Is it just that the trialists and scouts we have are getting more attention now or are we more actively trying to sign youngsters?
Miscellaneous Reserve/Youth News
- Thread starter Cevno
- Start date
We always have a lot of trialists throughout the year and monitoring many youngsters in the lower league.Obviously only a few turned out to be signed by us.
Excited about the UEFA Youth League. There will be some really good tests.
United U18s lost 2-3 vs. Newcastle U18s away today (two late goals by Rashford and Dearnley).U16s beat them 4-2.
A bird whispers to me that City's U16s Portuguese winger Rafael Camacho seems to have joined us.
Our under 14s lost 9-0 to City today...
Really? That would be quite the coup, wouldn't it? Very highly rated by all accounts.
Yeah I'm really surprised but seems coming from a reliable source.Seems we've let U16s head coach Tommy Martin go as well.Thomas Sang has joined us in an educational scholarship.
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Very interesting given all the general talk that City are ahead in terms of recruiting and training facilities for youth. I don't follow City youth much so I don't know, maybe they just haven't had players talented enough to take the step up. But perhaps selling another talent (lopes) and loaning Denayer again while buying Otamendi has or will make them less attractive to youth prospects?
I think they're shifting more into domestic youth recruitment recently, hoarding talents from the academies around at lower age groups like us,Liverpool,Blackburn,etc,....Denayer and Lopes's scenario are ridiculous though, that reflect why it's so hard to breakthrough at them.Even Patrick Robert's signing will block their most promising English U21s player from their academy Barker from having any chance to step up (you can only blood a few youngsters at one go)
I do try to follow the under 18's look out for our reserve games and look at results of under 16 when they are available but this tweet caught my eye. Is our youth situation so bad or are these scorelines common at that level. It really looks they have stolen a march over us by getting the best kids locally and why wouldnt they? the facilities there seems to be a few levels ahead of us. Although none of their players have had a great impact yet but its just a matter of time i think that they will unearth their own version of scholes/giggs/beckham etc or produce one superstar from within the academy. The money that they can offer at youth level is just too much. Read an article by mitten who said that we dont offer great wages to our younger players and that even gribbin had better offers from likes of Pool and city. We have limited coaching and send our graduates to local schools and do not guarantee an education if the kid does not make it which city do. He also raises questions about our youth scouting. We do need a bit of shake up at youth level, why cant we hire a director of academy who can modernize our facilities, surely if we can spend 36 million on martial we can make extra 5 million available for the academy? I hate this feeling that other clubs are able to overtake us at something that we were completely proud of and which is an important path of being a united fan.
We have let our best prospects go(pogba,ravel,daehli,eikram) and maybe only one of them made it so far but i think rene muelsteen did a fabulous job at producing some good batches. Still think we have to move with the times and treat youth recruitment as competitively as senior recruitment. We should be offering the best wages and the best facilities to our youth players. I am not as knowledgeable as @khoazany about our youth at all, but murmurs in the press paint bad picture. The effort has to come from Ed and top management, not the trainer coach as we dont and maybe wont have a coach who will last more than 3 years in the near future, youth policy has to come from above him and probably hiring specialist in such areas is the best thing we can do.
Those things have been discussed on another thread about Mitten's article.Obviously we need to make changes and seems Butt has started to make some.
About the scoreline lots of the best U14s played with the U15s today in the PL tournament qualifier I heard (again not making excuse just based on my limited knowledge).The U14s is one of our best crops if anything.Talking about the result at this level without knowing any context is disgusting by Oliver Kay.I tend not to talk about result at U14s level and below because usually it doesn't tell much especially at U9-U13s when they actually play more than one match.
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So what is Butty's role now exactly? Also, what are the changes he's made/making?
Results don't matter at that level. Keep that in mind.
9-0 obviously also reflects peformance and not just the result.
Are their kids a lot more talented?
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At least 6 players from that group were on short break or with the U15s (and they can't play the best U13s up because U13s also have matches).This is in fact one of our most promising group.Last year, the same two groups drew 0-0.
Not saying City kids are not talented before any City fans jump in.
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It's not brand new information but I haven't seen it posted on here. Liam Grimshaw is in loan at Motherwell. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34124389
More info about Rafael Camacho (from @jb8521) is he's Angel Gomes's cousin and fell out with Man City so decided to not renew his contract there.
I hope he turns out like another winger who trained with city and joined united.
Its good we have him, i read on some city forums that he is quite highly rated there, wonder why city did not put more of an effort to keep him, maybe he just wanted out and made it clear he would leave no matter what wad on the table.
It's easy when you can steal other clubs' best academy players through means that essentially amount to bribery isn't it.
To be fair I wouldn't have many issues if it's United who's doing it, as long as we don't do anything crazy like paying a 12-year-old kid 30k a year.The club needs to become more aggressive in recruitment at U13s-U15s level IMO even if it means we do bribe the family a bit.Many of Chelsea,City or Liverpool's best talents joined them at that age.Our last recruitment at these age that doesn't turn out to be crap is Tom Cleverley (not everyone's favorite but still an England international).Looking at our brightest prospects in recent year 99% of them are imports at U18s level or already here since U9-U11s.
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Agreed, we do need to become more aggressive, especially on our own patch. But where would it end? Paying £30k for example for a 12-year-old wouldn't be far from the truth if we're to engage in City's tactics. Maybe that is the way forward, for the best youth talents in particular. Just sounds wrong to me that.
For me, sort our own house first in terms of coaching infrastructure, facilities etc. then sort out the recruitment. I'd like to know who's who now in terms of our academy coaching setup.
There're already some changes in the coaching setup (can't tell but along the line of the incompetent coach was shifted to another role and the good coach given more responsibilities) and it looks inevitable that more changes are due in the near future especially with Giggs has been told to take more interest in the academy.We actually have some very good coaches in the setup, particularly Eamon Mulvey (foundation stage head coach) and McGuinness who both won FA youth coach award last season for their coaching groups, though it might be a bit questionable about some of the age groups in between the two.
I saw that on twitter. Wound me right up.
School boy results shouldn't be discussed in a national newspaper full stop. Kay using them to push his own little agenda is worse.
I've been reading through the last few pages on this thread and thought I would clarify a few things as people are way off the mark with some comments.
1. Players can join an Academy at about 7 years old and they are signed for one year. After one year both the parents and club meet and agree on whether or not the boy WANTS to stay or the club WANT to keep him. Whether the boy stays or not depends on a wide range of factors. This is not a binary contract just an agreement because you can't have legal contracts for minors. Finally, I've never heard of any club 'poaching' any other clubs player at this age.
2. When the boy reaches 12 the contract turns to two years. If the boy stays on then he will get a contract from 12-14 and 14-16. After this period he is offered a scholarship. From 12-16 there are no wages paid to players or families. This is illegal. There has been all sorts of stories of players families being offered houses to move etc etc. Most of this is not true. If a boy wants to move from one Academy to another at this stage then compensation will be paid. However, the club who holds the contract of the boy has no obligation to release him. What normally happens is that the player waits until his present contract is up and then refuses to sign a new one with the existing club and joins the new club. Compensation comes into play here. There are examples all over the country of players moving from one club to another at 12 and 14. Keep in mind, we have lost loads of young lads this way as well as getting young kids this way. It's normal. Kids don't like the coaches, the atmosphere, the training regime, the playing time etc etc. Remember…when we take a kid at 12 or 14 we can not offer any financial inducement. It is illegal. So all this talk of poaching at this level is ridiculous.
3. When a player reaches 15/16 and is good enough, he is offered a scholarship. The Scholarship can be for one year (let's see how he develops)…two years…or three years. The wage of the scholar is exactly the same for every club as set out by the Football Association. United cannot pay a scholar more or less money than any other club. These are the rules. Scholars earn about £125.00 per week so about £500.00 per month. So all the talk about Callum Gribbin after more money is nonsense…he isn't allowed to be paid more. They also have to remain at school so many days a week to conclude their studies. United's players go into digs at this age to prepare them for the life of a professional footballer. They share digs with other lads…usually 2-4 lads in the same home. The digs are houses of people who are prepared to look after the kids in return for a fee. The digs are all vetted in advance and this practice has been going on since the 1950's.
4. Some players deemed exceptional and as such are offered a scholarship and then a 'guarantee' of a professional contract when they turn 17 which is the legal age. So if a lad is 15 he may be offered a 2+2…that is a two year scholarship plus a guarantee of a two year pro deal. Once again wages are not discussed as the lads are minors. Only when he signs his pro deal at 17 will wages be discussed. For example, Mads Timm was reportedly getting £12,000 per week when he was signed as a professional. So the jump up in wages can be significant. Other deals could be a 2+1…or a 3+1 or a 1+2…depending on how old the lad is when he signs his first scholarship. Timothy Fosu-Mensah came to us at 15 and I believe he is on a 2+2 contract. My understanding of the Gribbin situation is that he was offered a 2+1 with United but Liverpool offered a 2+2. Wages are not allowed to form part of the discussion so it was merely a conversation of how long the guarantee was of a pro seal. He has since signed for United so either the initial assumptions were wrong or United agreed to match Liverpools offer.
5. Different Academies have different philosophies and as such you can't really compare results out of context. As mentioned above, United rightly or wrongly, emphasise development over results so losing or winning by big scores at 12-16 is largely irrelevant. At U/16 level United's kids play home and away that mostly mirrors the U/18 Academy League schedule. However, there are no points, no league tables and no winners.
6. At U/18 level the lads enter a professional competitive league environment for the first time.
7. Since the beginning of youth football in the 1930's, lads joined clubs at 15/16 years old. They played for three years in the juniors before joining the ranks of adults in the local leagues or Central (reserve) League. Depending on how good they were, this was a natural progression and some made it to first team quicker than others (Edwards, Whiteside and others). Academies didn't exist until 1999 so very young kids would often train at professional clubs unofficially until they were old enough to sign a contract. Very often this happened when the kids left school and a whole host of clubs would line up and talk to the kids and their parents and the kid decided where he wanted to go. So someone like David Beckham would train at Spurs, West Ham and United during the week and school holidays (when he was 10-14) before eventually signing for United at 15/16. Now clubs have an Academy which most players join so compensation has been introduced. But the moving around at this age has been common practice since the 1940's. So talk of poaching and other stuff is very contextual. A lot of it is sensationalism from newspapers and of course the big clubs get the brand of bad guys.
8. Players develop at different ages. Players learn things at different ages. Barcelona's youth coach outlined the typical development ages as 6-10…10-14…14-16…16-19. Players learn different things at these ages and need good infrastructure, coaching and development plans in order to progress. Thus, United had someone like Danny Welbeck come through the system who got all his development from the same infrastructure. Other lads like Tom Cleverley joined at 11 so would have the early stuff taught to him at Bradford City then our coaching process took over. Other lads who come from abroad at 16 have a high level of development already so we become almost a 'finishing school' for the final years of development. It doesn't matter what age they arrive, they all receive some form of development/education.
9. There is no 'official' definition of a 'youth product'. However, the definition that is most commonly used is as follows:
a) joins a club before they turn 18 (i.e. not an adult)
b) has not played professionally at any other club (i.e. no pro deal)
c) has not played first team at any other club (i.e. can't be considered to be ready for top flight football)
d) has played in the Academy or FA Youth Cup. (i.e. actually received development coaching from our youth coaches)
So someone like Lee Sharpe joined United at 17, was a YTS at Torquay, played for Torquay's first team, and also played in our youth team. Because he didn't meet all four criteria he is not included as a Manchester United Youth Product. Whereas Pique, Januzaj, Pereira and countless others meet all four criteria and thus are included as United Youth Products.
The way to picture it is that kids might go to three schools before going to University. All three schools develop the kid at different stages and all three schools rightly claim to have 'developed' the kid in some way. It's the same with football. I have no problem with any player joining us at 16 and we include them as youth products. Otherwise you have the situation that Academies didn't actually produce first team footballers until 2008, (8 years old in 1999 and 17 in 2008) therefore youth football didn't exist before 2008…which is clearly ridiculous. Therefore, to be consistent the above criteria applies to all players from all eras regardless of previous footballing education.
10. When David Moyes took over he was quite shocked with the state of the Academy at United and wanted to undertake a overhaul. Those were his words. When van Gaal arrived he was 'underwhelmed' given the size of our club and the resources at our disposal. In terms of detail it is hard to say what the exact problems were that both of these managers identified. Nevertheless, Brian McClair has since left and no-one has been in charge for nearly nine months. There has been talk of Nicky Butt taking over but nothing has been confirmed. My understanding is that the hierarchy believe it is a two-man job. Someone covering the administration and facilities and someone else in charge of the coaching and football side. Once again nothing has been confirmed and while the club delay (maybe rightly to get the right person), people will speculate about the situation which is what is happening in this thread.
11. Finally, while agreeing that City do not have a great recent pedigree of bringing kids through to the first team, their infrastructure is first class. I have no doubts that a young kid looking at their facilities versus ours would be incredibly impressed and it may be a major factor in them deciding to join City over us. Unless the kid is a hard core United fan then they won't intellectualise what might or might not happen in ten years. They just want to play with the best facilities.
Hope this helps with some wider context.
1. Players can join an Academy at about 7 years old and they are signed for one year. After one year both the parents and club meet and agree on whether or not the boy WANTS to stay or the club WANT to keep him. Whether the boy stays or not depends on a wide range of factors. This is not a binary contract just an agreement because you can't have legal contracts for minors. Finally, I've never heard of any club 'poaching' any other clubs player at this age.
2. When the boy reaches 12 the contract turns to two years. If the boy stays on then he will get a contract from 12-14 and 14-16. After this period he is offered a scholarship. From 12-16 there are no wages paid to players or families. This is illegal. There has been all sorts of stories of players families being offered houses to move etc etc. Most of this is not true. If a boy wants to move from one Academy to another at this stage then compensation will be paid. However, the club who holds the contract of the boy has no obligation to release him. What normally happens is that the player waits until his present contract is up and then refuses to sign a new one with the existing club and joins the new club. Compensation comes into play here. There are examples all over the country of players moving from one club to another at 12 and 14. Keep in mind, we have lost loads of young lads this way as well as getting young kids this way. It's normal. Kids don't like the coaches, the atmosphere, the training regime, the playing time etc etc. Remember…when we take a kid at 12 or 14 we can not offer any financial inducement. It is illegal. So all this talk of poaching at this level is ridiculous.
3. When a player reaches 15/16 and is good enough, he is offered a scholarship. The Scholarship can be for one year (let's see how he develops)…two years…or three years. The wage of the scholar is exactly the same for every club as set out by the Football Association. United cannot pay a scholar more or less money than any other club. These are the rules. Scholars earn about £125.00 per week so about £500.00 per month. So all the talk about Callum Gribbin after more money is nonsense…he isn't allowed to be paid more. They also have to remain at school so many days a week to conclude their studies. United's players go into digs at this age to prepare them for the life of a professional footballer. They share digs with other lads…usually 2-4 lads in the same home. The digs are houses of people who are prepared to look after the kids in return for a fee. The digs are all vetted in advance and this practice has been going on since the 1950's.
4. Some players deemed exceptional and as such are offered a scholarship and then a 'guarantee' of a professional contract when they turn 17 which is the legal age. So if a lad is 15 he may be offered a 2+2…that is a two year scholarship plus a guarantee of a two year pro deal. Once again wages are not discussed as the lads are minors. Only when he signs his pro deal at 17 will wages be discussed. For example, Mads Timm was reportedly getting £12,000 per week when he was signed as a professional. So the jump up in wages can be significant. Other deals could be a 2+1…or a 3+1 or a 1+2…depending on how old the lad is when he signs his first scholarship. Timothy Fosu-Mensah came to us at 15 and I believe he is on a 2+2 contract. My understanding of the Gribbin situation is that he was offered a 2+1 with United but Liverpool offered a 2+2. Wages are not allowed to form part of the discussion so it was merely a conversation of how long the guarantee was of a pro seal. He has since signed for United so either the initial assumptions were wrong or United agreed to match Liverpools offer.
5. Different Academies have different philosophies and as such you can't really compare results out of context. As mentioned above, United rightly or wrongly, emphasise development over results so losing or winning by big scores at 12-16 is largely irrelevant. At U/16 level United's kids play home and away that mostly mirrors the U/18 Academy League schedule. However, there are no points, no league tables and no winners.
6. At U/18 level the lads enter a professional competitive league environment for the first time.
7. Since the beginning of youth football in the 1930's, lads joined clubs at 15/16 years old. They played for three years in the juniors before joining the ranks of adults in the local leagues or Central (reserve) League. Depending on how good they were, this was a natural progression and some made it to first team quicker than others (Edwards, Whiteside and others). Academies didn't exist until 1999 so very young kids would often train at professional clubs unofficially until they were old enough to sign a contract. Very often this happened when the kids left school and a whole host of clubs would line up and talk to the kids and their parents and the kid decided where he wanted to go. So someone like David Beckham would train at Spurs, West Ham and United during the week and school holidays (when he was 10-14) before eventually signing for United at 15/16. Now clubs have an Academy which most players join so compensation has been introduced. But the moving around at this age has been common practice since the 1940's. So talk of poaching and other stuff is very contextual. A lot of it is sensationalism from newspapers and of course the big clubs get the brand of bad guys.
8. Players develop at different ages. Players learn things at different ages. Barcelona's youth coach outlined the typical development ages as 6-10…10-14…14-16…16-19. Players learn different things at these ages and need good infrastructure, coaching and development plans in order to progress. Thus, United had someone like Danny Welbeck come through the system who got all his development from the same infrastructure. Other lads like Tom Cleverley joined at 11 so would have the early stuff taught to him at Bradford City then our coaching process took over. Other lads who come from abroad at 16 have a high level of development already so we become almost a 'finishing school' for the final years of development. It doesn't matter what age they arrive, they all receive some form of development/education.
9. There is no 'official' definition of a 'youth product'. However, the definition that is most commonly used is as follows:
a) joins a club before they turn 18 (i.e. not an adult)
b) has not played professionally at any other club (i.e. no pro deal)
c) has not played first team at any other club (i.e. can't be considered to be ready for top flight football)
d) has played in the Academy or FA Youth Cup. (i.e. actually received development coaching from our youth coaches)
So someone like Lee Sharpe joined United at 17, was a YTS at Torquay, played for Torquay's first team, and also played in our youth team. Because he didn't meet all four criteria he is not included as a Manchester United Youth Product. Whereas Pique, Januzaj, Pereira and countless others meet all four criteria and thus are included as United Youth Products.
The way to picture it is that kids might go to three schools before going to University. All three schools develop the kid at different stages and all three schools rightly claim to have 'developed' the kid in some way. It's the same with football. I have no problem with any player joining us at 16 and we include them as youth products. Otherwise you have the situation that Academies didn't actually produce first team footballers until 2008, (8 years old in 1999 and 17 in 2008) therefore youth football didn't exist before 2008…which is clearly ridiculous. Therefore, to be consistent the above criteria applies to all players from all eras regardless of previous footballing education.
10. When David Moyes took over he was quite shocked with the state of the Academy at United and wanted to undertake a overhaul. Those were his words. When van Gaal arrived he was 'underwhelmed' given the size of our club and the resources at our disposal. In terms of detail it is hard to say what the exact problems were that both of these managers identified. Nevertheless, Brian McClair has since left and no-one has been in charge for nearly nine months. There has been talk of Nicky Butt taking over but nothing has been confirmed. My understanding is that the hierarchy believe it is a two-man job. Someone covering the administration and facilities and someone else in charge of the coaching and football side. Once again nothing has been confirmed and while the club delay (maybe rightly to get the right person), people will speculate about the situation which is what is happening in this thread.
11. Finally, while agreeing that City do not have a great recent pedigree of bringing kids through to the first team, their infrastructure is first class. I have no doubts that a young kid looking at their facilities versus ours would be incredibly impressed and it may be a major factor in them deciding to join City over us. Unless the kid is a hard core United fan then they won't intellectualise what might or might not happen in ten years. They just want to play with the best facilities.
Hope this helps with some wider context.
According to what I heard there is compensation fee when you sign a kid from another academy at U9s-U12s age group (before the contract turns to two years) which stands at £3000 per year.
Talk of Callum Gribbin after money I think should be interpreted as which club will offer more wage for him for his 2+1 or 2+2 contract, which I don't think sound nonsense.
Finally, as you said I don't think paying wages for kids or their families at 12-14 years of age is legal but there have been a lot of talks about this really happened at City.There must be a way for them to circumvent the rule just like how some foreign kids i.e Boga or Da Silva etc can move to an English club before they turn 16.Wouldn't say that I'm very clear about all of these rules but it's definitely happening.
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I've not heard of the compensation at U/9's but you obviously have info I haven't so thanks for heads up.
They can't talk wages at scholarship level. It's a scholarship with wages set by the FA. So United and Liverpool couldn't offer more of anything. The only negotiation point was length of 'guaranteed' pro deal. This in effect results in a guarantee of pro wages which would be agreed at 17. Liverpool can say 'we will pay you £xxx when you turn 17' but they can't put into a legal contract because he is still a minor. So it might be a 'promise' of wages but not a guarantee. Lot's of kids (and parents) have been misinformed on this one. I believe Conor Devlin at United had this problem when he reached 17. What he was promised and what was eventually offered were two different things.
Yeah that's what I mean.It certainly no more than a "promise" although usually clubs won't want to upset their best talents by not offering what has been said, might be more of a problem to the foreign imports like Devlin when they turned out to be not worth the money.Clubs can also do other things to the youngsters and their families without putting it into the contract I believe, such as how Rashford's mum got a new house (this was last year so my memory might not serve me well but it was something along those line).
For Man City, my understanding is they usually offer the kid free world class education until 16, even if the kid was released before that, as well as financial packages which seems to be case-by-case which as you said is illegal to put into the contract offer but they might have a way to make it works (someone with better knowledge about this might help to enlighten).The education part might be no more than a promise but they would risk to damage their reputation if they don't follow up, and considering how much they have invested into the academy it's nothing.
Personally I've been very annoyed by the constant talk about how United's facilities are poor compared to City's.Before City built the CFA there hasn't been any complain about United's facilities at all so I refuse to believe that we are poor and it seems more to be the case of overkill from City with their facilities and generally the newer stuffs would look more shiny.Obviously it does help them to attract the kids and their parents so their method is working.Still facilities don't produce players and in terms of return over investment I don't think it's worthy.
All in all, glad that you've spent time to put things into details.Most has said about how the academy is fallen but would be a pointless discussion without being informed about what is going wrong and what's not.
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Further to my post above…here is a link to the Academy Process which people might find interesting.
http://www.footballacademytalk.com/football-league-youth-development-rules-2013/
http://www.footballacademytalk.com/football-league-youth-development-rules-2013/
Proper discussion has to be had about football below first team level in this country. It's not the first time I've heard of stuff like this. The head of Chelsea youth set up made the same complaints a couple of weeks back. It's not acceptable.
Cheers!
@khoazany @Mr. MUJAC Well thanks for that info. There were questions i wanted to ask from that big post by Mujac but i think khoazany asked and answered that. I think the time when scholarships maybe offered the promise of wages must be playing a huge part in players decision. So is doing things like buying new houses etc. Great posts by both.
Am I being naive in thinking that most if not all premiership clubs will have a reserve/u21 and a academy side ?
Bizarre then considering lack of games we continuously opt out of the U21 international cup thing and also the FA u21 cup that was organized.
But yeah this lack of games and football under 21 years in England needs serious looking at.
But yeah this lack of games and football under 21 years in England needs serious looking at.
The problem is not all PL club has Category 1 academy and vice versa.There are 24 Category 1 academies.They decided to increase the competition of the league by picking the best 12 teams to form a "top" league and the other 12 to form another league, with promotion/relegation between the two leagues.Sure with United being in the "top" league the opponents would generally been more tough but with only 12 teams we only have total of 22 games for the whole season, home and away counted.
If I'm being honest they could just pick the top 6 group after 22 fixtures to form a "play-off" round for the trophy and the bottom 6 to form another play-off round with the bottom 2 get relegated.They can easily have 5 more games and still maintain the "competitiveness" of the opponents.Surely it can't be that hard to increase the number of games?The league lasts 10 months and 1-2 games is enough for August so 27 games would allow 3 games/month for most of the season which surely is better than the current crap schedule.
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Even considering their history of shite decisions, be it the FA or premier league, this has to rank up there with the very worst.
A way of doubling the amount of games these lads could play is staring them right in the face by having a Championship sized division and getting them 46 games a year. But yet despite everyone and his dog saying that the problem is playing time they actively find a way to reduce it by adding a "competitive" element.