Top drawer recruitment is the most essential capability a club with ambitions can have. The days of building teams from academy players are over.
The importance of recruitment
- Thread starter Jacob
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Cheers Geoff.
So recruitment of players is essential but recruitment of players under 18 isn’t? Okay…
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Sorry, this is totally rubbish, without any comprehensive explanation.
If you say we can afford 50m x 18 players, by UEFA rules, every club must have X no. of home grown players, Academy is your most convenient and cheapest source of home grown. Even home grown has some complication.
a) First of all you have your <16 years old, although current law remove the 100km (?) restriction, but you can mostly recruit from neighbourhood. Your source is limited, but you will most likely recruit your most loyal players. (Lingard, Rashford)
b) Then you have the 16-18 years old, very likely headhunting from other Academy. Possibly better talent, but less loyal IMO (Pogba?) They are nevertheless cheaper than senior recruitment.
c) Then you have the young recruits from other EPL or Championship clubs, who may or may not make the grade.
d) Then you pay a premium for established players
e) Or King ransom for a top elite players.
a, b, c, all have to rely on scouts, although detailed analysis should be done on d & e as well.
MU has failed on c-e, in the past 10 years. Even b is less successful as our competitors.
If you say we can afford 50m x 18 players, by UEFA rules, every club must have X no. of home grown players, Academy is your most convenient and cheapest source of home grown. Even home grown has some complication.
a) First of all you have your <16 years old, although current law remove the 100km (?) restriction, but you can mostly recruit from neighbourhood. Your source is limited, but you will most likely recruit your most loyal players. (Lingard, Rashford)
b) Then you have the 16-18 years old, very likely headhunting from other Academy. Possibly better talent, but less loyal IMO (Pogba?) They are nevertheless cheaper than senior recruitment.
c) Then you have the young recruits from other EPL or Championship clubs, who may or may not make the grade.
d) Then you pay a premium for established players
e) Or King ransom for a top elite players.
a, b, c, all have to rely on scouts, although detailed analysis should be done on d & e as well.
MU has failed on c-e, in the past 10 years. Even b is less successful as our competitors.
Obviously. Along with a manager that can get the best out of them and a winning mentality. Youth is also important as it can save you money but unless you get the once in a lifetime generation of WC players coming through at the same time (class of 92, Barca Xavi, Iniesta, etc), putting to much emphasis on youth will always result in lower success then top recruitment. Money is key obviously.
Having good players is important. Well I never.
Strange thread. I don't think many have suggested building a side from academy players. That is extremely unlikely. What you can do is supplement your squad with potentially valuable players.
There is now a bit of traction online to the idea that we should fill half or more of the squad with youth players and wait half a decade to see if it works out.
Is there? I assume when people state that using the academy should be part of a strategy to turn this ship around they mean trying to unearth a few more players from it. Rather than throwing 10 in.
Funilly enough the ECA disagreess and actually think that clubs should focus more on that.
On a serious note, I did think the club policy might change and mid-budget players who fit the system would be scouted. Then I hear what I hope is newspaper talk about £75m for James Ward-Dave Darth Vader-Prowse.
I did a SW joke on May 5th...
Which wouldn't even be funny on the 4th...
I did a SW joke on May 5th...
Which wouldn't even be funny on the 4th...
Look at Barca and Ajax.
The two aren't mutually exclusive
But I agree that recruitment is more important.
(Recruitment for the academy is also a thing, btw)
We've been terrible at recruitment the last few years and look where that brought us. No cohesion in our approach, every manager recruiting for his short-term need.
Never said recruitment should be plenty or expensive. It's more about the philosophy; how you scout, who you buy and to what end.
Good, since I never said you did. The times of building teams from the academy aren't over, that's where teams that have invested heavily in development should get a major part of their squad and depth players which is crucial since it allows clubs to maintain a relatively low wage bill and get extra funding by selling the ones they don't need and/or that require expensive contract extensions.
Recruitment should be seen as a supplement, now supplement doesn't mean that the players not coming from your academy aren't top players, on the contrary. A club like United should focus on a few but highly talented signings that are meant to be definite starters or members of the first team top 14 players. In theory building around your academy should make it easier for you to control the culture within the club and provide stability and a better support system for new players.
We're probably really lucky that local Manchester lads Greenwood, Hannibal, Pogba, Garnacho, Pellistri, Garner, Mengi and Elanga have all come through the academy recently.
Like how Mourinho got Pogba or Ole got Donny?
Our failures at recruitment aren't just down to the managers. Especially post LVG the club have implemented a structure and scouted a lot of shit in addition to handing out awful contracts.
Pedri and Gavi at Barca would say different.
Found Michael Owen’s caf account
No, there are popular youtubers that are promoting that half the team be made of youth with next to no PL experience and go on a half a decade long "rebuild", using money ball strategy and copying Dortmund's approach, because they are the ones winning all the trophies
.This season has done a number on most of us but some are taking it harder then others, promoting "solutions" that would be more likely to see us fighting relegation rather then stabilizing and competing.
I think it's the opposite, academy to supplement signings. It's not the way I would like it to be, it's just what you need to do in order to succeed in modern football.
It can't really be the opposite, effectively we do the same thing but with a different mindset. The academy is something that you already have and can "predict" which isn't the case for signings therefore signings are the ones supplementing your already existing long term plans.
I'm not sure what the underlying thesis of OP actually is. It goes without saying that when we bring in new players that they should be of high quality.
The more interesting question to explore is whether we believe ETH should bring in players who are already at top shelf, and presumably would cost substantially more, or players who would need a season or two to grow into the role and be much less expensive to acquire.
The more interesting question to explore is whether we believe ETH should bring in players who are already at top shelf, and presumably would cost substantially more, or players who would need a season or two to grow into the role and be much less expensive to acquire.