Help needed with United academy matters

top1whoisman

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I’ll be writing a piece to the Finnish Premier League (or actually EFL) Supporters’ Magazine. Decided to do it about the subject of our academy. What I’m focusing on, is how we ”fell behind” in terms of scouting/youth player/academy staff recruitment; what City did on their behalf to pile up all that talent to their academy etc. Kind of how the power, however briefly, ”switched" to the blue side of the town and what have United done to attack this since.

Whoever could help me, by pointing me towards some quality articles, people who know their stuff etc., I’d appreciate it a lot. I’ll try to search for good info in the ”Academy re-structuring thread”, but this is a bit wider subject as I’d also be interested in what City have done since the takeover. Here’s at least some exact questions I guess I’m looking for answers to:

- What mistakes did United do in terms of running the academy? (letting go of/not replacing key staff members, scouting, getting used to ”the modern" (more aggressive) way of recruiting youth, resting on our laurels etc.)
- How much of these mistakes had a lot to do with SAF retiring, the manager changes and therefore lack of clear direction?
- What have City done to make their academy admittedly one of the best in Europe?
- They’ve been accused of some wrongdoings in terms of youth recruitment; what exactly are those actions, were they punished/are they being investigated for something atm?
- What have United done in the last couple of years to re-establish (perhaps too strong a word, we’ve not failed that big) our academy; key staff appointments, scouting shake-up, investments/more resources in academy staff/conditions?
- What have we done in terms if coaching; recruitments, resources, improving the quality/quantity of training, being ahead of the game by coming up with new ways to practice etc.?
- What about competitively? Are we more active in getting our teams to int. tournaments etc.?
- How much of this is thanks to Señor Butt? As Head of Academy what are his main duties?
- What kind of signs are there, that support the view, that United is stepping their game up? Transfers, youth team success at different levels etc.?
- There’s been talk of United having hired over 50 scouts in the process? Going deeper, are there some regions/countries we’re scouting that were ”underscouted” before? Have we named some ”Head of scouting” people, who look over our whole scouting processes? If so, who and what are their duties?

Sorry, it’s a long OP and some questions might be hard to answer to, try to bear with me. The work is due late in the summer, so whenever you can find the time to drop by some info, again, much appreciated. :angel:

@jb8521 @Mr. MUJAC @khoazany @limerickcitykid @GroteBergMan98 @oskarutd @spenzo
 
Looking at the improvements we've made in the scouting department, I think we were just underscouting in general. I think we mainly relied on Fergie's old-boys network and did not offer as much money as other clubs. Just the attraction of Carrington and the first team seemed to be not enough to attract players after the huge investments from the likes of City and Chelsea.

We've recruited a huge amount of scouts, mainly young scouts and some very experienced ones like Henny de Regt.

I think the fact that we signed the likes of Burkart, Chong and O'Connor who chose us over other clubs like Madrid, Chelsea, City etc. that we're back on track in terms of recruitment.

City allegedly offer sibblings of academy players private schooling and some other things which could be seen as bribing but I'm not sure how true all of that is. Fifa won't do anything about it anyway because they are awful at governing these transfers.

Also, don't let underage results mislead you to think City's academy is much better than ours, their main focus is literally winning even at U11 level whiles ours is to develop players in many different ways which definitely do not improve the result.
 
Ok, well starting with first I guess, they invested heavily in their facilities. Although there's nothing wrong with United's, this already cancels out one advantage that the club had before. This could have previously made the difference when touring kids around when they're on trial but City are now amongst the elite in this aspect. The 7,000 capacity stadium was also an impressive addition as part of this. Article below:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...ad-Campus-finest-training-facility-world.html

It's been said that City have bribed the parents if some players they've been interested in with job offers and houses. They've also poached a fair number of talents from United in the young age groups, (most likely with the methods I just mentioned) for a while up until more recently - after United revamped their approach.

I know Stephen Howson has mentioned in some of his videos that from having his son at City he noticed that at every age group they focus on tactics and simply winning games whereas United's approach has been and continues to be more focussed on individual development at the lower levels with tactics only coming into play at Under 16/18 level. This goes some way to explaining some of the results that the media have stupidly published between City and United's younger teams.

Guaranteeing an education for kids whether the club releases them or not is also a classy move on City's part and has apparently been part of the reason some players have gone there, or better put, why some parents have chosen to send their kids there.

As far as United Post-Ferguson, I know Moyes was aware of numerous issues within the academy and wanted to fix them however he didn't get to work on that straight away as he thought he was here for the long haul and we know how that ended. Can't find an article mentioning this but it's probably floating around somewhere. It appears as though the academy was a neglected aspect of the club in the final years of Sir Alex's time in charge which, coinciding with City's improvement, meant that we started being overtaken by them.

There's people better suited than me to tell you what exactly United have done in recent months to fix things. They've become more aggressive in their recruitment at all age groups, and as you mentiomed they hired numerous scouts. Previously, we might have seen only one of Chong, Burkart and Baars coming to the club at any given time and I think this shows an improvement. Some of the others know about players that have joined at U15 level and downwards. The likes of O'Connor joining the club also shows that Woodward has stuck to his word and looked to get talents both from abroad and closer to home. What he promised is mentioned in this:



Butt has also developed their tournament programme and he mentions it here:

http://www.manutd.com/en/Players-An...der-19-german-trip-arranged-for-new-year.aspx

Hope that helps mate, all the best.
 
I think there are a number of reasons why we are in the situation we are in.

1. Naturally as time went on, Ferguson found it difficult to manage all the pressures of the first team and look after the Academy. Times were very different 20 years ago when he started and the Academy only had two teams plus a bunch of schoolboys.
2. I think there was/is a degree of complacency amongst some coaches/scouts/administrators who had been around a long time and got very comfortable doing whatever they were doing in a bit of a bubble. Meanwhile other clubs like Southampton, Chelsea, City and others were putting lots of focus on youth development.
3. Our scouting has been poor for a while and we have seen that there has been a significant improvement over the last 12-15 months.
4. New managers coming in have been very short-term focused so youth development is hardly high on their agenda
5. There has been a clear lack of leadership at the Academy for some time. I am not sure what the people in charge in the past have actually achieved. Nicky Butt seems to have changed that focus. I don't feel even now that we have a clear vision. Just the question on winning mentality v development is up in the air and a very contentious point.
6. In years gone past we used to have numerous friendly matches and tournaments to test juniors. This has virtually stopped for some unknown reason. We used to enter the Blue Stars, Northern Ireland Milk Cup and others. Maybe they were not competitive enough for us but we never replaced therm with more competitive offerings. Paul McGuinness tried the Claudio Sassi Tournament, took the players on training camps to Slovakia and other such experiments which has been great. Last year we went to the Otten Cup which seems to have been a success. But that apart we haven't done much in terms of specific development for the 14-17 age groups when they are developing the most.
7. I don't want to talk about Chelsea and City too much because I don't know all the details and really don't care that much. However, they have made investments which are attractive to many young boys and their families.
8. I don't think we are critical/clinical enough when letting lads go. There have been cases where players are clearly not good enough and never going to make it at the club and yet we offer them pro deals and lengthy contracts. It's confusing for many.

Put all that together and you have what we have.

Hopefully we are moving forward positively but time will tell.
 
Mr. MUJAC said:
I think there are a number of reasons why we are in the situation we are in.

1. Naturally as time went on, Ferguson found it difficult to manage all the pressures of the first team and look after the Academy. Times were very different 20 years ago when he started and the Academy only had two teams plus a bunch of schoolboys.
2. I think there was/is a degree of complacency amongst some coaches/scouts/administrators who had been around a long time and got very comfortable doing whatever they were doing in a bit of a bubble. Meanwhile other clubs like Southampton, Chelsea, City and others were putting lots of focus on youth development.
3. Our scouting has been poor for a while and we have seen that there has been a significant improvement over the last 12-15 months.
4. New managers coming in have been very short-term focused so youth development is hardly high on their agenda
5. There has been a clear lack of leadership at the Academy for some time. I am not sure what the people in charge in the past have actually achieved. Nicky Butt seems to have changed that focus. I don't feel even now that we have a clear vision. Just the question on winning mentality v development is up in the air and a very contentious point.
6. In years gone past we used to have numerous friendly matches and tournaments to test juniors. This has virtually stopped for some unknown reason. We used to enter the Blue Stars, Northern Ireland Milk Cup and others. Maybe they were not competitive enough for us but we never replaced therm with more competitive offerings. Paul McGuinness tried the Claudio Sassi Tournament, took the players on training camps to Slovakia and other such experiments which has been great. Last year we went to the Otten Cup which seems to have been a success. But that apart we haven't done much in terms of specific development for the 14-17 age groups when they are developing the most.
7. I don't want to talk about Chelsea and City too much because I don't know all the details and really don't care that much. However, they have made investments which are attractive to many young boys and their families.
8. I don't think we are critical/clinical enough when letting lads go. There have been cases where players are clearly not good enough and never going to make it at the club and yet we offer them pro deals and lengthy contracts. It's confusing for many.

Put all that together and you have what we have.

Hopefully we are moving forward positively but time will tell.
Click to expand...

Thank you, kind Sir :)
 
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