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Post by Deleted on Feb 20, 2020 11:11:31 GMT
The Holloway thread got me thinking that I'm liking the boldness of the Garner initiative - trying to play modern football, recruiting for the future, a 'thinking man's game' Also, it maybe ties in with the best of the current regime - instilling business disciplines (sometimes at the cost of some 'old' babies going out with the bathwater), spending money on a good pitch, improvements in the Gorringe areas, more emphasis on Development Squad etc (and medical etc back when budgets seemed to allow) I've never really thought of us as an 'ahead of the curve' club. And we're not ahead of it yet, but I can see some green shoots (just as I could when the current regime was new). We've had a bit of sizzle with our sausage via Malcolm Allison, Mick Channon and Alan Ball, but they were to some extent aging show ponies, and it was a long time ago It might or might not work, but it's different and interesting (and might even become exciting) The question I ask is: who has used this model before? Were they successful? Undoubtedly, the idea of running a side based around developing young loan/academy players and selling them on for profit as a way of bridging the competitiveness gap with teams who have the funds to buy the finished article cannot be new or revolutionary, it seems fairly obvious as a way for resource strapped sides to compete with the more moneyed sides. So who are these teams who used/currently use that model and how successful were they? Crewe had a renowned conveyor belt of young talent yet they have, at best, been a 3rd tier side. Yeovil maximised their use of the loan market and managed to make it to the championship whereupon they got their ass kicked and have ended up in a worse position than they started. The irony is that the team who are best known for getting big profits from their young players are Peterborough, who are able to attract these players because they are (in terms of resources and geographical location) a good fit for talented young players. So I’m of the opinion that if this was a viable strategy more teams would be doing it whereas every club in the football league seems (to me at least) to be trying to fill their side with as close to the finished article as they can get. To make things even harder for ourselves we are moving to a model based around untried youth (because that’s worked well for us in the past hasn’t it- Clarke-Salter, Boateng, Colkett Etc Etc) with a man who had never managed, or even played a game prior to joining us. It’s the sort of job you want a successful manager with a proven track record of getting the best out of youth *in a managerial capacity* like Alex Ferguson. Yet we get...Ben Garner. I sometimes feel with Bristol Rovers that you literally can’t make it up. Our transfer business in January seemed to consist of throwing **** at a wall and seeing what stuck. I am highly sceptical that this isn’t going to be some overnight phase that gets scrapped when things start to turn sour. It’s perhaps the right idea but definitely the wrong manager and not good enough HOR/scouting network to pull it off, imo.
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irishrover
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Post by irishrover on Feb 20, 2020 16:58:11 GMT
The Holloway thread got me thinking that I'm liking the boldness of the Garner initiative - trying to play modern football, recruiting for the future, a 'thinking man's game' Also, it maybe ties in with the best of the current regime - instilling business disciplines (sometimes at the cost of some 'old' babies going out with the bathwater), spending money on a good pitch, improvements in the Gorringe areas, more emphasis on Development Squad etc (and medical etc back when budgets seemed to allow) I've never really thought of us as an 'ahead of the curve' club. And we're not ahead of it yet, but I can see some green shoots (just as I could when the current regime was new). We've had a bit of sizzle with our sausage via Malcolm Allison, Mick Channon and Alan Ball, but they were to some extent aging show ponies, and it was a long time ago It might or might not work, but it's different and interesting (and might even become exciting) I think there's something in this. We definitely can't compete by being a second rate version of what everyone else is doing. To some extent the way the Trollope and DC eras ended demonstrated that. If these guys aren't prepared to splash the cash to bridge that Championship-League 1 gap then we have to do something a bit different. Of course, a bit different is also risky and relies on the person in charge being the right figure. So I can see WSM's point as well because it's clear that the jury is very much still out on Garner. But we are well and truly on board the BG train now. We should know by Christmas whether it was inspired or terrible but I can't see a way out of it now as we seem all in. Would be madness to change course at this point.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 20, 2020 23:35:36 GMT
Brentford have had staggering success using a similar approach to what garner is trying to do and coventry are also a good example. Both clubs have recruited young players and sold them on for very big money in brentfords case and coventry have done ok as well.
When the season ends garner will be able to release players that dont fit in with the model he is aiming for and bring players in that do fit.
Will it work? Not sure myself but we already know the other way does not work for rovers in league one so its well worth a try in my view.
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TaiwanGas
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Post by TaiwanGas on Feb 21, 2020 2:15:53 GMT
I wholeheartedly agree with the concept of buying young players to develop and sell on at a profit, but when when our first team can only practice on a bog of a field and get kicked off regularly and have to deal with fox poo before practice, what realistic hope do we have of being able to provide for the development of our youngsters when we cannot provide decent training conditions for the first team.
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Post by CabbagePatchBlues on Feb 21, 2020 6:52:29 GMT
Brentford have had staggering success using a similar approach to what garner is trying to do and coventry are also a good example. Both clubs have recruited young players and sold them on for very big money in brentfords case and coventry have done ok as well. When the season ends garner will be able to release players that dont fit in with the model he is aiming for and bring players in that do fit. Will it work? Not sure myself but we already know the other way does not work for rovers in league one so its well worth a try in my view. Brentford will be playing in a spanking new stadium next season and I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the PL. It seems to be what they've been planning for all along.
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Post by irenestoyboy on Feb 21, 2020 8:38:20 GMT
The average wage bill in the championship is £54m in 17/18. The average wage will in league 1 is £1.8m. No respecting league 1 owner will attempt to or be able to bridge that gap.
Brentford, who have been mentioned here spent £17m in 17/18. Sheff Utd spent £19m (prior to their promotion year). Burton in their last year spent £10m.
Of course, some of that is offset by prize money of being in the second tier. I think Shrewsbury’s chairman indicated the payday of being there for a season is worth it when they were knocking about the top 6 a few years back.
Sunderland, Portsmouth and Ipswich this year probably have the biggest wage bill at about £5m and even that won’t guarantee you a promotion from this league.
What will is good management, intelligent recruitment and a dogged style of play. I’ve not seen any promotion team play lovey football and get promoted from L1.
Hopefully Garner can change that.
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eppinggas
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Post by eppinggas on Feb 21, 2020 8:49:26 GMT
Interesting article about Brentford here: www.sportperformanceanalysis.com/article/2018/6/8/the-history-of-brentford-football-analytics. This does not look remotely like Bristol Rovers. The owner (Matthew Benham) is a lifelong fan. "invested over £90 million in improving the team's training facilities, stadium and developing a youth academy". "Since 2005, no academy player had debut in the first team. Not only that, the best talent being produced by their academy was being stolen away by top clubs in the Premier League at young ages when Brentford was not due compensation for the transfer. The situation meant that the large investments being made in developing young talent were not returning any positive results to the club. This is why Brentford FC decided to completely close their academy and solely focus on recruitment from other clubs". "The long-term philosophy that Brentford FC have been implementing over the last 6 years... is hoping to see a club being run by analytics, sound business strategy and statistically-based decision making". (To be fair - not sure what status the "youth academy" now has - but obviously there is a major problem in nurturing young talent and losing them for a pittance).
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2020 9:24:34 GMT
If we're investing in youth why have Ben's permanent signings only played 16 minutes in the last three games? Seems we're just developing loanees and players who were already here.
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Peter Parker
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Post by Peter Parker on Feb 21, 2020 9:31:06 GMT
If we're investing in youth why have Ben's permanent signings only played 16 minutes in the last three games? Seems we're just developing loanees and players who were already here. of the 3 we signed, Daly got injured straight away and apparently Harries isn't fully fit as he hasn't played since late November and clearly Barret needs to get fitter.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2020 9:37:27 GMT
If we're investing in youth why have Ben's permanent signings only played 16 minutes in the last three games? Seems we're just developing loanees and players who were already here. of the 3 we signed, Daly got injured straight away and apparently Harries isn't fully fit as he hasn't played since late November and clearly Barret needs to get fitter.
Bodes well.
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Post by irenestoyboy on Feb 21, 2020 10:05:19 GMT
Brentford were mainly struggling because you have a plethora of PL clubs on their doorstep who can offer the best facilities without the player having to up and move.
It’s also harder for a player to break into a championship side and a much higher financial risk for them to collect academy players and send them on loan to a L1/L2 then have them disappear.
For us it’s working well and should do and something we have long relied upon.
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Peter Parker
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Post by Peter Parker on Feb 21, 2020 10:13:41 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2020 10:17:30 GMT
Interesting article about Brentford here: www.sportperformanceanalysis.com/article/2018/6/8/the-history-of-brentford-football-analytics. This does not look remotely like Bristol Rovers. The owner (Matthew Benham) is a lifelong fan. "invested over £90 million in improving the team's training facilities, stadium and developing a youth academy". "Since 2005, no academy player had debut in the first team. Not only that, the best talent being produced by their academy was being stolen away by top clubs in the Premier League at young ages when Brentford was not due compensation for the transfer. The situation meant that the large investments being made in developing young talent were not returning any positive results to the club. This is why Brentford FC decided to completely close their academy and solely focus on recruitment from other clubs". "The long-term philosophy that Brentford FC have been implementing over the last 6 years... is hoping to see a club being run by analytics, sound business strategy and statistically-based decision making". (To be fair - not sure what status the "youth academy" now has - but obviously there is a major problem in nurturing young talent and losing them for a pittance). Well there we go then, even the much vaunted Brentford with their highly rated academy couldn’t make it work. But don’t worry, where Brentford and their highly intelligent former trader chairman failed Wally, Garner and the fox s**t ridden training ground will succeed.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2020 10:33:07 GMT
Brentford were mainly struggling because you have a plethora of PL clubs on their doorstep who can offer the best facilities without the player having to up and move. It’s also harder for a player to break into a championship side and a much higher financial risk for them to collect academy players and send them on loan to a L1/L2 then have them disappear. For us it’s working well and should do and something we have long relied upon. What is working well? Who have we sold for big bucks from the development squad? None of them seem to be good enough to hold down a place in the first team to the extent that we have literally airlifted in a rake of players that don’t belong to us to develop them instead. We lost a first teamer on a free who we developed into the player he is today. We did sell one youth prospect for about 750k which, by my reckoning, will have effectively funded the under-performing development side for about 2 and a half seasons. There is nothing in that lot that is working particularly well at all and to my mind a conversation needs to be had about whether the development squad is actually bringing any sort of value to the club at all as it’s been in place now for some 3 seasons and produced nothing for us. Of course, the loans and deadline day signings may come good but as we have seen with the Chelsea loanees and Boateng young players are more likely to be miss than hit so you need a top notch scouting system to pick out the best ones and given that for every JCH our scouting system has given us an Upson and a Leahy I don’t believe it is anywhere near good enough to make a decent fist of recruiting mostly youngsters who have a future in the game. I shall very much stand to be corrected though, I just don’t see what evidence there has been that this has worked for us in the past or present to make us confident that it will work in the future and isn’t actually just some “hit and hope” policy by the owner to cover up for both a lack of funding and a lack of interest.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2020 10:33:17 GMT
What are we, a rehab centre for fat footballers?
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kingswood Polak
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Post by kingswood Polak on Feb 21, 2020 10:34:08 GMT
If we're investing in youth why have Ben's permanent signings only played 16 minutes in the last three games? Seems we're just developing loanees and players who were already here. He’s not really been using the loans though has he. I do understand that, to be successful long term, we need our own players but why loan then not give a starting place ?
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Peter Parker
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Post by Peter Parker on Feb 21, 2020 10:39:55 GMT
If we don't sign young players that we may be able to sell on down the line who are we supposed to sign?
Average league One footballers, 'exciting' League Two or Conference players or older players dropping down the leagues on big money
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2020 10:45:55 GMT
At this stage I'm more worried about the manager's ability to organise the players we have than their age or whether they are on loan.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2020 11:33:26 GMT
Interesting article about Brentford here: www.sportperformanceanalysis.com/article/2018/6/8/the-history-of-brentford-football-analytics. This does not look remotely like Bristol Rovers. The owner (Matthew Benham) is a lifelong fan. "invested over £90 million in improving the team's training facilities, stadium and developing a youth academy". "Since 2005, no academy player had debut in the first team. Not only that, the best talent being produced by their academy was being stolen away by top clubs in the Premier League at young ages when Brentford was not due compensation for the transfer. The situation meant that the large investments being made in developing young talent were not returning any positive results to the club. This is why Brentford FC decided to completely close their academy and solely focus on recruitment from other clubs". "The long-term philosophy that Brentford FC have been implementing over the last 6 years... is hoping to see a club being run by analytics, sound business strategy and statistically-based decision making". (To be fair - not sure what status the "youth academy" now has - but obviously there is a major problem in nurturing young talent and losing them for a pittance). The "similar" is that brentford identify young players with potential,sign them and have had amazing success selling them on for massive profit while still improving as a team. Thats exactly what garner is trying to do at rovers. Coventry are attempting to do a similar thing as well.
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eppinggas
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Post by eppinggas on Feb 21, 2020 11:51:02 GMT
Interesting article about Brentford here: www.sportperformanceanalysis.com/article/2018/6/8/the-history-of-brentford-football-analytics. This does not look remotely like Bristol Rovers. The owner (Matthew Benham) is a lifelong fan. "invested over £90 million in improving the team's training facilities, stadium and developing a youth academy". "Since 2005, no academy player had debut in the first team. Not only that, the best talent being produced by their academy was being stolen away by top clubs in the Premier League at young ages when Brentford was not due compensation for the transfer. The situation meant that the large investments being made in developing young talent were not returning any positive results to the club. This is why Brentford FC decided to completely close their academy and solely focus on recruitment from other clubs". "The long-term philosophy that Brentford FC have been implementing over the last 6 years... is hoping to see a club being run by analytics, sound business strategy and statistically-based decision making". (To be fair - not sure what status the "youth academy" now has - but obviously there is a major problem in nurturing young talent and losing them for a pittance). The "similar" is that brentford identify young players with potential,sign them and have had amazing success selling them on for massive profit while still improving as a team. Thats exactly what garner is trying to do at rovers. Coventry are attempting to do a similar thing as well. You have conveniently over-looked the small niggling detail of the £90mil investment. We will struggle to recruit any worthwhile 'talent' whilst we don't even have training ground to call our own. (Let alone a Stadium that's fit for purpose). Our "strategy" is dictated by the fact that WE DO NOT HAVE ANY MONEY. It's back to hopefully getting some decent youngsters in, feeding them some magic beans and bingo they're all worth millions in the future. Luck and chemistry anyone? Same as it as ever was, same as it ever was.
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