The Academy/Development squads watch thread 2024/25

[Royals and Racers]

PL 2 U 21’s now published as well - we start.
Monday August 19th away to Middlesborough KO 7pm
Saturday August 24th home to Fulham at Bearwood KO 12pm
The 5 teams we don’t play in the 20 game regular season are
Arsenal
Southampton
Leicester
Man City
Leeds

[Stranded]

PL 2 U 21’s now published as well - we start.
Monday August 19th away to Middlesborough KO 7pm
Saturday August 24th home to Fulham at Bearwood KO 12pm
The 5 teams we don’t play in the 20 game regular season are
Arsenal
Southampton
Leicester
Man City
Leeds

Thumped by the first 2 on that list last season but beat the other 3.

[Clyde1998]

https://x.com/TheTilehurstEnd/status/18 ... 6815027658

Apparently Noel Hunt's said at the Turtle event we received £5-6m in fees for academy players last season.

I can't remember if we had an estimate for how much we sold Abbey and Vickers for, but those sales must've been a significant chunk of that.

[Esteban]

https://x.com/TheTilehurstEnd/status/1821625206815027658

Apparently Noel Hunt's said at the Turtle event we received £5-6m in fees for academy players last season.

I can't remember if we had an estimate for how much we sold Abbey and Vickers for, but those sales must've been a significant chunk of that.

So that's McIntyre, Holmes, Vickers, Harris, Fletcher and Abbey. Have I missed anyone?

£5-£6m doesn't seem too bad for those players. Could have got more if we weren't having a fire sale, but could have been much worse.

We are assuming Noel isn't mistaken though...

[SCIAG]

£1m was the reported fee for Fletcher.
McIntyre widely reported as a pitiful £75k, which is slightly less than we initially paid for Kevin Doyle. He was agitating for a move but didn't want to move house, so our options were limited.
The other four would need to be about £1m each on average. That seems reasonable for Vickers and Harris given what we got for Fletcher.
Holmes is variously reported at a little over €1m (which I'd guess is about £1m on the exchange rate of the time) or, on sites I'd generally view as less reliable, as a little over €3m.
I think the fee for Abbey would probably be similar to Holmes given he was also moving to the top flight.
So in summary, yeah £5-6m seems reasonable.

[Clyde1998]

£1m was the reported fee for Fletcher.
McIntyre widely reported as a pitiful £75k, which is slightly less than we initially paid for Kevin Doyle. He was agitating for a move but didn't want to move house, so our options were limited.
The other four would need to be about £1m each on average. That seems reasonable for Vickers and Harris given what we got for Fletcher.
Holmes is variously reported at a little over €1m (which I'd guess is about £1m on the exchange rate of the time) or, on sites I'd generally view as less reliable, as a little over €3m.
I think the fee for Abbey would probably be similar to Holmes given he was also moving to the top flight.
So in summary, yeah £5-6m seems reasonable.

When you lay it out like that, it does seem reasonable. Completely forgot we got money for Luca Fletcher.

I'd say it suggests the club could probably fund a Category One academy via player sales alone.

So that's McIntyre, Holmes, Vickers, Harris, Fletcher and Abbey. Have I missed anyone?.

I vaguely recalled at least one other from the younger ages was sold to Southampton; found out it was Thierry Rohart-Brown. Was that was part of the Ballard loan? We may not have received a fee for him if it was.

[Snowflake Royal]

£1m was the reported fee for Fletcher.
McIntyre widely reported as a pitiful £75k, which is slightly less than we initially paid for Kevin Doyle. He was agitating for a move but didn't want to move house, so our options were limited.
The other four would need to be about £1m each on average. That seems reasonable for Vickers and Harris given what we got for Fletcher.
Holmes is variously reported at a little over €1m (which I'd guess is about £1m on the exchange rate of the time) or, on sites I'd generally view as less reliable, as a little over €3m.
I think the fee for Abbey would probably be similar to Holmes given he was also moving to the top flight.
So in summary, yeah £5-6m seems reasonable.

When you lay it out like that, it does seem reasonable. Completely forgot we got money for Luca Fletcher.

I'd say it suggests the club could probably fund a Category One academy via player sales alone.

So that's McIntyre, Holmes, Vickers, Harris, Fletcher and Abbey. Have I missed anyone?.

I vaguely recalled at least one other from the younger ages was sold to Southampton; found out it was Thierry Rohart-Brown. Was that was part of the Ballard loan? We may not have received a fee for him if it was.

We're not going to sell 5/6 academy players for seven figures each season.

[Clyde1998]

£1m was the reported fee for Fletcher.
McIntyre widely reported as a pitiful £75k, which is slightly less than we initially paid for Kevin Doyle. He was agitating for a move but didn't want to move house, so our options were limited.
The other four would need to be about £1m each on average. That seems reasonable for Vickers and Harris given what we got for Fletcher.
Holmes is variously reported at a little over €1m (which I'd guess is about £1m on the exchange rate of the time) or, on sites I'd generally view as less reliable, as a little over €3m.
I think the fee for Abbey would probably be similar to Holmes given he was also moving to the top flight.
So in summary, yeah £5-6m seems reasonable.

When you lay it out like that, it does seem reasonable. Completely forgot we got money for Luca Fletcher.

I'd say it suggests the club could probably fund a Category One academy via player sales alone.

So that's McIntyre, Holmes, Vickers, Harris, Fletcher and Abbey. Have I missed anyone?.

I vaguely recalled at least one other from the younger ages was sold to Southampton; found out it was Thierry Rohart-Brown. Was that was part of the Ballard loan? We may not have received a fee for him if it was.

We're not going to sell 5/6 academy players for seven figures each season.

It would probably better worded as transfer fees covering academy costs over a period of time (5/10 year periods). We wouldn't need to recoup that every season, just average that (including sell on receipts). The key point is whether it's possible, as the reality would come down to the club's willingness and need to sell players. I have had a look at the previous ten year period.

In the past ten complete seasons, I think we've generated at least £26.4m in direct sales from academy graduates: McCarthy (2014-15; £3.5m); Hector (2015-16; £4m); Tshibola (2016-17; £5m); Cooper (2017-18; £450k); Samuel (2017-18; £500k); Olise (2021-22; £8m); various (2023-24; £5-6m). I don't have figures for Rob Dickie; Niall Keown; Zak Jules; Tariqe Fosu (all 2017-18); Josh Barrett; Teddy Howe (both 2019-20); Thierry Nevers (2021-22), but they were all sold for 'undisclosed fees'.

That doesn't take into account any sell on receipts - I know McCarthy; Hector and Tshibola were all sold by their buying club for fees within that time.

The low spend estimate for Category One costs was £2.3m per season in the initial plans for it (from 2011). Using CPI adjusted figures across those seasons would've been £27.7m based on that estimate and £3.3m in the previous season (our actual costs over the period would've likely been different and the costs of running a low spend Category One academy may have increased more than CPI over that time).

It's not that far away from our direct transfer receipts for academy graduates covering the academy costs (on that estimate of costs) and that's with us not being that open to selling over a good chunk of that period. The club would've got money for Danny Loader (for example) had Dai not prevented the sale to Wolves; I don't know what we would've actually got, but reports suggested the club valued him at £3m around that time (the thread on here suggested Wolves offered £8m! ).

I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that we could potentially cover the academy costs via transfer fees from academy graduates, but the club would have to strategise around it.

That doesn't look into the other potential economic benefits of the academy - such as not having to buy as many players (including transfer fee, signing on fee, agent fee, etc.) and potentially lower wage costs until academy graduates sign contracts with the expectation they'll be in the first team.

[Crusader Royal]

When you lay it out like that, it does seem reasonable. Completely forgot we got money for Luca Fletcher.

I'd say it suggests the club could probably fund a Category One academy via player sales alone.


I vaguely recalled at least one other from the younger ages was sold to Southampton; found out it was Thierry Rohart-Brown. Was that was part of the Ballard loan? We may not have received a fee for him if it was.

We're not going to sell 5/6 academy players for seven figures each season.

It would probably better worded as transfer fees covering academy costs over a period of time (5/10 year periods). We wouldn't need to recoup that every season, just average that (including sell on receipts). The key point is whether it's possible, as the reality would come down to the club's willingness and need to sell players. I have had a look at the previous ten year period.

In the past ten complete seasons, I think we've generated at least £26.4m in direct sales from academy graduates: McCarthy (2014-15; £3.5m); Hector (2015-16; £4m); Tshibola (2016-17; £5m); Cooper (2017-18; £450k); Samuel (2017-18; £500k); Olise (2021-22; £8m); various (2023-24; £5-6m). I don't have figures for Rob Dickie; Niall Keown; Zak Jules; Tariqe Fosu (all 2017-18); Josh Barrett; Teddy Howe (both 2019-20); Thierry Nevers (2021-22), but they were all sold for 'undisclosed fees'.

That doesn't take into account any sell on receipts - I know McCarthy; Hector and Tshibola were all sold by their buying club for fees within that time.

The low spend estimate for Category One costs was £2.3m per season in the initial plans for it (from 2011). Using CPI adjusted figures across those seasons would've been £27.7m based on that estimate and £3.3m in the previous season (our actual costs over the period would've likely been different and the costs of running a low spend Category One academy may have increased more than CPI over that time).

It's not that far away from our direct transfer receipts for academy graduates covering the academy costs (on that estimate of costs) and that's with us not being that open to selling over a good chunk of that period. The club would've got money for Danny Loader (for example) had Dai not prevented the sale to Wolves; I don't know what we would've actually got, but reports suggested the club valued him at £3m around that time (the thread on here suggested Wolves offered £8m! ).

I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that we could potentially cover the academy costs via transfer fees from academy graduates, but the club would have to strategise around it.

That doesn't look into the other potential economic benefits of the academy - such as not having to buy as many players (including transfer fee, signing on fee, agent fee, etc.) and potentially lower wage costs until academy graduates sign contracts with the expectation they'll be in the first team.

Bear in mind the various statutory payments you get when a player who has come through your academy moves clubs.
I’m not convinced we would have got much if anything if Wolves had signed Loader, their offer was very heavily add on based with little cash up front.
And agreed, you can’t look at it over one season. It has to be a long term trend. I don’t believe we are anywhere near smart enough in our sales and too often we don’t maximise earnings.

[WestYorksRoyal]

We're not going to sell 5/6 academy players for seven figures each season.

It would probably better worded as transfer fees covering academy costs over a period of time (5/10 year periods). We wouldn't need to recoup that every season, just average that (including sell on receipts). The key point is whether it's possible, as the reality would come down to the club's willingness and need to sell players. I have had a look at the previous ten year period.

In the past ten complete seasons, I think we've generated at least £26.4m in direct sales from academy graduates: McCarthy (2014-15; £3.5m); Hector (2015-16; £4m); Tshibola (2016-17; £5m); Cooper (2017-18; £450k); Samuel (2017-18; £500k); Olise (2021-22; £8m); various (2023-24; £5-6m). I don't have figures for Rob Dickie; Niall Keown; Zak Jules; Tariqe Fosu (all 2017-18); Josh Barrett; Teddy Howe (both 2019-20); Thierry Nevers (2021-22), but they were all sold for 'undisclosed fees'.

That doesn't take into account any sell on receipts - I know McCarthy; Hector and Tshibola were all sold by their buying club for fees within that time.

The low spend estimate for Category One costs was £2.3m per season in the initial plans for it (from 2011). Using CPI adjusted figures across those seasons would've been £27.7m based on that estimate and £3.3m in the previous season (our actual costs over the period would've likely been different and the costs of running a low spend Category One academy may have increased more than CPI over that time).

It's not that far away from our direct transfer receipts for academy graduates covering the academy costs (on that estimate of costs) and that's with us not being that open to selling over a good chunk of that period. The club would've got money for Danny Loader (for example) had Dai not prevented the sale to Wolves; I don't know what we would've actually got, but reports suggested the club valued him at £3m around that time (the thread on here suggested Wolves offered £8m! ).

I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that we could potentially cover the academy costs via transfer fees from academy graduates, but the club would have to strategise around it.

That doesn't look into the other potential economic benefits of the academy - such as not having to buy as many players (including transfer fee, signing on fee, agent fee, etc.) and potentially lower wage costs until academy graduates sign contracts with the expectation they'll be in the first team.

Bear in mind the various statutory payments you get when a player who has come through your academy moves clubs.
I’m not convinced we would have got much if anything if Wolves had signed Loader, their offer was very heavily add on based with little cash up front.
And agreed, you can’t look at it over one season. It has to be a long term trend. I don’t believe we are anywhere near smart enough in our sales and too often we don’t maximise earnings.

That last point about not being smart enough is the fault of Dai and the idiots he's appointed to run the club.

An incoming owner could have a strategy to get smart and maximise its value.

I sincerely hope Hunt, Bowen, Selles et. al have been selling the value of the academy hard to Couhig, and have hopefully convinced them it's worthwhile. Hunt's comments last night may have political intent behind them.

Agree with IR's comment that we won't sell 5/6 every year, but equally they were all sold cut price last year. Imagine we kept Abbey for another year and had him on a 3 year deal. He'd have possibly brought in £3m or so by himself, and same story again for Vickers and Harris - they would have been worth more with senior experience under their belt.

[Mid Sussex Royal]

We won't sell 5 or 6 a season but last year we had to, to pay the wages etc.

If you add in Olise plus sell on the academy has funded itself for the past few years.

And...would we have stayed up last year without cat one academy players filling the gaps?

[Snowflake Royal]

If we didn't have the Academy, how many millions would we have had to spend on transfer fees and wages to have replaced the many hundreds of appearances from Academy players over the last 10 years?

[Clyde1998]

The other thing, especially in the early Dai years, was there wasn't much of a path for young players to get into the first team squad because it was far too large due to us signing too many players. The appearances of academy players were often out of necessity too; seem to recall Omar Richards got into the first team due to the first team left-backs being injured, he may have not even played otherwise.

Once a takeover happens and we can sign players again, we need to keep the academy to first team pathway open, even if we get back to the Championship. We've brought through a consistent stream of players who have certainly good enough to play in League One at the very least. As Ian said, the amount of money we've saved in transfer fees and wages from these young players is a major argument for it, even without considering the money the club could make from selling.

As a minor addendum to what I previously posted, there are a few other players I missed: Liam Kelly and Andrija Novakovich (who were both sold for 'undisclosed fees') and Jack Stacey (who was again undisclosed, but we apparently had a 30% sell on clause so received £1.2m on his move from Luton to Bournemouth). There may be more beyond this, but my point was more illustrative.

[Mid Sussex Royal]

The other thing, especially in the early Dai years, was there wasn't much of a path for young players to get into the first team squad because it was far too large due to us signing too many players. The appearances of academy players were often out of necessity too; seem to recall Omar Richards got into the first team due to the first team left-backs being injured, he may have not even played otherwise.

Once a takeover happens and we can sign players again, we need to keep the academy to first team pathway open, even if we get back to the Championship. We've brought through a consistent stream of players who have certainly good enough to play in League One at the very least. As Ian said, the amount of money we've saved in transfer fees and wages from these young players is a major argument for it, even without considering the money the club could make from selling.

As a minor addendum to what I previously posted, there are a few other players I missed: Liam Kelly and Andrija Novakovich (who were both sold for 'undisclosed fees') and Jack Stacey (who was again undisclosed, but we apparently had a 30% sell on clause so received £1.2m on his move from Luton to Bournemouth). There may be more beyond this, but my point was more illustrative.

Going back a year before Stacey we also got £5.5m for Tshibola.

I really hope the new owners see all this and don't cut back the academy.

[Royals and Racers]

Released Ben Purcell has joined Bracknell Town

[Royals and Racers]

U 18’s played Liverpool yesterday in a pre-season match and won 1-0.

[SCIAG]

The other thing, especially in the early Dai years, was there wasn't much of a path for young players to get into the first team squad because it was far too large due to us signing too many players. The appearances of academy players were often out of necessity too; seem to recall Omar Richards got into the first team due to the first team left-backs being injured, he may have not even played otherwise.

This is basically always true though, almost by definition. Rare for a club to suddenly realise that one of their academy players was actually better than their first teamer all along. Southampton did it with Shaw and Ward-Prowse but generally someone's got an injury.

We had Harper, Cisse, Matejovsky and Gunnarsson ahead of Karacan for instance. When Gylfi made his debut we'd just signed Brian Howard in his position and Gylfi had to make his breakthrough on the left wing. Obita was a fifth-choice winger who ended up at left back when Bridge and Stephen Kelly(?) got injured. Liam Kelly was competing with Swift, Danny Williams, George Evans, Joey van der Berg, and Stephen Quinn (and theoretically Sandro Wieser, but we know how that turned out).

We're currently in pretty extreme circumstances but even as a healthy, sensible make-ends-meet club under Madejski and then under the Thais, our academy players had to fight for their chances.

[Whore Jackie]

Also happens that certain academy players, just look far better in a first team environment. Rinomhota, by numerous accounts, massively exceeded expectations by those that had watched his Academy progression.

Much was made of the youngsters that Klopp fielded against Chelsea (and previous rounds) in the Carabao Cup, but only really Conor Bradley has sustained any sort of first-team time since.

[Snowflake Royal]

It's why it's so important to use the changes in number of subs on the bench and allowed to come on to give these players cameos amongst first teamers.

Give them cup games.

Give them chances with injuries and suspensions.

Give them starts in dead end of season rubbers.

Build those first team minutes gently to test them without throwing them in at the deep end. And it's far better to be prepared to risk needing to give them half a dozen games with an injury, than to overstock on a bloated squad of mediocre journeymen.

It's about sacrificing a bit of quality and experience in the medium term to get far bigger long term gains.

[Royals and Racers]

U 18’s PL 2 (U18) campaign gets underway on Saturday(17th) with a home game at Bearwood against Aston Villa KO 12pm.