HUGHES RUINED THE ACADEMY SAYS CASSELL

[Ted Hughes]

No he didn't, I'm just being a bit 'tabloid' but I'm sorry if I've missed it, because I've been too busy but WE HAVE A NEW ACADEMY HEAD! I only saw one topic from Dazby on this, with ONE FUCKING REPLY.

I thought loads of people wanted to hang the last manager because some changes were made to the academy, which was perfect ?
Where's the outrage, the sarcasm, the slightest fucking interest?

Come on, whereareya letsbeavvinuuee!!

http://www.mcfc.co.uk/Video/Interviews/ ... demy-chief

Anyway. Now I've got that off my chest; it's become clear there's a management restructure & the whole way the academy operates is being changed drastically under Mancini ( joke; it's got fuck all to do with him or Hughes) I was just wondering if anyone had actually taken this in? This is much bigger change/news than Cassell leaving btw. They're effectively ripping it up & starting again.

Imo it's long overdue. After seeing almost all of the academy's 'exciting' top products fail to become top players, my opinion of it has changed completely over the years & I think it's been largely a farm for mid table/ Championship players. Our graduates are flawed. I don't think even our most talented, NATURALLY highly skilled graduates have great football intelligence or high quality techinical atributes like shooting from distance, crossing & taking free kicks (even rags worst, no-mark failure players can often do it better than our PL ones). It's basically as if they learn nothing. Lee Croft for example looked a 'smarter' player when he was 15 than at 18.

The only success imo has been the money made from transfers, which was a big asset when we were skint & shouldn't be forgotten as it probably kept us alive. As far as producing quality is concerned it's been a failure, as has the whole academy system in this country bar 1 or 2 imo. The basic Academy premise is spot on imo but the results are poor. Ken Barnes was more successful with a shed & a cup of tea.

Whether the new system will succeed I don't know but it needed changing.

Unfortunately I've got to sod off for 10 days now so can't discuss it but as Dazby said in his topic; I think you should listen to what Mark Allen says. Any thoughts anyone?

[Chinners]

Without our academy we would have been fecked a long time ago. Yeah it needs a revamp but not starting from scratch imo. The fact that over 25 have made the first team speaks for itself ... however I agree with you about longterm superstars, mind those sort of players cannot be taught imo

[BobKowalski]

Team, squad, facilities, academy, fans expectations, websites, social networking sites, in fact pretty much everything are all been upgraded and will continue to be upgraded. Its part of an ongoing process. The academy did an excellent job in terms of producing players and (probably more importantly at the time) generating cash through the sale of players. It was a product of its time and circumstances and it worked very well. That time and the circumstances have changed and the academy will change with it. Whether it does a better job than the preceding model remains to be seen but there is no doubt that like everything else it has to evolve.

As to the Hughes factor for me it was simply a case of having no confidence in the man's ability to implement/organise or improve any facet of City's operation in light of the new resources that were being pumped into the club. I base this on what I saw on the pitch during his tenure namely taking us to a glorious 10th place finish in his one and only season and his remarkably ability to spend £200m on a team but still leave it bereft of organisation and the crucial ability to defend in his second.

Additionally Hughes was forever making noises in the press about improving this, that and the other and how the academy needed to change and he wanted it under his control etc etc which given my lack of faith in the man's abilities set off all sort of alarm bells. Mancini on the other hand has yet to say squat about the academy except how important it is and, even more ground breaking, actually playing academy players in matches.

Oh and I think the academy products are better than you are giving them credit for but that is a for the past and we can all agree that they can be improved and lets hope that this will be the case moving forward.

[Socrates]

One thing that is clear is that Academy players actually have a hope of getting in the first team now Mancini is manager.

I see no reason why there should now be outrage that there are changes now as intimated in the OP. There was outrage before because a successful Academy set up was being broken up by Hughes and the man responsible for the success was marginalised. The fact that the replacement set-up, put in place by a man who clearly didn't believe in our academy is now being replaced again is a matter for celebration and hope not for outrage!

[Original Dub]

One thing that is clear is that Academy players actually have a hope of getting in the first team now Mancini is manager.

I see no reason why there should now be outrage that there are changes now as intimated in the OP. There was outrage before because a successful Academy set up was being broken up by Hughes and the man responsible for the success was marginalised. The fact that the replacement set-up, put in place by a man who clearly didn't believe in our academy is now being replaced again is a matter for celebration and hope not for outrage!

Hoorah! This is a great day.

All the horrible things that hughes did to this fine club are now being made right.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnn

[john@staustell]

Without our academy we would have been fecked a long time ago. Yeah it needs a revamp but not starting from scratch imo. The fact that over 25 have made the first team speaks for itself ... however I agree with you about longterm superstars, mind those sort of players cannot be taught imo

Sadly not for very long in most cases. More a reflection of the poor quality at the club for many years I'm afraid. In truth none have been top 4 four quality. Micah promised, and SWP tried, and Ned still 'promises', but no top players. Ted ir right.

[Socrates]

One thing that is clear is that Academy players actually have a hope of getting in the first team now Mancini is manager.

I see no reason why there should now be outrage that there are changes now as intimated in the OP. There was outrage before because a successful Academy set up was being broken up by Hughes and the man responsible for the success was marginalised. The fact that the replacement set-up, put in place by a man who clearly didn't believe in our academy is now being replaced again is a matter for celebration and hope not for outrage!

Hoorah! This is a great day.

All the horrible things that hughes did to this fine club are now being made right.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnn

Why don't you debate the points made instead of being a pillock? What do you disagree with? Are you saying Jim Cassell didn't get marginalised? Or that Mancini isn't more likely to use Academy players than Hughes?

[irblinx]

Whilst I doubt more than an handful of the 28 or so graduates so far would get near next seasons first team we have produced a few top class players:

SWP
Johnson
Ireland
Onouha
Richards
Sturridge
Weiss

However most of the above plus many of the journeymen seem to have had attitude problems at some point. JC used to regularly bang on about how we paid attention to more than just football, well in that respect I would say the academy failed big time. On the football side we seem to specialise in inconsistency.

On reflection it would appear that what was good was the initial scouting rather than the coaching/guidance

[Original Dub]

One thing that is clear is that Academy players actually have a hope of getting in the first team now Mancini is manager.

I see no reason why there should now be outrage that there are changes now as intimated in the OP. There was outrage before because a successful Academy set up was being broken up by Hughes and the man responsible for the success was marginalised. The fact that the replacement set-up, put in place by a man who clearly didn't believe in our academy is now being replaced again is a matter for celebration and hope not for outrage!

Hoorah! This is a great day.

All the horrible things that hughes did to this fine club are now being made right.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnn

Why don't you debate the points made instead of being a pillock? What do you disagree with? Are you saying Jim Cassell didn't get marginalised? Or that Mancini isn't more likely to use Academy players than Hughes?

Okey Dokey - Mancini has been praised because he inherited a first team that had quite a few injuries and he was "forced" to blood the kids and "get on with it". Now you are praising him for having the bottle to play the kids. I don't feel he can be given credit for both.

Aside from that, its an argument that we've been over and over time and time again and the anti-hughes from one section stands out in the debate, just like the pro hughes does from the other section.

I feel hughes brought this club forward in his time here, whereas many disagree with me. For instance, NQDP thought Cassell was more important than the manager (which I disagreed with BTW), so I'm sure he was peaved when Jim moved to pastures new, whereas I don't feel he was the best in the world at what he did so I didn't really care TBH.

For all the harping about how many players made our first team - what does it really say? Look at Owen at Liverpool, or Rooney at Everton? Are you better off producing players who get to play in the first team of a mediocre side and the majority dwindle away to lower divisions, or producing one truely world class player that can lead you to trophies or net you 30m in one go?

I appreciate what our academy and Jim did for us as a troubled club, I really do, but we're not a troubled club anymore. Also, ask any other fan from around the country and see how many are jealous of our "renowned" academy.

I'm sorry, but I don't buy into the belief that it was that amazing in the first place, so I never gave it another thought when changes were made.

Hows that for you Socs?

[Socrates]

To be fair, Cassell managed to produce a mix of players OD. Lots of players that have provided back up to the team. Several first team regulars and on the star level well let's not forget how much we sold SWP for! Not much less than Everton got for Shrek! I'm not interested in what others have argued either. Mancini has a reputation for bringing through Academy players in Italy. he seemed more than happy to introduce them rather than simply switching existing first teamers to a different position when injuries occurred. I cannot see at all, by the way, your assertion that Hughes took the club forward. How exactly?

[Dubciteh]

anyone have a list of the 20 odd(prob close to 30 now?) player that played? i thought it was/is highly successful at the time, whether we produced a top class talent or not. At the end of the day whos to say ireland,weiss or sturridge(even cunningham or the new lads coming in) wont become top class?SWP has medals and england caps, compare us to any other academy in the country of the last ten years and id say weve produced the most talent. Thats a success in my opinion

[Original Dub]

To be fair, Cassell managed to produce a mix of players OD. Lots of players that have provided back up to the team. Several first team regulars and on the star level well let's not forget how much we sold SWP for! Not much less than Everton got for Shrek! I'm not interested in what others have argued either. Mancini has a reputation for bringing through Academy players in Italy. he seemed more than happy to introduce them rather than simply switching existing first teamers to a different position when injuries occurred. I cannot see at all, by the way, your assertion that Hughes took the club forward. How exactly?

I thought the majority of his signings were really good, especially considering we didn't have our pick of the world's best. Quite a lot of players feel we've gone backwards but we'll never know that for sure, because we're gauging a second half of a season against a first half with half the players having never played together ...

If you think Mancini took over a team and club that was worse than when Sven left, then that's your opinion, but I don't agree with it.

I'm all for Mancini bringing us forward because he's now the man, but I'm not going to listen to those who say hughes did nothing for us when quite a lot of city fans and our best players, including the "rich man's dickov" reckon sacking him was a mistake.

As for Mancini's reputation for blooding the kids - you also told me he had a reputation for flowing, attacking football and that went out the window BIG STYLE.

[Buffalo Soldier]

To be fair, Cassell managed to produce a mix of players OD. Lots of players that have provided back up to the team. Several first team regulars and on the star level well let's not forget how much we sold SWP for! Not much less than Everton got for Shrek! I'm not interested in what others have argued either. Mancini has a reputation for bringing through Academy players in Italy. he seemed more than happy to introduce them rather than simply switching existing first teamers to a different position when injuries occurred. I cannot see at all, by the way, your assertion that Hughes took the club forward. How exactly?

Oh for fucks sake, did Hughes bully you at school or something...

[Original Dub]

anyone have a list of the 20 odd(prob close to 30 now?) player that played? i thought it was/is highly successful at the time, whether we produced a top class talent or not. At the end of the day whos to say ireland,weiss or sturridge(even cunningham or the new lads coming in) wont become top class?SWP has medals and england caps, compare us to any other academy in the country of the last ten years and id say weve produced the most talent. Thats a success in my opinion

The most talent?

I suppose if the player is english, then adding up all the full england caps would be a good measure, like Rooney's against SWP plus Barton plus whoever.

how do you measure talent? Would you take Ireland and SWP combined over Rooney?

Would any of our players that we have ever produced under Cassell play regularly in the first team of a title winning side?

That's success in my opinion.

[HeyMark]

I have to agree with OD, its ok saying x amount of players played for the first time but how many played for the term for a consist period of time? Very few! You look at people like Williamson who played once or twice for a few minutes in pointless games then was shipped out to confrence football but is still classed as making it to the first team

[mcfc1632]

I think that the approach of the new owners gets missed often - and especially in this area of the academy development

It is not 'totally' irrevelent how good the academy used to be (or not) - but it is 'largely' irrelevant

The owners want to get us established as top PL and CL challengers through the injection of top players that cost big

They want to keep us there through the establishment of an academy system that is the best in the world by a country mile and is able to secure all the best emerging talents in all continents to be attracted to (perhaps) regional academys before being groomed to play for CITY or sold to establish a 'self-financing' structure

For me this is the sustainable way to deal with the Platini rules and to move us to a position of sustained profitability

The 'previous' academy had a very good reputation and record for supporting a club of CITY's 'previous' level - there is no way it was (or should have been) able to meet the new approach

Last December I had a long conversation with a life-long CITY fan (I think he has the largest number of loyalty points by far) - who is also a good friend of Jim. He confirmed to me both that there was really bad blood between Jim and Hughes - but also what I describe is the strategic intention (from Jim's mouth) - so irrespective of personalities - or managers - this is the approach the owners want to go and we should applaud it.

The 'old' academy was always going to be replaced by a totally new one reflecting a global approach - there is no point in trying to lay any blame anywhere.

[BobKowalski]

To be fair, Cassell managed to produce a mix of players OD. Lots of players that have provided back up to the team. Several first team regulars and on the star level well let's not forget how much we sold SWP for! Not much less than Everton got for Shrek! I'm not interested in what others have argued either. Mancini has a reputation for bringing through Academy players in Italy. he seemed more than happy to introduce them rather than simply switching existing first teamers to a different position when injuries occurred. I cannot see at all, by the way, your assertion that Hughes took the club forward. How exactly?

I thought the majority of his signings were really good, especially considering we didn't have our pick of the world's best. Quite a lot of players feel we've gone backwards but we'll never know that for sure, because we're gauging a second half of a season against a first half with half the players having never played together ...

If you think Mancini took over a team and club that was worse than when Sven left, then that's your opinion, but I don't agree with it.

I'm all for Mancini bringing us forward because he's now the man, but I'm not going to listen to those who say hughes did nothing for us when quite a lot of city fans and our best players, including the "rich man's dickov" reckon sacking him was a mistake.

As for Mancini's reputation for blooding the kids - you also told me he had a reputation for flowing, attacking football and that went out the window BIG STYLE.

The Sven/Hughes/Mancini argument as to who inherited what is irrelevant. It is more to do with the state the respective owners left the club. Sven took over a team that had been deprived of investment but arrived with the initial boost that a new owner brought to the table and more crucially much needed investment on the playing side. Alas this lasted about 6 months with Frank proving to be a total cock and that most elusive of beasts a potless billionaire. The last 6 months or so of Frank's regime was a total shambles and this is what Hughes walked into. The playing side was much better than the one Sven inherited but that was about it and if Frank hadn't sold when he did it is debatable how much of that team would have been left standing. If you could define arriving in the 'nick of time' then it would say 'the takeover of MCFC by ADUG on 31st Auguest 2008'

The truth is that no manager so far has taken us anywhere much and compared to the impact the various owners have had then their influence is at best transitory. And I think I'll side with Khaldoon and the board on the wisdom of sacking Hughes as opposed to the 'rich man's dickov' or even Ned getting grumpy on the sofa of Soccer AM.

[BobKowalski]

I think that the approach of the new owners gets missed often - and especially in this area of the academy development

It is not 'totally' irrevelent how good the academy used to be (or not) - but it is 'largely' irrelevant

The owners want to get us established as top PL and CL challengers through the injection of top players that cost big

They want to keep us there through the establishment of an academy system that is the best in the world by a country mile and is able to secure all the best emerging talents in all continents to be attracted to (perhaps) regional academys before being groomed to play for CITY or sold to establish a 'self-financing' structure

For me this is the sustainable way to deal with the Platini rules and to move us to a position of sustained profitability

The 'previous' academy had a very good reputation and record for supporting a club of CITY's 'previous' level - there is no way it was (or should have been) able to meet the new approach

Last December I had a long conversation with a life-long CITY fan (I think he has the largest number of loyalty points by far) - who is also a good friend of Jim. He confirmed to me both that there was really bad blood between Jim and Hughes - but also what I describe is the strategic intention (from Jim's mouth) - so irrespective of personalities - or managers - this is the approach the owners want to go and we should applaud it.

The 'old' academy was always going to be replaced by a totally new one reflecting a global approach - there is no point in trying to lay any blame anywhere.

Spot on.

[Dubciteh]

anyone have a list of the 20 odd(prob close to 30 now?) player that played? i thought it was/is highly successful at the time, whether we produced a top class talent or not. At the end of the day whos to say ireland,weiss or sturridge(even cunningham or the new lads coming in) wont become top class?SWP has medals and england caps, compare us to any other academy in the country of the last ten years and id say weve produced the most talent. Thats a success in my opinion

The most talent?

I suppose if the player is english, then adding up all the full england caps would be a good measure, like Rooney's against SWP plus Barton plus whoever.

how do you measure talent? Would you take Ireland and SWP combined over Rooney?

Would any of our players that we have ever produced under Cassell play regularly in the first team of a title winning side?

That's success in my opinion.

not really as we have produced players from different countries, 2 of our potential best not been english.

well say we have produced rooney instead of swp, we get 30m instead of the 20 odd we got 4 swp so that extra few million means our academy was a success? not in my opinion. how about we look at the fees we got for all our academy players in last 10 years and compare it to say evertons?im sure were>>everton, that in my opinion shows were more succesful too.

If we produce rooney rather than what weve produced in the last few years we would prob be in championship now, i see your point about producing one top quality player but id personally rather the way weve done it. Now that money is no object, yeah we need to produce the top players as we no longer need to survive on the income of academy players.

Which players gets in a championship winning team?not sure yet but most are early 20s so still time, ireland has the potential, whether he realises it here is another thing

[bluej]

anyone have a list of the 20 odd(prob close to 30 now?) player that played? i thought it was/is highly successful at the time, whether we produced a top class talent or not. At the end of the day whos to say ireland,weiss or sturridge(even cunningham or the new lads coming in) wont become top class?SWP has medals and england caps, compare us to any other academy in the country of the last ten years and id say weve produced the most talent. Thats a success in my opinion

The most talent?

I suppose if the player is english, then adding up all the full england caps would be a good measure, like Rooney's against SWP plus Barton plus whoever.

how do you measure talent? Would you take Ireland and SWP combined over Rooney?

Would any of our players that we have ever produced under Cassell play regularly in the first team of a title winning side?

That's success in my opinion.

not really as we have produced players from different countries, 2 of our potential best not been english.

well say we have produced rooney instead of swp, we get 30m instead of the 20 odd we got 4 swp so that extra few million means our academy was a success? not in my opinion. how about we look at the fees we got for all our academy players in last 10 years and compare it to say evertons?im sure were>>everton, that in my opinion shows were more succesful too.

If we produce rooney rather than what weve produced in the last few years we would prob be in championship now, i see your point about producing one top quality player but id personally rather the way weve done it. Now that money is no object, yeah we need to produce the top players as we no longer need to survive on the income of academy players.

Which players gets in a championship winning team?not sure yet but most are early 20s so still time, ireland has the potential, whether he realises it here is another thing

I see what you're saying, and I agree that our academy has been more 'productive' than Everton's but in terms of success - Rooney has been an instrumental player in a title winning side - none of our graduates have been, which I think is the point OD is trying to make.