Jim Cassell

[Ted Hughes]

The fact that we feel we need to import that many young players from abroad means something in this country is desperately, hopelessly wrong.

I agree actually. Despite the fact that it probably means that we will raise the bar in terms of the quality available soon to the first team it surely is a fairly damning indictment of the fact that the academy has not actually been doing that great a job.

Sure, in UK terms it has been outperforming most of the other UK club's efforts but vs overseas comparisons such as Barcelona, Sporting Lisbon or Ajax it has to be viewed as desperately average in terms of the output to date

Most of the real quality English kids have passed us by but I don't think it's just our academy, I think there's a lack of raw talent for them to pick from. Some, like West Ham, have been far better than us at spotting the talent that does exist but in a football loving country like this, there should be 10 times as many quality players to pick from. In the 60's & 70's there were. If these facilities had existed then, teams wouldn't have needed transfers, they'd've all had 11 home grown players.

Kids aren't born without talent, that's for sure, so something is cocking them up before they reach us.

[lets all have a disco]

Hasnt Jim been sacked.

Ages ago apparently. Paul Power's gone too.

Has PP gone? I could have sworn I saw him with the 16's on Saturday!

wink wink wink wink wink.

[brite blu sky]

The fact that we feel we need to import that many young players from abroad means something in this country is desperately, hopelessly wrong.

i disagree, i see it as a result of the strength of the PL rather than anything else. I see it as a strategy to acquire world wide talent in a more sustainable way. The prem attracts players form all over the world, so it is logical to have academies doing the same, otherwise you would be allowing clubs all over the world to foster the talent and then be paying millions in fees for potentially good players to those clubs. The young players would be unproven in English football and there would be a lot of money wasted at the end of the day.

If you are questioning why there is not enough talent coming out of the UK, then that is a different question.. one that i find tricky to answer if true, because the outlets for young talent to develop in the UK should be second to none, given that the Uk has one of the biggest and most extensive leagues in the world. About 10 or 15 years ago there was some debate as to this question and a lot of people were saying that it was the lack of technical ability due to poor training that young individuals were being given. ie. training for the old kick and rush game

[Bingo Lewis]

Just ask him, straight out.

"At the time, did you want to be staying at the academy or going to the middle east? Was it your idea to go out there, or were you told you were going out there?"
ask that question exactly like that, and watch his reaction. he'll give the obvious answer I reckon, but watch his reaction.

[Ted Hughes]

The fact that we feel we need to import that many young players from abroad means something in this country is desperately, hopelessly wrong.

i disagree, i see it as a result of the strength of the PL rather than anything else. I see it as a strategy to acquire world wide talent in a more sustainable way. The prem attracts players form all over the world, so it is logical to have academies doing the same, otherwise you would be allowing clubs all over the world to foster the talent and then be paying millions in fees for potentially good players to those clubs. The young players would be unproven in English football and there would be a lot of money wasted at the end of the day.

If you are questioning why there is not enough talent coming out of the UK, then that is a different question.. one that i find tricky to answer if true, because the outlets for young talent to develop in the UK should be second to none, given that the Uk has one of the biggest and most extensive leagues in the world. About 10 or 15 years ago there was some debate as to this question and a lot of people were saying that it was the lack of technical ability due to poor training that young individuals were being given. ie. training for the old kick and rush game

Yes I am (see 2 posts above yours). Our U21's were outclassed by Greece a few days ago just to highlight it. When we do win at that level it's often more down to power & tactics than talent.

[brite blu sky]

Just ask him, straight out.

"At the time, did you want to be staying at the academy or going to the middle east? Was it your idea to go out there, or were you told you were going out there?"
ask that question exactly like that, and watch his reaction. he'll give the obvious answer I reckon, but watch his reaction.

First decent question of the thread.

If you think about it apart from reminising about the past, most City fans will want to know about this exact topic, so it is probable that Jim has been asked a lot about this already. So he will be very aware of where any questioning on this subject will be leading. i would have thought as it is his current job he would talk a lot about it without being questioned at all.

So i would suggest that by asking him about his current role a lot of info will come to light about how he feels, it would then be easy to ask how he felt about leaving the academy and if there was any politics behind it.

[brite blu sky]

I would ask him if there was an attempt at City to create a style of play at the academy that reflected the 1st teams style?

( in other word the subtext is: do you & City value the approach taken by Barca, where the academy learn to play the same way as the 1st team )

[Ted Hughes]

I would ask him if there was an attempt at City to create a style of play at the academy that reflected the 1st teams style?

( in other word the subtext is: do you & City value the approach taken by Barca, where the academy learn to play the same way as the 1st team )

We can't because we sack the fucking manager every other season & change the style of play.

[brite blu sky]

I would ask him if there was an attempt at City to create a style of play at the academy that reflected the 1st teams style?

( in other word the subtext is: do you & City value the approach taken by Barca, where the academy learn to play the same way as the 1st team )

We can't because we sack the fucking manager every other season & change the style of play.

Agreed in principal, but Barca also change their manager but keep the process and style.. so its not just that.
And now we have the financial security and stability it may well be an issue that has been discussed at City and Jim may know something about that.

[Ted Hughes]

I would ask him if there was an attempt at City to create a style of play at the academy that reflected the 1st teams style?

( in other word the subtext is: do you & City value the approach taken by Barca, where the academy learn to play the same way as the 1st team )

We can't because we sack the fucking manager every other season & change the style of play.

Agreed in principal, but Barca also change their manager but keep the process and style.. so its not just that.
And now we have the financial security and stability it may well be an issue that has been discussed at City and Jim may know something about that.

Somebody has to establish that process & style first though. Seeing as the academy had as a manager, Brian Horton, Alan Ball, Steve Coppell, Phil Neal, Frank Clark, Joe Royle, Kevin Keegan, Stuart Pearce, Sven Goran Eriksson, Mark Hughes & Roberto Mancini who determines what our style of play is? Where's the philosophy in that lot? It goes 'were too attacking ,were too defensive, were too attacking, were too defensive, we don't do this, we don't do that, on & on & fucking on'.

[dazby]

That would be the role of the director of football.

[Ted Hughes]

That would be the role of the director of football.

If you're right about that, I don't know what Marwood's football qualifications would be to decide something so important.

[brite blu sky]

Well put it this way, it is something that obviously has to evolve.. and probably initially inspired by someone that for starters achieves some success. So put like that it is obvious City have not been anywhere near getting something set up.

But things have changed, and the City hierarchy must be aware of such debates as this, and i would be interested to get the take of someone so closely involved with the system at City to see what their response is to being asked that question.

[Ted Hughes]

Well put it this way, it is something that obviously has to evolve.. and probably initially inspired by someone that for starters achieves some success. So put like that it is obvious City have not been anywhere near getting something set up.

But things have changed, and the City hierarchy must be aware of such debates as this, and i would be interested to get the take of someone so closely involved with the system at City to see what their response is to being asked that question.

Tbf it's something only one or two special clubs do. I thought we were going to be one that built a similar structure though. Mancini is probably the last chance for that to happen. If we move him on quickly then we've established our club philosophy ; change.

[john@staustell]

But I reckon some of these new lads may be well on the way, mainly because we've poached them from all over the world rather than Rusholme. Nils Zander, Guidetti etc.

I think that's a fair point....if you look at the nationality split of the current reserve side vs the academy side you can see that we are about to get the last UK focused batch through (although, there are some potential good ones in there still I think)

Reserves:

Scott Kay - ENG
Reece Wabara - ENG
Ben Mee - ENG
Karl Moore - IRE
Jack Redshaw - ENG
James Poole - ENG
Robbie Mak - SLOVAKIA
Alex Tchuimeni-Nimely - ENG
David Ball - ENG
Andrew Tutte - ENG
Chris Chantler - ENG
Tobias Johansen - NORWAY
David González Giraldo - COLOMBIA

Academy:

David Quinn - N IRL
Ahmad Benali - ENG
Harry Bunn - ENG
Douglas McCartney - ENG
Omar Elabdellaoui - NORWAY
Kingsley Grandison - ENG
John Guidetti - SWEDEN
Jérémy Helan - FRANCE
Emyr Huws - WALES
Emrik Hippias - FRANCE
Eirik Johansen - NORWAY
Tasos Kapsalopodas - GREECE
Loris Karius - GERMANY
Andrew Mitchell - N IRL
Conor Morrisey - IRE
Joan Angel Román Ollè - SPAIN
James Paris - MALTA
Bradley Robinson - ENG
Kim Skogsrud - NORWAY
Tom Skogsrud - NORWAY
Tom Smith - ENG
Sean Tse - ENG
Frederic Veseli - SWITZERLAND
James Wood - SCOT
Nils Zander - GERMANY

That's an interesting piece of work Ant - I hadn't realised just how active our worldwide scouting has been!

[WIBLEY]

I would ask him,why he continualy stopped Trippier,Tutte and others from going up to Carrington,when Hughes wanted to intergate them into the first team squad.

Ps Paul Power is running the under 18s

[ant london]

Be interesting to see how the geographic profile of the kids coming in evolves over the coming couple of years I think. It's a telling indication of the club's profile and reach that we now have some kids from top tier footballing countries in that academy side (ie. the German, French and Spanish lads). Doesn't mean they'll be the best players but each of those countries have clubs with excellent academy set-ups so to move here is a positive sign for our attractiveness.

However, I'd love us to raise the bar in terms of how we develop youngsters in the British Isles as well. Like so many have said, the kids born in Scotland, Wales, N.Ireland and England don't have different levels of latent ability to the generations who provided the likes of Dalglish, Hansen, Rush, Hughes, Best, Gascoigne, Waddle, Bell.....there is just obviously something going wrong along the way.

Partly it's a result of kids not being able to play football as much (whether on the street or on school playing fields (now sold off for apartments....ffs)). I don't buy the whole kids are more sedentary and play computer games all day rather than sports. ANY sporty kid would massively prefer to be competing against real people than pixellated aliens and the simple fact is that they don't have enough facilities and framework in which to do it.

I'd like to see City do something like creating "mini-academies" across the UK. Not necessarily trying to just hunt for the next Rooney, but giving all kids who want to play football a chance to do so. Providing physical facilities to play football or improving existing ones and doing some structured coaching/competitions for local kids to get involved in. In the course of that I'm pretty sure we could unearth some gems who might otherwise slip through the net.

[brite blu sky]

Well put it this way, it is something that obviously has to evolve.. and probably initially inspired by someone that for starters achieves some success. So put like that it is obvious City have not been anywhere near getting something set up.

But things have changed, and the City hierarchy must be aware of such debates as this, and i would be interested to get the take of someone so closely involved with the system at City to see what their response is to being asked that question.

Tbf it's something only one or two special clubs do. I thought we were going to be one that built a similar structure though. Mancini is probably the last chance for that to happen. If we move him on quickly then we've established our club philosophy ; change.

not sure i would buy the last chance bit, but for sure City are now in a superb position to have a go at establishing such an attitude, ethos and style.
When our last chance of anything approaching that happened the club fucled it up big time. you get the impression that wont be allowed to happen this time ( look at the investment proposals for Manchester and the club ).

So far i have stayed on the fence as to whether Mancini is the Man and put simply it depends on bringing that first bit of success to build on, but he does seem to have all the necessaries. If he gets himself established at City then he may well be the kind of person ( and footballing talent ) to inspire the grounding of an ethos at the club. i certainly hope so anyways, as long as.. like a lot of other fans.. the football we generate is some of the best you are likely to see.

Manchester City was on the brink of being a special club and lost the plot, we have a second shot at it now and it must be in the thinking of those at the club organising everything, that our ambition of becoming the best club in the world means that we will be special, very special. So for me i want to hear about the plans that we have for the world wide academy system and how that fits into the plans for the team. I want to know if they are thinking about the relationship of the academies to the club and the current team / manager, i want to know if they are considering and debating and generating ideas about the style, ethos and attitude of City in the future. The ambition is to get into a situation where we are actually dominating the Real Madrids, Barca's, Bayern's, Milan's, Arsenal, Chelsea etc etc..
To do that, we are going to have to both be and have something pretty fuclin special on the pitch and off it.
Jim Cassell is an inside man with a great deal of understanding of what the club is tryng to do, in fact he remains an integral part of that ambition, so what is wrong with asking him what consideration has been given to a Barca style integrated academy by the powers that be at the club?

[brite blu sky]

I'd like to see City do something like creating "mini-academies" across the UK. Not necessarily trying to just hunt for the next Rooney, but giving all kids who want to play football a chance to do so. Providing physical facilities to play football or improving existing ones and doing some structured coaching/competitions for local kids to get involved in. In the course of that I'm pretty sure we could unearth some gems who might otherwise slip through the net.

Thats a sweet idea ant, even if the club/owners just pushed to set up and support the buying back of spaces for kids to play footie on thoughout communities in the UK. Would get them a serious amount of brownie points for the Abu Dhabi name, as well as genuinely attempting to help solve a current structural problem in UK society

[stockportblue]

I think the problem lies in the death of street football.Im hoping to get involved with a coaching organisation that mixes the best of modern coaching techniques with exercises that bring out what street football taught generations of kids in the past.

I can highly recommend the book "football for the brave" by john cartwright.