Academy boss continues his Blog
Posted on: Fri 19 Oct 2007
By Eamonn Dolan, Academy Manager
I understand that we live in a media age. Without the media we wouldn't have the money from the Premier League that helps us all to move our operations onto the next level. But there's an awful lot of space to fill in papers and on Sky Sports News. And the story of knocking academies has been a hot one lately.
There's always a rent-a-quote with an agenda against the current regimes. There's no doubt that I'd agree with Trevor Brooking that we should all be looking to be better all the time. But actually, if you start a process eight years ago developing 8-9 year olds, they are only 15-16 now.
This is the ludicrous nature of understanding the weird beast that is youth development. The best clubs with the best facilities have continuity and stability. But I understand the premise of people panicking. But it's even more bizarre because we have smashing eight year olds and are working hard to improve them. But they only come onto the radar of the people that matter in football for 10 years. So that's me saying, 2017 we'll see the fruits of that labour. And that is the way you do this job properly.
I was lucky in that we've had good people running things here for a while. Nick Hammond, who is now director of football, and Brendan Rogers, who must be good because now he's at Chelsea. We've got Nas Bashir and Geoff Warner and the continuity of coaching is great here.
There's also a lot of ignorance about academies. Not everything about it is good, but you can say that about anything. People argue how good the Premier League has been at the top end, but there are also arguments against it as well, academies are no different.
The spend on academy is a no-brainer, because it's a bonus if anyone comes through. Look at Arsenal a few years ago. It was a question of David Bentley or Alexander Hleb for their first team. Wenger went with Hleb, who cost £10m or so. But actually now, you might choose Bentley. So that shows the good work going on behind the scenes. And we all understand why Wenger needed to choose Hleb. But it also shows the complex nature of youth development. Bentley went on loan to improve and is now a senior England international.
We believe in young British players and English football. There are areas we need to improve technically, but I believe it is the best football in the world.
And we have supplemented talented young British players with international boys. The young Koreans are really exicting. And while I believe in British players, I understand we're also a business. And the challenge for the British players is to be better than the Icelandics, the Australians, the Danes, the Koreans.
James Henry is an interesting case, he's been hyped for a while now. He had the opportunity to go to Chelsea and earn a lot more money. We convinced him that Reading was where it was at for him. I was delighted to see him make his debut against Liverpool in the Carling Cup. I think he will have been thrilled to have been warming up with Stephen Gerrard let alone being on the same pitch, live on SKY in front of a sell-out crowd.
If you'd spoken to James a few years ago that would have been his dream. So it's one box ticked for him. He got a little taste of it, but it means nothing for James Henry unless he takes it on from here. That's what it's about for us, seeing him out on the pitch, playing well for England U19s and being consistent. We then wonder whether he can start in the Premier League, and perhaps go five games, or ten games or a season.
In a way, young players at academies have won a lottery. People come to the training ground and see these players with big cars, working from 10am till 2pm. You get the best of everything and get paid thousands of pounds. They get pandered to in every aspect of life. But there must be a reason for all that, and it's because they have great talent. Our academy is tough to get into, and the challenge is for us to produce young players who are warriors with great spirit and attitude. Hopefully that is happening.
You can also read part one of Eamonn's Blog in this part of the website.
I understand that we live in a media age. Without the media we wouldn't have the money from the Premier League that helps us all to move our operations onto the next level. But there's an awful lot of space to fill in papers and on Sky Sports News. And the story of knocking academies has been a hot one lately.
There's always a rent-a-quote with an agenda against the current regimes. There's no doubt that I'd agree with Trevor Brooking that we should all be looking to be better all the time. But actually, if you start a process eight years ago developing 8-9 year olds, they are only 15-16 now.
This is the ludicrous nature of understanding the weird beast that is youth development. The best clubs with the best facilities have continuity and stability. But I understand the premise of people panicking. But it's even more bizarre because we have smashing eight year olds and are working hard to improve them. But they only come onto the radar of the people that matter in football for 10 years. So that's me saying, 2017 we'll see the fruits of that labour. And that is the way you do this job properly.
I was lucky in that we've had good people running things here for a while. Nick Hammond, who is now director of football, and Brendan Rogers, who must be good because now he's at Chelsea. We've got Nas Bashir and Geoff Warner and the continuity of coaching is great here.
There's also a lot of ignorance about academies. Not everything about it is good, but you can say that about anything. People argue how good the Premier League has been at the top end, but there are also arguments against it as well, academies are no different.
The spend on academy is a no-brainer, because it's a bonus if anyone comes through. Look at Arsenal a few years ago. It was a question of David Bentley or Alexander Hleb for their first team. Wenger went with Hleb, who cost £10m or so. But actually now, you might choose Bentley. So that shows the good work going on behind the scenes. And we all understand why Wenger needed to choose Hleb. But it also shows the complex nature of youth development. Bentley went on loan to improve and is now a senior England international.
We believe in young British players and English football. There are areas we need to improve technically, but I believe it is the best football in the world.
And we have supplemented talented young British players with international boys. The young Koreans are really exicting. And while I believe in British players, I understand we're also a business. And the challenge for the British players is to be better than the Icelandics, the Australians, the Danes, the Koreans.
James Henry is an interesting case, he's been hyped for a while now. He had the opportunity to go to Chelsea and earn a lot more money. We convinced him that Reading was where it was at for him. I was delighted to see him make his debut against Liverpool in the Carling Cup. I think he will have been thrilled to have been warming up with Stephen Gerrard let alone being on the same pitch, live on SKY in front of a sell-out crowd.
If you'd spoken to James a few years ago that would have been his dream. So it's one box ticked for him. He got a little taste of it, but it means nothing for James Henry unless he takes it on from here. That's what it's about for us, seeing him out on the pitch, playing well for England U19s and being consistent. We then wonder whether he can start in the Premier League, and perhaps go five games, or ten games or a season.
In a way, young players at academies have won a lottery. People come to the training ground and see these players with big cars, working from 10am till 2pm. You get the best of everything and get paid thousands of pounds. They get pandered to in every aspect of life. But there must be a reason for all that, and it's because they have great talent. Our academy is tough to get into, and the challenge is for us to produce young players who are warriors with great spirit and attitude. Hopefully that is happening.
You can also read part one of Eamonn's Blog in this part of the website.
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