SHA Small Heath Alliance

We also need to be getting players in from other clubs who can break through if our own aren’t good enough.

Something we're trying to do but struggling to do because of the lack of minutes afforded and the lack of pathway, it's a chicken and egg situation.

I am a broken record but the DOF should be aligning all of this, it's all a mish mash of different aims and strategies, from the Academy through to the ownership, the football needs some direction..

Good to know we are trying.
Does the alignment and need for absolute excellence in vital roles extend to the CEO in your opinion or is Dale down the list of people we need to upgrade?

Mithrandir

B47blues

Le Mod

bruggeaway

Playing Koumas abit would have helped him with that stat tbf

And Solis, Osman and Priske (who is now 22)

Yep. It’s not age that’s the barrier for our academy prospects

Training at a completely different venue also doesn't help.
Jordan James got his chance with the first team after Bowyer noticed him training so well for the 21's.

It's the perfect way to test individuals to see if they can make the step but we don't have that accessibility in the currently facilities.

Completely agree with this

Le Mod

We also need to be getting players in from other clubs who can break through if our own aren’t good enough.

Something we're trying to do but struggling to do because of the lack of minutes afforded and the lack of pathway, it's a chicken and egg situation.

I am a broken record but the DOF should be aligning all of this, it's all a mish mash of different aims and strategies, from the Academy through to the ownership, the football needs some direction..

The club strategy does worry me at the moment - it needs someone to really get a grip on it, either CG or someone at KH. We seem an odd mismatch of short term and long term strategies with conflict between them - too much ambition with out enough realism balancing it when putting plans into practice.

Ambition should never equal short termism imo. And yes I’m nuts. But I prefer mid term to long term strategies over impulsive thinking.
But I’m nearly 51 and the only loan I’ve ever had is a mortgage and have still never had a credit card or store card of any sort. Which has nothing at all to do with how Knighthead operate, but is a bit strange

Surely this falls under Mike Rigg's job permit as well.

This is the opening paragraph when we announced his appointment.

The 53-year-old, experienced in creating pathways between academy and first-team football

Sadly I think patience is going to be required with the academy. Gaining Cat 1 status doesn't suddenly make the current youth players better. Surely it's going to take time for real improvements to be seen. At the moment, our goal seems to be getting promoted as soon as possible at all costs. That means spending a lot of money on strengthening the squad, which as a result limits pathways for academy players.

Once the play offs were out of reach, it would have been a great time to try some youngsters to see how they performed the constant scrutiny about Davies future meant that was impossible. Results picked up, but there's still uncertainty about him remaining. It was a no win situation. If he chucked some kids in and we lost our last few games, I doubt anyone would be writing it off and giving him extra credit for at least giving some kids ago. And if they did ok, people would be saying that they were dead rubber games and so we didn't really learn anything (which has been said about the recent results anyway).

Realistically, we need to create better loan options for our younger players in the football league were they can go out and play at a good level, even if that means we are paying the wages for those kids to go out.

Rab C Nesbitt

Le Mod

That's definitely a problem.

Another is the lack of alignment at the club, something our DOF ought to be doing, if the club wants lots of U21 minutes for the current crop then demand it, and afford the manager the rope to do it, a 'win now' or you're sacked culture isn't conducive to it, by all accounts our DOF has had no interest in the Academy either and has been trying to get us up ASAP by spending KH's millions, so why would the manager want to play them when the bloke above isn't arsed and just wants promotion.

Get a fixed, aligned strategy and plan in place, make giving U21 minutes a key part of it with the leeway that they will make mistakes, or don't.

We also need to be getting players in from other clubs who can break through if our own aren’t good enough. It’s clear a pathway is important for kids, parents and competition and emergency injury cover through older age groups into the senior team

For those interested, 20 minutes in myself and Paul Tait, who worked in our Academy most recently, discuss a lot of these youth-orientated issues in the podcast.
We do have good young talent in our Academy. It is the opportunity they need, and a clear joined-up development strategy, incorporating regular training for the better ones with the first team, and a club directive that 'this is what we want to do', regardless of whoever the manager is at the time.
A strong loans programme is needed, too. It's not about simply saying 'play the kids, chuck em in'. They have to merit it, but by the same token if your ladder is taken away, you have no chance of trying to break a glass ceiling. Even if they are not deemed sufficient for our first team, they can be of value and moved on elsewhere.
As for attracting players from other clubs, we are a long, long way off from that, for a number of reasons.

I listened to the pod mate.
Why can’t we attract talent from others and why is that a long way off?

Couple of things
Money - the compensation fees and wages many rival Category One clubs pay we can't currently match at the top end, for 14s upwards
Opportunity - potential recruits and their agents look and see no Academy players getting minutes in the league for the last 2 seasons and question is there a genuine first team pathway and/or a will and development plan, and compare our loans programme with others too. Even to releases we might go in for, these are queries.
There are other aspects in play but the bottom line is that just because we became Caregory One doesn't suddenly mean it's a straightfoward process to attract 'better quality' players, to a level the ownership might aspire to.

That pod was good, Tatts. For all I moan about Tait being a pashun merchant, he knew his stuff when talking about the youth set up, as you'd expect given his past roles.

The stories about Villa (and other clubs') kids being on thousands a week shows the uphill battle we are facing in this realm.

Contrast that to the recent Birmingham Mail podcast who were disingenuous (or completely uninformed, what is worse?) when asking why players like Romelle Donovan didn't breakthrough at Blues.

Our fanbase have a part to play as well though. There's such a short term outlook to every single decision that it makes it impossible for Davies to even consider chucking a kid in at the end of the season, as he knows he's fighting for his job with every result. Patience and grace is needed if we want this side of things to progress.