Our academy game last night

[qprmarc]

Went and watched our under 18s play against my local team Worthing last night. Well if that is that quality of players our scouts bring in from grass roots level I’d sack them all now. We lost 3-2 and quite frankly offered nothing , I know they are still young but there where Worthing players the same age that looked miles better than what we had, was frankly embarrassing.
God knows what our scouts are playing at , minus Sterling and furlong in recent years have we actually brought through anyone decent ? And I don’t mean players picked up from other clubs such as eze from Milwall

[shaggy24]

I kind of agree with point but also disagree

to get an academy running well isn’t a quick fix scouts picking up kids at 6-7 and as we all know they develop at all ages so a lump banging in loads as he’s big fast etc may end up a cb down the line.

The harsh reality of youth football is an educated guess. Take Man Utd as an example the scouting system in place for them is massive a big lure for any kid the success rate for them is also low per turnover of kids. Given they now face better competition from up the road with a bigger lure will lower player turn out rates as well.

perhaps the model of what we did with Eze, chair Dieng etc is a more cost effective model.

However I’d expect us to beat Worthing

[davieqpr]

Always going to be a problem with Academy players with our status having to live within 90 mins of ground. This limits our choice with so much competition. I do think we would be better off identifying rejects from other Academies but how much of it is a community project.

[Stainrod]

Went and watched our under 18s play against my local team Worthing last night. Well if that is that quality of players our scouts bring in from grass roots level I’d sack them all now. We lost 3-2 and quite frankly offered nothing , I know they are still young but there where Worthing players the same age that looked miles better than what we had, was frankly embarrassing.
God knows what our scouts are playing at , minus Sterling and furlong in recent years have we actually brought through anyone decent ? And I don’t mean players picked up from other clubs such as eze from Milwall

Was it Worthings mens team ? If so it’s unfair to compare an u18 team against them , I know you said Worthing had a few players the same age but 5/6 senior players mixed in with that would make a huge difference physically against a group of kids still growing and developing.

[qprmarc]

Was it Worthings mens team ? If so it’s unfair to compare an u18 team against them , I know you said Worthing had a few players the same age but 5/6 senior players mixed in with that would make a huge difference physically against a group of kids still growing and developing.

Yes it was the men’s team but to be fair the Worthing team is very young maybe two or three players in the starting line up over the age of 21. The worrying fact is that the majority of the qpr team were physically bigger, even if they weren’t I thought they’d technically be able to outplay them.

[stanistheman]

Went and watched our under 18s play against my local team Worthing last night. Well if that is that quality of players our scouts bring in from grass roots level I’d sack them all now. We lost 3-2 and quite frankly offered nothing , I know they are still young but there where Worthing players the same age that looked miles better than what we had, was frankly embarrassing.
God knows what our scouts are playing at , minus Sterling and furlong in recent years have we actually brought through anyone decent ? And I don’t mean players picked up from other clubs such as eze from Milwall

I raised the point about our scouts and Furlong , Stirling being the only decent young players , but agree that our status makes it far more difficult to sign up young school boy players.

perhsps picking up the ‘rejects’ is the way to go.