Would you take Ola John permanently?

[Ian Royal]

I wasn't impressed initially but he has the potential to do a Kebe and much sooner. So it's a big yes from me.

[Crowbar6753]

It all depends on the money, i,m guessing with him being an international and only 23 yrs old he will be priced well out of our limitations. We also have a bright young star coming through from our academy who would require no transfer fee and minimal wages (Fosu). But if we could get him for under two million then maybe a yes from me, but at two mil that would be all the transfer budget gone on one signing i guess.
Also, if i had a preference on buying a striker for two million or a left winger then i'd be really torn and would probably lean towards a young hungry striker.

[Snowball]

Also, if i had a preference on buying a striker for two million or a left winger then i'd be really torn and would probably lean towards a young hungry striker.

Samuels, free

[Lower West]

The guy is obviously working hard in training with good attitude for McD to include in the match day squad. Only 23 so room to improve futher. HRK is most certainly going in the summer. So a yes.

[Crowbar6753]

Also, if i had a preference on buying a striker for two million or a left winger then i'd be really torn and would probably lean towards a young hungry striker.

Samuels, free

Your right there "Snowball' but i'm assuming that we are going to lose Vydra, so i guess that would only leave us Dennis, Kermy and Samuels as our recognized strikers, and if we ever play two up front that would leave us a little short i guess. Would love Bradshaw at the club and would be affordable and under 2 mil i guess.
I am also a firm believer that now we have one of the best Academy's in the whole of the UK, we should be aiming to utilize this asset as best we can, otherwise whats the point in spending the 3 mil a year to keep it open, it also sends out the wrong message to Academy students if these young prospects keep getting overlooked.

[Millsy]

Of course not. And this poll makes it clear.

A significant minority of 7% of fans want him gone. That speaks volumes.

Ola John out!

[Ian Royal]

Also, if i had a preference on buying a striker for two million or a left winger then i'd be really torn and would probably lean towards a young hungry striker.

Samuels, free

Your right there "Snowball' but i'm assuming that we are going to lose Vydra, so i guess that would only leave us Dennis, Kermy and Samuels as our recognized strikers, and if we ever play two up front that would leave us a little short i guess. Would love Bradshaw at the club and would be affordable and under 2 mil i guess.
I am also a firm believer that now we have one of the best Academy's in the whole of the UK, we should be aiming to utilize this asset as best we can, otherwise whats the point in spending the 3 mil a year to keep it open, it also sends out the wrong message to Academy students if these young prospects keep getting overlooked.

Obita, Hector, Cooper and Tshibola would all like to assure you we are getting value from the Academy.

Realistically, you can only expect so many Academy players to break through each season because experience is important. We've had four successfully manage it in three seasons, not including debuts handed out to Keown, Kuhl, Stacey, Fosu, Tanner, Liburd, Samuel and Edwards plus Taylor's contributions in the last two seasons. Then there's Jem, Pearce, Sigurdsson, Robson-Kanu and McCarthy going back a little further.

That's amazingly good.

[tmesis]

No way, we need to reduce our reliance on foreign players especially with the "out" campaign gaining memento..

Is it a nice memento, or a cheap tacky plastic one?

[Crowbar6753]

Samuels, free

Your right there "Snowball' but i'm assuming that we are going to lose Vydra, so i guess that would only leave us Dennis, Kermy and Samuels as our recognized strikers, and if we ever play two up front that would leave us a little short i guess. Would love Bradshaw at the club and would be affordable and under 2 mil i guess.
I am also a firm believer that now we have one of the best Academy's in the whole of the UK, we should be aiming to utilize this asset as best we can, otherwise whats the point in spending the 3 mil a year to keep it open, it also sends out the wrong message to Academy students if these young prospects keep getting overlooked.

Obita, Hector, Cooper and Tshibola would all like to assure you we are getting value from the Academy.

Realistically, you can only expect so many Academy players to break through each season because experience is important. We've had four successfully manage it in three seasons, not including debuts handed out to Keown, Kuhl, Stacey, Fosu, Tanner, Liburd, Samuel and Edwards plus Taylor's contributions in the last two seasons. Then there's Jem, Pearce, Sigurdsson, Robson-Kanu and McCarthy going back a little further.

That's amazingly good.

Well put Ian, and with the continued improvement of training facilities then i guess that this amazing statistic will only continue to improve. I guess what i was trying to get at is why payout these inflated transfer amounts these days when we have some potentially gifted youngsters coming through our own academy.
If we did sign Ola John, would it hinder the progress of Fosu,? or would we be able to accommodate both these potentially exciting players in the first team.
And on this topic, who do you think has the most potential to progress out of the two mentioned players? Interesting thought.

[Snowball136]

Does the Academy cost THREE million a year?

I thought it was 1M a year.

If it's 3 Million, why wouldn't a club just buy an extra 2-3M player every year instead?


Has anybody every seen an accounting for the Academy, sales etc, the total profit
or cost of this X Million a year less transfers like Gylfi?

[Snowball136]

Obita, Hector, Cooper and Tshibola would all like to assure you we are getting value from the Academy.

Realistically, you can only expect so many Academy players to break through each season because experience is important. We've had four successfully manage it in three seasons, not including debuts handed out to Keown, Kuhl, Stacey, Fosu, Tanner, Liburd, Samuel and Edwards plus Taylor's contributions in the last two seasons. Then there's Jem, Pearce, Sigurdsson, Robson-Kanu and McCarthy going back a little further. That's amazingly good.

IS it that good though, (if it costs three million a year?)

Playing Devil's Advocate Here for a minute...


When these players came in to the squad they were probably "worth" half a million to a million?

I mean by that, we could get a young Karacan, Cooper or whoever
(before the started racking up appearances) for a lot less than 1M.

Hector is (apparently worth 4M after a fair few appearances) but when
he came into the first-team squad he would have been the equivalent
of a punt, some kid we picked up wherever for 300, 400, 500K...

Obita
Cooper
Hector (4M)
Tshibola
Gylfi (6M)
Karacan
HRK
McCarthy
Pearce

9 players in say ten years, the kind that maybe we could have got
(when they were starting out) for a total of under 5M,
and we've also "made" say 10M in sales

(not sure if Shane counts as an Academy player?)

So that's 15M "saved" at a cost of £30M (10 x 3M?)

[Ian Royal]

Your right there "Snowball' but i'm assuming that we are going to lose Vydra, so i guess that would only leave us Dennis, Kermy and Samuels as our recognized strikers, and if we ever play two up front that would leave us a little short i guess. Would love Bradshaw at the club and would be affordable and under 2 mil i guess.
I am also a firm believer that now we have one of the best Academy's in the whole of the UK, we should be aiming to utilize this asset as best we can, otherwise whats the point in spending the 3 mil a year to keep it open, it also sends out the wrong message to Academy students if these young prospects keep getting overlooked.

Obita, Hector, Cooper and Tshibola would all like to assure you we are getting value from the Academy.

Realistically, you can only expect so many Academy players to break through each season because experience is important. We've had four successfully manage it in three seasons, not including debuts handed out to Keown, Kuhl, Stacey, Fosu, Tanner, Liburd, Samuel and Edwards plus Taylor's contributions in the last two seasons. Then there's Jem, Pearce, Sigurdsson, Robson-Kanu and McCarthy going back a little further.

That's amazingly good.

Well put Ian, and with the continued improvement of training facilities then i guess that this amazing statistic will only continue to improve. I guess what i was trying to get at is why payout these inflated transfer amounts these days when we have some potentially gifted youngsters coming through our own academy.
If we did sign Ola John, would it hinder the progress of Fosu,? or would we be able to accommodate both these potentially exciting players in the first team.
And on this topic, who do you think has the most potential to progress out of the two mentioned players? Interesting thought.

It's generally accepted you want at least two players for any position in your XI. Currently, to play on the left we have John and then odds and sods who are better used elsewhere like Obita, Quinn and HRK (who probably won't be here next year). Having John doesn't close the door on Fosu, IMO it opens it, because you know what you'll get from John meaning you don't need to worry starting off with Fosu as back up for pre-season and the first few games.

If you lose John, you have to sign a new left winger anyway. Every new arrival is a gamble, so it's harder to rely on an untried Academy graduate as back up. What if the new guy is a dud? So there you need two new left wingers in all probability and that closes the door to Fosu's chances for the season.

I think they've got equal potential, but John's realised more of his and is more likely to get closer to the peak of his potential than Fosu will his.

[Crowbar6753]

Don't quote me on this Snowball, but i'm sure i read it a month back that with our new status it would cost us 3 million per year to keep it running. If i'm wrong i apologize, but it mentioned that if it is costing 3 million per year, are we going to reap the rewards by covering this outlay through future transfer fees for academy players, or saving ourselves money in the transfer market through utilizing our academy players?
So far it seems to be paying for itself, but this was mostly due to the money received from the Gylfi sale.
Also forgot about the Hector transfer as well.....

[Portsmouth Royal]

I voted no on the Ola John thing simply because we don't know how much he would be. A million plus and presumably significant wages for someone who has yet to nail down a starting spot in over 3/4 of a season is just too much for us at the moment. I suppose he still has a few games to prove what an idiot I am yet though.

Re the academy I am sure I remember reading about the Ajax academy, specifically that they regard two players every three years becoming first team squad regulars as a decent return. By that metric we are doing ok.

[SCIAG]

The minimum investment required for a Cat 1 academy is £2.35m p/a. We have only been paying that for about four years. Before that I think we were spending around £500k. In the first ~15 years of the academy, it cost us about £7.5m plus signings, which we more than made back of the sales of Sigurdsson, Cox, Henderson, Hector, and Henry. That's before you factor in small fees and the money we saved on not signing first team players.

Since EPPP came in, we've only sold a few players for small fees (can't really count Hector because he'd graduated before EPPP came in), but we keep seeing new youngsters in the first team. Signing Obita, Tshibola, and Cooper would probably have set us back at least £2m apiece. If we'd brought them through as a category 3 academy, they would have been poached by Cat 1 clubs the way we poached Cardwell.

Fosu vs John is a no-brainer. When John was Fosu's age, he was competing with Nacer Chadli for a place in the Twente team, he was capped for the Netherlands, and he was about to earn a big-money move to Benfica. Pretty much the best Fosu can hope for is to be as good as John is now, but without the fitness problems and better at shooting. If - big if - we can get John fit, he could be someone we'd be worried about losing even if we got promoted. He has a much higher ceiling.

[Crowbar6753]

The minimum investment required for a Cat 1 academy is £2.35m p/a. We have only been paying that for about four years. Before that I think we were spending around £500k. In the first ~15 years of the academy, it cost us about £7.5m plus signings, which we more than made back of the sales of Sigurdsson, Cox, Henderson, Hector, and Henry. That's before you factor in small fees and the money we saved on not signing first team players.

Since EPPP came in, we've only sold a few players for small fees (can't really count Hector because he'd graduated before EPPP came in), but we keep seeing new youngsters in the first team. Signing Obita, Tshibola, and Cooper would probably have set us back at least £2m apiece. If we'd brought them through as a category 3 academy, they would have been poached by Cat 1 clubs the way we poached Cardwell.

Fosu vs John is a no-brainer. When John was Fosu's age, he was competing with Nacer Chadli for a place in the Twente team, he was capped for the Netherlands, and he was about to earn a big-money move to Benfica. Pretty much the best Fosu can hope for is to be as good as John is now, but without the fitness problems and better at shooting. If - big if - we can get John fit, he could be someone we'd be worried about losing even if we got promoted. He has a much higher ceiling.

Thanks for clearing up the Academy situation SCIAG , looks like 2.35 mil is a shrewd investment each season if we continue to churn out quality young players. So if we can get Ola John on board next season and have Fosu as a back up, looks like a pretty decent left side of midfield.

[taipairoyal]

No way, we need to reduce our reliance on foreign players especially with the "out" campaign gaining momentum..

Is it a nice momentum, or a cheap tacky plastic one?

Ops thanks, have you voted?.

[ROWY]

Yes

I like the song

[Royal Ginger]

Obita, Hector, Cooper and Tshibola would all like to assure you we are getting value from the Academy.

Realistically, you can only expect so many Academy players to break through each season because experience is important. We've had four successfully manage it in three seasons, not including debuts handed out to Keown, Kuhl, Stacey, Fosu, Tanner, Liburd, Samuel and Edwards plus Taylor's contributions in the last two seasons. Then there's Jem, Pearce, Sigurdsson, Robson-Kanu and McCarthy going back a little further. That's amazingly good.

IS it that good though, (if it costs three million a year?)

Playing Devil's Advocate Here for a minute...


When these players came in to the squad they were probably "worth" half a million to a million?

I mean by that, we could get a young Karacan, Cooper or whoever
(before the started racking up appearances) for a lot less than 1M.

Hector is (apparently worth 4M after a fair few appearances) but when
he came into the first-team squad he would have been the equivalent
of a punt, some kid we picked up wherever for 300, 400, 500K...

Obita
Cooper
Hector (4M)
Tshibola
Gylfi (6M)
Karacan
HRK
McCarthy
Pearce

9 players in say ten years, the kind that maybe we could have got
(when they were starting out) for a total of under 5M,
and we've also "made" say 10M in sales

(not sure if Shane counts as an Academy player?)

So that's 15M "saved" at a cost of £30M (10 x 3M?)

I doubt very much that all of that £3m was spent purely and wholely on the academy. Nice little FFP hole.

Players promoted from the academy are going to be on significantly less wages and come without the sort of signing bonuses than a 2-3m transferred player.

Also there's going to be some cost to maintaining a team of reserves to cover injuries even if you don't bother with an academy.

[Snowball136]

Thanks for the replies on my Devil's Advocacy.

Just to be clear I like the idea of an Academy. It was just that at 1M a year it made sense, but if it was 3M a year I needed a better understanding of the numbers.

I remember the Burnley of old, how it was always said they created
youngsters to sell and this was how they kept themselves afloat.

Nothing wrong with that, and in truth, nothing wrong with all or most
of our kids moving on for decent money, if that works financially.

Of course we want both, and wouldn't it be wonderful to win this league
with a team almost full of home-grown talent?

I hope Fosu and Stacey are regulars in the squad next year