged our 2nd and 3rd year pros recently. |
Didn't say anything regarding winning. Just mentioned game awareness and technical ability. | | | |
| Swans Academy on 14:45 - Dec 15 with 3607 views | arnnie |
| Swans Academy on 14:40 - Dec 15 by TailGunner |
I am pretty sure that Swansea City Academy do not play fixtures against schoolboy teams?
I saw a game at Llanrumney on Tuesday night.
Cardiff Schoolboys 1 Swansea Schoolboys 3 - maybe this is the game you saw?
Cardiff side contained 4 CCFC academy players & 1 SCFC academy player (1 Cardiff & 1 Swans Academy player missing through injury)
Swansea side contained 1 CCFC player & 1 SCFC player (1 Cardiff player missing through injury.
Technically Cardiff schools had the edge as you would expect with more academy players, but in terms of on the ball thinking and game management.....well the score line did not lie. |
Watched the game last night at Landore 👠| | | |
| Swans Academy on 16:08 - Dec 15 with 3471 views | arnnie |
| Swans Academy on 14:00 - Dec 15 by londonlisa2001 |
Could be. But generally speaking, if someone''s only post ever is along the lines of 'I can't believe (insert something about Cardiff) is light years ahead of the Swans' then chances are it's one of yours...
Re the clubs playing different teams, it was a throwaway point that the Swans Academy is category 1 status and Cardiff''s is category 2. Given the independent auditing that goes on to come up with the categorisation, it follows that the the Swans academy is of a higher standard across the board than the Cardiff academy. That doesnt mean that each team will necessarily be better or worse of course, however, if you look at the selections for the various Welsh age groups, they tend to be dominated by kids from the Swans academy at the moment (or at least they were the last time I looked). While we have different status academies that would tend to continue, as our academy can simply take the best players from yours as has been happening quite a lot in the last couple of years I believe. |
But that is actually my point, swansea do have category 1 status which I imagine doesn't come cheap, so surely we should be able to get the best boys in our areas and possibly cardiff areas. It doesn't look like it's happening at the age level my nephew is at. With kids travelling from llanelli carmarthenshire etc to train in cardiff Academy some of whom are a step above what the swans have. Why? And is this happening at other age groups. | | | |
| Swans Academy on 16:15 - Dec 15 with 3448 views | arnnie |
| Swans Academy on 14:20 - Dec 15 by Jack_Kass |
He's 12 years old. They are 12 years old.
There is a whole boat load of variables at play, that makes it impossible to compare one child to another, let alone a whole team. |
Agree. But find it frustrating that we aren't actually getting the best local boys in to give us every possible chance of getting the next Allen, Bale etc.. why do good players drive past swansea to go to Cardiff. When we now have or should have every thing they need to develop at Landore? ? | | | |
| Swans Academy on 16:30 - Dec 15 with 3419 views | jasper_T |
| Swans Academy on 16:08 - Dec 15 by arnnie |
But that is actually my point, swansea do have category 1 status which I imagine doesn't come cheap, so surely we should be able to get the best boys in our areas and possibly cardiff areas. It doesn't look like it's happening at the age level my nephew is at. With kids travelling from llanelli carmarthenshire etc to train in cardiff Academy some of whom are a step above what the swans have. Why? And is this happening at other age groups. |
The kids from Cardiff are travelling to Swansea. Half the u18s here are Cadiff-based. | | | |
| (No subject) (n/t) on 16:33 - Dec 15 with 3408 views | sherpajacob |
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| Swans Academy on 16:37 - Dec 15 with 3390 views | londonlisa2001 |
| Swans Academy on 16:08 - Dec 15 by arnnie |
But that is actually my point, swansea do have category 1 status which I imagine doesn't come cheap, so surely we should be able to get the best boys in our areas and possibly cardiff areas. It doesn't look like it's happening at the age level my nephew is at. With kids travelling from llanelli carmarthenshire etc to train in cardiff Academy some of whom are a step above what the swans have. Why? And is this happening at other age groups. |
We have quite a lot of boys from the Cardiff area playing at our academy. If there are kids from Llanelli or Carms driving past to play at Cardiff it'll be because our academy doesn't want them. It's obviously going to be subjective isn't it. We are the only category 1 academy for 100 miles or so, and we're not going to take every kid - some are going to be at Cardiff or Bristol City or wherever else.
Just because someone thinks that a kid is playing for another academy and is better than the Swans have doesn't mean that they are better. It doesn't mean that they're not better either, it just means that our coaches don't think they are.
If you think you can spot a talent better than the academy can, then get in touch with them. | | | |
| Swans Academy on 16:43 - Dec 15 with 3367 views | londonlisa2001 |
| Swans Academy on 16:30 - Dec 15 by jasper_T |
The kids from Cardiff are travelling to Swansea. Half the u18s here are Cadiff-based. |
I was trying to remember which team it was earlier when I mentioned the Swans signing players from the Cardiff academy.
As an aside, I just had a quick look out of interest, and the only Swans academy team that played last night was the under 10s?
Cardiff Schools under 14s played (and lost 3.1) to Swansea Schools last night at Landore? | | | |
| Swans Academy on 16:59 - Dec 15 with 3328 views | arnnie |
| Swans Academy on 16:43 - Dec 15 by londonlisa2001 |
I was trying to remember which team it was earlier when I mentioned the Swans signing players from the Cardiff academy.
As an aside, I just had a quick look out of interest, and the only Swans academy team that played last night was the under 10s?
Cardiff Schools under 14s played (and lost 3.1) to Swansea Schools last night at Landore? |
Under 13s played Cardiff schools last night at Landore I went to watch. Left about 7.45 to get home to watch swans on kodi. Didn't take a genius to see that cardiff had some classy players. And looked well coached. | | | |
| Swans Academy on 17:07 - Dec 15 with 3301 views | londonlisa2001 |
| Swans Academy on 16:59 - Dec 15 by arnnie |
Under 13s played Cardiff schools last night at Landore I went to watch. Left about 7.45 to get home to watch swans on kodi. Didn't take a genius to see that cardiff had some classy players. And looked well coached. |
The Swans probably haven't updated their info yet then as they didn't mention that one, just the other two games (one of which wasn't the academy but the schools team). Shame they can't poach someone to update the sites properly - they are always out of date or wrong. | | | |
| Swans Academy on 17:18 - Dec 15 with 3276 views | glanmorjak |
| Swans Academy on 17:07 - Dec 15 by londonlisa2001 |
The Swans probably haven't updated their info yet then as they didn't mention that one, just the other two games (one of which wasn't the academy but the schools team). Shame they can't poach someone to update the sites properly - they are always out of date or wrong. |
Academy 1 status alone comes at a price and improving all the age group teams doesn't happen overnight, it will take a number of seasons. What will happen though obviously, the more times our academy play the likes of Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea etc,. The better the competition the more chances all of the age groups will improve, and that's no disrespect to the likes of Swindon, Exeter etc..
For years youngsters have been travelling back and fro from Swansea to Cardiff, and last week a member of the Swans U16's played for the 18's.
What needs to be remembered also is that there is a numbers game, and only so many can be taken on by any club. | | | |
| Swans Academy on 17:23 - Dec 15 with 3263 views | blueytheblue |
| Swans Academy on 17:18 - Dec 15 by glanmorjak |
Academy 1 status alone comes at a price and improving all the age group teams doesn't happen overnight, it will take a number of seasons. What will happen though obviously, the more times our academy play the likes of Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea etc,. The better the competition the more chances all of the age groups will improve, and that's no disrespect to the likes of Swindon, Exeter etc..
For years youngsters have been travelling back and fro from Swansea to Cardiff, and last week a member of the Swans U16's played for the 18's.
What needs to be remembered also is that there is a numbers game, and only so many can be taken on by any club. |
I'd be surprised more of your u16s weren't being pushed up to u18s to be honest. We tend to do that all the time, have u18s in the DVP squad. Hell Sion Spence played and looked good for the u18s and he's only 15.
I'd disagree about your last point. Look at the size of academies like Man City, Chelsea. Can poach any promising youngsters, offer parents jobs, offer to buy a house, offer guaranteed pro contract. They then bomb out before the age of 21 due to being stuck at the back of a long queue. | |
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