BFTG - Swansea

[Denver Royal]

We really could do with a couple of hard men in this side. Half of the squad are terrified of their own shadows.

Someone said yesterday that Illori "prances around like Sergio Ramos". I wish he would start getting in people's faces and cracking a few opposition shoulders.

I really don’t want to see him in the side again. The number of mistakes he has made this season is ridiculous. Bring in a Morrison type centre half who will be no nonsense and dominate in the air and also pose a threat at set pieces. This is what the Championship is about.

Yep, agreed, been saying it for years. In fact, having a Morrison-type alongside him is the only viable way of Ilori being in the Champ, for me. Otherwise, over a 46 game season thru a Winter, , the +/- percentages on Off/Def aren’t there for him, or his team, imo. Add Yiadom and Richards at FB, and it’s too small a back line. Who marks/beats the oppo’s tree trunks, in either box? It’s perenially a match up nightmare each week, that you have to game plan for, and where nobody can sleep (including me).

Ilori at D-mid keeps cropping up (an admission he doesn’t really cut it at CB). Was a bit surprised he wasn’t better at FB, and when he wasn’t, he slipped further in my estimations. When I played and coached, felt you need players playing in positions that suited them and their skills/abilities/physical tools, at the level/league they were playing at, and then go to work and in to battle from there. Could be that Gomes is last chance saloon for Ilori, which could at least emphasize his passing skills. (Again, only if ‘Morrison’ is along side).

[fred sharpes nose]

Blackburn’s fortunes are probably a good proxy for our own. Club badly run for several seasons, dwindling crowds, poor investment in players and a Cat 1 academy.

When they were relegated the Venkys had a decision to make - withdraw all financial support, write off all the money they had invested and basically walk away and hope someone picks up the pieces, or undertake a proper cost cutting and restructuring of all elements of the club, but invest a decent amount of cash which gave them a budget bigger than anyone else in the division. This would give them something with some value going forward so they’d recoup some of their investment in the future. A double down strategy if you will.

They chose the latter route and, so far, it seems to have worked out OK for them. They brought in a decent manager in Tony Mowbray who perked up the club and recruited well for the division (think Bradley Dack). They were able to move on some players but couldn’t shift Danny Graham, who ended up being quite decent in League 1.

I’d hope the Dais would choose the latter route too. I personally don’t think they’d let the club go into administration. I have heard they are very into the sports science of running a club and are very keen on the academy. They want to understand from Reading’s set up how they can make it work at their other clubs. So perhaps it really is a play thing for them. I also hope that Gomes is the right manager to lead us forward, whichever division we are in.

I was also told that a Cat 1 academy costs about £3m a year to run, after the FA development programme subsidies. So it isn’t cheap. A Cat 2 is about £1m I believe.

Average Championship salary is - £10k/week ?

£3m Academy needs 6 first team squad members to break even. 23 man squad - 17 bought in - seem sensiible. That would be 2/3 in the starting 11 and most of rest on the bench including sub keeper.

We've been great at producing keepers - but we've bought 3 of them - surely one of the young lads could be backup to a decent number 1

[CountryRoyal]

Think avg champ salary is over £20k/week now.

[Snowflake Royal]

doubt very much that weve recouped our academy investments with all the money we have received for academy players weve sold.
id imagine its pretty close even if we include money saved by not having to buy players.

that would be the first to go if it was my business

Academy has been running about 15 years? So about £25m - £33m.

Just from transfer market which doesn't list all fees, include further money from sell ons and I think seriously under cooks Gylfi's fee that's:
Gylfi - £4.6m
Tish - £5.3m
Dom Sam - £0.5m
Big Hec - £4.8m
McCarthy - £3.4m
Henry - £0.6m
Cox - £0.4m

£19.6m

And I didn't include Antonio or Long.

I think it's fair to say the Academy is pretty much paying for itself in outgoing transfer fees, let alone what it is saving us in spending on them.

We might have to downgrade it if we don't bounce back quickly, but it won't go completely or immediately.

[Hendo]

Blackburn’s fortunes are probably a good proxy for our own. Club badly run for several seasons, dwindling crowds, poor investment in players and a Cat 1 academy.

When they were relegated the Venkys had a decision to make - withdraw all financial support, write off all the money they had invested and basically walk away and hope someone picks up the pieces, or undertake a proper cost cutting and restructuring of all elements of the club, but invest a decent amount of cash which gave them a budget bigger than anyone else in the division. This would give them something with some value going forward so they’d recoup some of their investment in the future. A double down strategy if you will.

They chose the latter route and, so far, it seems to have worked out OK for them. They brought in a decent manager in Tony Mowbray who perked up the club and recruited well for the division (think Bradley Dack). They were able to move on some players but couldn’t shift Danny Graham, who ended up being quite decent in League 1.

I’d hope the Dais would choose the latter route too. I personally don’t think they’d let the club go into administration. I have heard they are very into the sports science of running a club and are very keen on the academy. They want to understand from Reading’s set up how they can make it work at their other clubs. So perhaps it really is a play thing for them. I also hope that Gomes is the right manager to lead us forward, whichever division we are in.

I was also told that a Cat 1 academy costs about £3m a year to run, after the FA development programme subsidies. So it isn’t cheap. A Cat 2 is about £1m I believe.

Not a bad shout tbf, you don't hear anything coming out of Blackburn like you did when the Venky's first took over.

[Zip]

Someone said yesterday that Illori "prances around like Sergio Ramos". I wish he would start getting in people's faces and cracking a few opposition shoulders.

I really don’t want to see him in the side again. The number of mistakes he has made this season is ridiculous. Bring in a Morrison type centre half who will be no nonsense and dominate in the air and also pose a threat at set pieces. This is what the Championship is about.

Yep, agreed, been saying it for years. In fact, having a Morrison-type alongside him is the only viable way of Ilori being in the Champ, for me. Otherwise, over a 46 game season thru a Winter, , the +/- percentages on Off/Def aren’t there for him, or his team, imo. Add Yiadom and Richards at FB, and it’s too small a back line. Who marks/beats the oppo’s tree trunks, in either box? It’s perenially a match up nightmare each week, that you have to game plan for, and where nobody can sleep (including me).

Ilori at D-mid keeps cropping up (an admission he doesn’t really cut it at CB). Was a bit surprised he wasn’t better at FB, and when he wasn’t, he slipped further in my estimations. When I played and coached, felt you need players playing in positions that suited them and their skills/abilities/physical tools, at the level/league they were playing at, and then go to work and in to battle from there. Could be that Gomes is last chance saloon for Ilori, which could at least emphasize his passing skills. (Again, only if ‘Morrison’ is along side).

Agree with all of this and you make a good point about how physically small our back four are.

[Hound]

I really don’t want to see him in the side again. The number of mistakes he has made this season is ridiculous. Bring in a Morrison type centre half who will be no nonsense and dominate in the air and also pose a threat at set pieces. This is what the Championship is about.

Yep, agreed, been saying it for years. In fact, having a Morrison-type alongside him is the only viable way of Ilori being in the Champ, for me. Otherwise, over a 46 game season thru a Winter, , the +/- percentages on Off/Def aren’t there for him, or his team, imo. Add Yiadom and Richards at FB, and it’s too small a back line. Who marks/beats the oppo’s tree trunks, in either box? It’s perenially a match up nightmare each week, that you have to game plan for, and where nobody can sleep (including me).

Ilori at D-mid keeps cropping up (an admission he doesn’t really cut it at CB). Was a bit surprised he wasn’t better at FB, and when he wasn’t, he slipped further in my estimations. When I played and coached, felt you need players playing in positions that suited them and their skills/abilities/physical tools, at the level/league they were playing at, and then go to work and in to battle from there. Could be that Gomes is last chance saloon for Ilori, which could at least emphasize his passing skills. (Again, only if ‘Morrison’ is along side).

Agree with all of this and you make a good point about how physically small our back four are.

likewise don't disagree. I suspect very much that Ilori will be a key part of Gomes plans however. Defensively he was v poor on NYD, but as I mentioned, some of his zippy passing into the midfield and forwards is just what I believe Gomes wants to see. None of the other CBs are anywhere near capable of that. Without him, we just go back to passing it amongst the back 4 as Moore, O Shea and Blackett aren't great distributors

I wonder on Moore. I haven't been overly impressed by him recently. He is neither a big strong CB (a Morrison as DR states) or a ball player. I'm starting to think it might be between him and Ilori who plays if they can't manage a partnership together, and I wouldn't be surprised if Ilori is preferred. If a decent bid came in for him....

[Maneki Neko]

Someone said yesterday that Illori "prances around like Sergio Ramos". I wish he would start getting in people's faces and cracking a few opposition shoulders.

I really don’t want to see him in the side again. The number of mistakes he has made this season is ridiculous. Bring in a Morrison type centre half who will be no nonsense and dominate in the air and also pose a threat at set pieces. This is what the Championship is about.

Yep, agreed, been saying it for years. In fact, having a Morrison-type alongside him is the only viable way of Ilori being in the Champ, for me. Otherwise, over a 46 game season thru a Winter, , the +/- percentages on Off/Def aren’t there for him, or his team, imo. Add Yiadom and Richards at FB, and it’s too small a back line. Who marks/beats the oppo’s tree trunks, in either box? It’s perenially a match up nightmare each week, that you have to game plan for, and where nobody can sleep (including me).

Ilori at D-mid keeps cropping up (an admission he doesn’t really cut it at CB). Was a bit surprised he wasn’t better at FB, and when he wasn’t, he slipped further in my estimations. When I played and coached, felt you need players playing in positions that suited them and their skills/abilities/physical tools, at the level/league they were playing at, and then go to work and in to battle from there. Could be that Gomes is last chance saloon for Ilori, which could at least emphasize his passing skills. (Again, only if ‘Morrison’ is along side).

the sheer number of no nonsense traditional defenders we have lost over the last 5 years, its no wonder that the defence is so wet, currently

[Maneki Neko]

doubt very much that weve recouped our academy investments with all the money we have received for academy players weve sold.
id imagine its pretty close even if we include money saved by not having to buy players.

that would be the first to go if it was my business

Academy has been running about 15 years? So about £25m - £33m.

Just from transfer market which doesn't list all fees, include further money from sell ons and I think seriously under cooks Gylfi's fee that's:
Gylfi - £4.6m
Tish - £5.3m
Dom Sam - £0.5m
Big Hec - £4.8m
McCarthy - £3.4m
Henry - £0.6m
Cox - £0.4m

£19.6m

And I didn't include Antonio or Long.

I think it's fair to say the Academy is pretty much paying for itself in outgoing transfer fees, let alone what it is saving us in spending on them.

We might have to downgrade it if we don't bounce back quickly, but it won't go completely or immediately.

yeah. you didn't include Antonio or long because they aren't academy products
and the total we have made is well short of what its cost...

[Hound]

But then we’ve had players playing in the first 11 - who we’d have to pay a fee for if we’d purchased

And doesn’t take into account current sell on of the likes of Loader and Rino

[Maneki Neko]

But then we’ve had players playing in the first 11 - who we’d have to pay a fee for if we’d purchased

And doesn’t take into account current sell on of the likes of Loader and Rino

id imagine its pretty close even if we include money saved by not having to buy players.

[Hoop Blah]

I don't think the Academy was costing £1m 15 years ago, so I'm not sure where the £30m cost comes from.

[Hound]

But then we’ve had players playing in the first 11 - who we’d have to pay a fee for if we’d purchased

And doesn’t take into account current sell on of the likes of Loader and Rino

id imagine its pretty close even if we include money saved by not having to buy players.

agreed. Doubt we've lost much money on it taking it into account. And then there is always the chance that one of the lads coming through makes us a big wedge. So its worth keeping going for that reason. And if we do go down, and stay down, would have to think that would be a big source of any new players coming through.

[Vision]

I am not comfortable slagging off the youngsters, however if the truth is known Richards was totally out of his depth yesterday and he continuously lost possession and his runner. He also misplaced passes. Our left flank was bloody awful.
Any confidence he did have has been sucked out of him because he has been badly let down by piss poor management and the more senior players around him.

For what it's worth I spoke to another of the youth players about a year ago when Richards had a run in the side and scored a couple of important goals. He said that Richards had been expecting to have a really tough time but had been surprised by how easy the step-up from the U23s to the first team had been. A year ago he was full of confidence, and OK he might have sometimes gone in for headers when it would be better to wait for the second ball, but he looked like a genuine alternative to Blackett. Last few weeks he's been worse than Marcus Williams or early Shaun Cummings (although in his defence, Yiadom hasn't looked much better).

What's changed? Is it the lack of Joey and Evans or an equivalent? Or maybe that opposition teams aren't scared of Barrow any more, so are more ready to attack down our left? Because he's almost totally unrecognisable from that player, and we're almost totally unrecognisable as a team.

You know the youth set up better than me so you know that in terms of the step up to senior level development it is rarely linear. There's always peaks and troughs and with younger players that usually is even more self evident.

Kelly suffered in the same way. The key point is do they recover when after something of a meteoric rise they suddenly go thorough a dip in form/confidence. Kelly may or may not get back to being the player we thought we had when he first broke through but there's still time. To write off Richards ( not referring to you here SCIAG but I've seen a lot of nonsense spoken on here about his abilities) who's been hampered with a few injuries along the way is extremely premature.

I mean I get that we're all pretty pissed off at the moment but I've even seen Loader (who was supposed to be the saviour a month ago) referred to as someone who's League 1/2 at best. A regular scorer for country at youth level plus reserve team level and someone we've nurtured since a young age just casually written off because he's not the messiah we desperately need.

The form of Rinomhota and to a lesser degree the pretty assured debuts of Osho/MacIntyre have been as good as it gets as far as any joy from this miserable year has gone. But those players, should they continue to play for us, will have games where they make mistakes too and when that happens I hope we don't suddenly all decide they're simply not up to it.

Time and time again over the course of the last 18 months the vast majority of the senior squad players have demonstrated they are woefully short of what is required. Frankly I'd just annex at least a dozen of them as being not good enough before I'd write off a 20 year old who, mainly due to the aforementioned injuries, has only made 14 starts in 18 months since his promising debut. he's got room to come back stronger and learn. I'm not sure that applies to half our current senior squad.

[Maneki Neko]

get your own championship manager game, hound.
in mine I'm closing the academy!

[Hound]

get your own championship manager game, hound.
in mine I'm closing the academy!

[Hound]

I am not comfortable slagging off the youngsters, however if the truth is known Richards was totally out of his depth yesterday and he continuously lost possession and his runner. He also misplaced passes. Our left flank was bloody awful.
Any confidence he did have has been sucked out of him because he has been badly let down by piss poor management and the more senior players around him.

For what it's worth I spoke to another of the youth players about a year ago when Richards had a run in the side and scored a couple of important goals. He said that Richards had been expecting to have a really tough time but had been surprised by how easy the step-up from the U23s to the first team had been. A year ago he was full of confidence, and OK he might have sometimes gone in for headers when it would be better to wait for the second ball, but he looked like a genuine alternative to Blackett. Last few weeks he's been worse than Marcus Williams or early Shaun Cummings (although in his defence, Yiadom hasn't looked much better).

What's changed? Is it the lack of Joey and Evans or an equivalent? Or maybe that opposition teams aren't scared of Barrow any more, so are more ready to attack down our left? Because he's almost totally unrecognisable from that player, and we're almost totally unrecognisable as a team.

You know the youth set up better than me so you know that in terms of the step up to senior level development it is rarely linear. There's always peaks and troughs and with younger players that usually is even more self evident.

Kelly suffered in the same way. The key point is do they recover when after something of a meteoric rise they suddenly go thorough a dip in form/confidence. Kelly may or may not get back to being the player we thought we had when he first broke through but there's still time. To write off Richards ( not referring to you here SCIAG but I've seen a lot of nonsense spoken on here about his abilities) who's been hampered with a few injuries along the way is extremely premature.

I mean I get that we're all pretty pissed off at the moment but I've even seen Loader (who was supposed to be the saviour a month ago) referred to as someone who's League 1/2 at best. A regular scorer for country at youth level plus reserve team level and someone we've nurtured since a young age just casually written off because he's not the messiah we desperately need.

The form of Rinomhota and to a lesser degree the pretty assured debuts of Osho/MacIntyre have been as good as it gets as far as any joy from this miserable year has gone. But those players, should they continue to play for us, will have games where they make mistakes too and when that happens I hope we don't suddenly all decide they're simply not up to it.

Time and time again over the course of the last 18 months the vast majority of the senior squad players have demonstrated they are woefully short of what is required. Frankly I'd just annex at least a dozen of them as being not good enough before I'd write off a 20 year old who, mainly due to the aforementioned injuries, has only made 14 starts in 18 months since his promising debut. he's got room to come back stronger and learn. I'm not sure that applies to half our current senior squad.

Decent post. One thing I'd say with Richards, is most of his issues are coming from a complete lack of supporting cover. In general all round play, he did ok on NYD. However, he was ganged up on considerably with zero help from Barrow. In fact, the only time he was supported by Barrow, Barrow decided to play a lame clearance to their attacker, leading to the 2nd goal.

Richards looks quick, reasonable tackler and comfortable on the ball. There's potential, but he can't play that LB spot in the current system imo. Blackett would be a better choice as more experienced and physically stronger

[SCIAG]

You know the youth set up better than me so you know that in terms of the step up to senior level development it is rarely linear. There's always peaks and troughs and with younger players that usually is even more self evident.

Kelly suffered in the same way. The key point is do they recover when after something of a meteoric rise they suddenly go thorough a dip in form/confidence. Kelly may or may not get back to being the player we thought we had when he first broke through but there's still time. To write off Richards ( not referring to you here SCIAG but I've seen a lot of nonsense spoken on here about his abilities) who's been hampered with a few injuries along the way is extremely premature.

I mean I get that we're all pretty pissed off at the moment but I've even seen Loader (who was supposed to be the saviour a month ago) referred to as someone who's League 1/2 at best. A regular scorer for country at youth level plus reserve team level and someone we've nurtured since a young age just casually written off because he's not the messiah we desperately need.

The form of Rinomhota and to a lesser degree the pretty assured debuts of Osho/MacIntyre have been as good as it gets as far as any joy from this miserable year has gone. But those players, should they continue to play for us, will have games where they make mistakes too and when that happens I hope we don't suddenly all decide they're simply not up to it.

Time and time again over the course of the last 18 months the vast majority of the senior squad players have demonstrated they are woefully short of what is required. Frankly I'd just annex at least a dozen of them as being not good enough before I'd write off a 20 year old who, mainly due to the aforementioned injuries, has only made 14 starts in 18 months since his promising debut. he's got room to come back stronger and learn. I'm not sure that applies to half our current senior squad.

Yeah really good post, as usual you are the voice of reason.

[muirinho]

I don't think the Academy was costing £1m 15 years ago, so I'm not sure where the £30m cost comes from.

Yep. Also, the PL pays a fair whack of the costs while it is a Cat 1. So since we became Cat 1, it's less than 2 million a year - it would have been even less before that. It's probably more like £15 million over 15 years. If even that.

Like I've said in another thread (or maybe earlier in this one), Tish alone has covered expenses for the time since he was sold.

Also having a Cat 1 academy enabled us to get in Rinomhota - he's not Reading, he transferred here because we were Cat 1. Just on what he's worth now, he's covering it for the next couple of years. Completely ignoring that 15 year old goalkeeper that United are interested in, plus players like Loader and Nova and so on.

This obsession with academy running costs, which are very minor in the grand scheme of things, baffles me.

[SCIAG]

doubt very much that weve recouped our academy investments with all the money we have received for academy players weve sold.
id imagine its pretty close even if we include money saved by not having to buy players.

that would be the first to go if it was my business

Academy has been running about 15 years? So about £25m - £33m.

Just from transfer market which doesn't list all fees, include further money from sell ons and I think seriously under cooks Gylfi's fee that's:
Gylfi - £4.6m
Tish - £5.3m
Dom Sam - £0.5m
Big Hec - £4.8m
McCarthy - £3.4m
Henry - £0.6m
Cox - £0.4m

£19.6m

And I didn't include Antonio or Long.

I think it's fair to say the Academy is pretty much paying for itself in outgoing transfer fees, let alone what it is saving us in spending on them.

We might have to downgrade it if we don't bounce back quickly, but it won't go completely or immediately.

I think transfermarkt stores its fees as Euros, and the exchange rate has dropped dramatically since we sold Gylfi. His fee was reported as a club record, so we can safely add £2m onto that.

This also misses the seven-figure sum we received for Cooper. Throw that in and we're within loose change of £25m, which seems to me like a reasonable high-end estimate (agree with Hoop that £30m seems too high but don't want to low-ball it).

And of course the likes of Pearce, Karacan, and HRK all ended up leaving on free transfers after making hundreds of appearances.

Muir's post has come through while I was writing this one. Rinomhota came to us from AFC Portchester, who play in the ninth tier - he'd have been able to go to anyone with a Cat 4 academy and would probably have jumped at any professional club. Harry Cardwell, who we signed from Hull, is probably a better example, but obviously didn't do as well in the first team - but maybe the next player we poach from a Cat 2 or 3 club will do.