IfiHadTheWings on SC:
I was playing golf this evening with my cousin who is the Stoke Academy goalkeeping coach, apparently Townsend is a big troublemaker and has bust ups daily on the training ground(the info came from tony parks who was up at stoke shortly after leaving us, this wasn't the first time they met and apparently tony is a really nice guy who my cousin said could listen to his stories all day) also sherwood was speaking disrespectfully toward levy in front of the players and staff and apparently parks did not speak highly of sherwood at all and as my cousin put it thought he was a knob, on top of that the dressing room leaks during the season were coming from the chef who weirdly was in the dressing room during a lot of games but however was kicked out by Tim. And lastly according to my cousin ours and Chelsea's academy are by far the best in the country which going by how both teams don't really produce first team players seems a bit odd. I kno it's not transfer itk but I thought I'd share with you as it was interesting to hear and thought you guys would appreciate it.
Our academy is excellent and actually has been for a while. People say we don't produce loads of players for the first team, but what academy does for a top club? Players that are top quality are not-surprisingly (or surprisingly to some) quite rare.
Academy crops like Beckham, Scholes, Nevilles etc or Xavi, Iniesta, Messi etc coming through at the same time are freaks. That is not the norm and is down to luck rather than the strength of the academy (although obviously it has more chance of happening at a great academy). Since that generation what players have Man U produced?
We might not have produced loads of players, but we have produced at least two world-class centrebacks who played a lot of seasons for the club (***face judas tw** and Ledley King), Stephen Carr, who before his injuries was a top full-back and we have several academy players that have played in the first team in recent seasons like Kane, Caulker etc.
Forget the players that don't make it at Spurs, that is very difficult. The law of averages says that an academy will produce very few players capable of playing for a top 6 team in the BPL or at one of Europes top leagues.
Think about the amount of ex Spurs academy players that have made very successful Premiership or Championship level careers and there are loads. I've just named Caulker, but there are a load of players like him who are good enough to make the grade at Premiership of Championship level and command a sizeable transfer fee in the bargain.
Even if Jake Livermore and Tom Carroll don't make it at Spurs and the club decide their not quite good enough, we're likely to get at least £5m for them as they're both easily good enough for a lower end PL team or top end championship team.
In this respect the academy makes us money and success is developing young kids to a high standard with good training and professionalism. Our academy has a good rep as many of our players go on to have high level pro careers, which can't be said of a lot of players. Most of our academy graduates are known to be good pros too.
I know a bit about our academy (i'm not ITK but I just get passing comments) as a family member works for Saudi Sportswashing Machine's academy and one of my mates works for Bradford City's academy too.
