I thought Roa Conchie had a good game in Perth. Nothing flashy attempted just working hard and doing the right thing.
Can you name the names you're thinking about? Because the ones that jump to mind - Supyk, GSR, Jayden Smith, AKH, Walker, Loke - all have significant minutes in the reserve side. Dues paid.
They'll probably get less minutes than last year due to a deeper first team squad. At the same time, a player not continuing to develop after getting first team minutes/contract (Van Hattum, for example) doesn't mean that it was incorrect to give a contract at the time they got it. Development isn't linear and crystal balls tend to be hit or miss.
They'll probably get less minutes than last year due to a deeper first team squad. At the same time, a player not continuing to develop after getting first team minutes/contract (Van Hattum, for example) doesn't mean that it was incorrect to give a contract at the time they got it. Development isn't linear and crystal balls tend to be hit or miss.
Ok let's cast the crystal ball (some may call it common sense) aside and look at facts. I think we can all agree that AP, Ben Old and Fin Surman have been our most successful recent academy grads. AP played over 2,000 mins for the Reserves before getting a contract, Ben Old approximately 1,800 and Fin over 2,200. They may or may not have been training with the 1st team (absolutely no issue with that), but they were playing regularly for the Reserves, proved themselves as standouts at that level and were ready to move on to bigger and better things. Compare that with Supyk 567m, GSR 346m, NW just over 1,000 and Jayden Smith the outlier at 1,433m, but still significantly less time that the examples above. So no, I do not agree that they have paid their dues, and I believe that the Nix pulled the trigger far too early on these guys before they had showed themselves to be standouts compared to their peers in the Reserves. If nothing else, the Wrexham game demonstrated that there is nothing between these guys and the majority of the players in the Ressies. Can you honestly say that if you watch a NL game currently and you did not know who the pro's are that you would be able to pick them out? Time will tell but I am battling to see how the Nix are going to get any return on any of these guys as I can't see them playing big minutes any time soon. Will be the first to put up my hand and concede that I got it wrong if that is not the case. I have left Loke and LBS off this list as I do believe that Loke has proved himself in the Reserves and was fully deserving of a contract. His display for the U20's and when he played for the 1st team seem to confirm this. Similarly, LBS has that special something (which I don't think he has fully shown as yet) and is worth taking a punt on.
To start, its unreasonable to expect every contract given to youth players to be a hit and demand a transfer fee or regular first team minutes immediately. That's simply not how development works. There are going to be misses but just because that may yet happen doesn't mean it was an incorrect decision to give the contract at the time.
I regularly watch the reserves and yes, those players mentioned are generally a class above the rest, though there are other players who are probably unlucky not to have contracts - Gardiner, Cassidy, McCarron and Flowerdew the first that jump to mind, maybe Gillion and Candy too.
I don't think there's any point looking at a preseason game where the first team was out of season and the reserve side had been playing together week in, week out in Central League. No real useful information to be gained there, 45 minutes simply isn't a big enough sample size.
I also don't think the number of minutes has a lot of bearing when the coaches who award the contracts see them day in, day out at training and are far better positioned to judge ability & potential than we are.
We certainly awarded those contracts at a younger age than the other names you mentioned, but that's part and parcel of an evolving club strategy to focus on youth as well as where the club was at that point in time. These players likely wouldn't have got those same contracts as early without the significant cut in funds distributed by the APL so they're coming through in a different financial environment to Surman, Old and AP. At the same time, the overall depth in the academy is better than when those players were promoted which makes the gap look smaller.
On an individual level, GSR has shown a similar X-factor to LBS in the reserves (albeit in a more technical sense than LBS's strength and speed), but had his last season derailed by injury. Walker had 24 matches for Fencibles before switching to the academy, so I think your minutes count is off significantly on him - development doesn't magically start when they join the club . We've already turned down approaches from the UK for Supyk too, so we aren't the only club seeing potential there. Even if he hasn't kicked on in his first team minutes to date, I recall he was clearly one of our better players at the U17 WC he went to compared to his peers, especially those not already in overseas academies. With the information available at the time, I think those were all reasonable contracts to give.
To summarise:
Players you were ok giving contracts to in the last 2-3 seasons: Hughes, Sheridan, LKH, Conchie, Loke, LBS, AKH
Players you're skeptical about: Walker, Smith, GSR, Supyk.
Even if you're right, its hard to say that a >60% success rate is an indicator of contracts being handed out willy nilly and instead says to me that we have a strong academy and good practices for identifying players with the potential to make it at the pro level.
I regularly watch the reserves and yes, those players mentioned are generally a class above the rest, though there are other players who are probably unlucky not to have contracts - Gardiner, Cassidy, McCarron and Flowerdew the first that jump to mind, maybe Gillion and Candy too.
I don't think there's any point looking at a preseason game where the first team was out of season and the reserve side had been playing together week in, week out in Central League. No real useful information to be gained there, 45 minutes simply isn't a big enough sample size.
I also don't think the number of minutes has a lot of bearing when the coaches who award the contracts see them day in, day out at training and are far better positioned to judge ability & potential than we are.
We certainly awarded those contracts at a younger age than the other names you mentioned, but that's part and parcel of an evolving club strategy to focus on youth as well as where the club was at that point in time. These players likely wouldn't have got those same contracts as early without the significant cut in funds distributed by the APL so they're coming through in a different financial environment to Surman, Old and AP. At the same time, the overall depth in the academy is better than when those players were promoted which makes the gap look smaller.
On an individual level, GSR has shown a similar X-factor to LBS in the reserves (albeit in a more technical sense than LBS's strength and speed), but had his last season derailed by injury. Walker had 24 matches for Fencibles before switching to the academy, so I think your minutes count is off significantly on him - development doesn't magically start when they join the club . We've already turned down approaches from the UK for Supyk too, so we aren't the only club seeing potential there. Even if he hasn't kicked on in his first team minutes to date, I recall he was clearly one of our better players at the U17 WC he went to compared to his peers, especially those not already in overseas academies. With the information available at the time, I think those were all reasonable contracts to give.
To summarise:
Players you were ok giving contracts to in the last 2-3 seasons: Hughes, Sheridan, LKH, Conchie, Loke, LBS, AKH
Players you're skeptical about: Walker, Smith, GSR, Supyk.
Even if you're right, its hard to say that a >60% success rate is an indicator of contracts being handed out willy nilly and instead says to me that we have a strong academy and good practices for identifying players with the potential to make it at the pro level.
Valley FC til I die?
A further point is that there were strong rumours last year that GSR's family (his Brazilian dad is a football coach in Hong Kong), wanted GSR to head offshore to try his luck. His dad an ex Brazil youth international, likely has a few connections.
If those rumours were true the Nix might have offered him that scholarship contract earlier than they initially planned. Remembering this is a kid that experienced pros Zawada and I think Ball, rated very highly. Injury has curtailed his progress.
But as Nelfoos says there is no perfect strategy re contracting young players.
Maybe Flowerdew does surpass Supyk, who knows.
And yes definitely the big reduction in the annual APL disbursement, (plus long term injuries Rojas & Cola) meant the Nix had to play a more youthful squad last season.
If those rumours were true the Nix might have offered him that scholarship contract earlier than they initially planned. Remembering this is a kid that experienced pros Zawada and I think Ball, rated very highly. Injury has curtailed his progress.
But as Nelfoos says there is no perfect strategy re contracting young players.
Maybe Flowerdew does surpass Supyk, who knows.
And yes definitely the big reduction in the annual APL disbursement, (plus long term injuries Rojas & Cola) meant the Nix had to play a more youthful squad last season.
No-one is expecting a transfer fee immediately, just before they depart on a free and the Club has burnt circa $150,000 per player. Also acknowledge that not all calls will be correct and there will be misses, as long as the Club profits from the overall exercise...which I can't see happening. I am not only referencing the Wrexham game but also the N and CL games this and last year. I too watch most of the Reserve team games and clearly, we look for different things in a player. Talent is in the eye of the beholder but love him or loathe him, Declan Edge was always of the view that giving young players too much too soon was detrimental to their development. Most would agree that he is a weirdo, but he knows a thing or two about developing young talent. Happy to be corrected but don't think that NW was playing for the Fencibles 1st team and even if he was they were not in NL at the time...were playing the equivalent of Cap Prem. re GSR...I have seen very little of the X Factor that you refer to. As an attacker in my book your currency is goals and assists and his stats across N and CL are pretty underwhelming for a pro, albeit a young one. Perhaps the Club should have taken the offer for Supyk.....highly unlikely they will be getting anything for him before the end of his contract.
I thought Roa Conchie had a good game in Perth. Nothing flashy attempted just working hard and doing the right thing.
He still looks like a guy trying to figure out his position
a.haak
To start, its unreasonable to expect every contract given to youth players to be a hit and demand a transfer fee or regular first team minutes immediately. That's simply not how development works. There are going to be misses but just because that may yet happen doesn't mean it was an incorrect decision to give the contract at the time.
I regularly watch the reserves and yes, those players mentioned are generally a class above the rest, though there are other players who are probably unlucky not to have contracts - Gardiner, Cassidy, McCarron and Flowerdew the first that jump to mind, maybe Gillion and Candy too.
I don't think there's any point looking at a preseason game where the first team was out of season and the reserve side had been playing together week in, week out in Central League. No real useful information to be gained there, 45 minutes simply isn't a big enough sample size.
I also don't think the number of minutes has a lot of bearing when the coaches who award the contracts see them day in, day out at training and are far better positioned to judge ability & potential than we are.
We certainly awarded those contracts at a younger age than the other names you mentioned, but that's part and parcel of an evolving club strategy to focus on youth as well as where the club was at that point in time. These players likely wouldn't have got those same contracts as early without the significant cut in funds distributed by the APL so they're coming through in a different financial environment to Surman, Old and AP. At the same time, the overall depth in the academy is better than when those players were promoted which makes the gap look smaller.
On an individual level, GSR has shown a similar X-factor to LBS in the reserves (albeit in a more technical sense than LBS's strength and speed), but had his last season derailed by injury. Walker had 24 matches for Fencibles before switching to the academy, so I think your minutes count is off significantly on him - development doesn't magically start when they join the club . We've already turned down approaches from the UK for Supyk too, so we aren't the only club seeing potential there. Even if he hasn't kicked on in his first team minutes to date, I recall he was clearly one of our better players at the U17 WC he went to compared to his peers, especially those not already in overseas academies. With the information available at the time, I think those were all reasonable contracts to give.
To summarise:
Players you were ok giving contracts to in the last 2-3 seasons: Hughes, Sheridan, LKH, Conchie, Loke, LBS, AKH
Players you're skeptical about: Walker, Smith, GSR, Supyk.
Even if you're right, its hard to say that a >60% success rate is an indicator of contracts being handed out willy nilly and instead says to me that we have a strong academy and good practices for identifying players with the potential to make it at the pro level.
I regularly watch the reserves and yes, those players mentioned are generally a class above the rest, though there are other players who are probably unlucky not to have contracts - Gardiner, Cassidy, McCarron and Flowerdew the first that jump to mind, maybe Gillion and Candy too.
I don't think there's any point looking at a preseason game where the first team was out of season and the reserve side had been playing together week in, week out in Central League. No real useful information to be gained there, 45 minutes simply isn't a big enough sample size.
I also don't think the number of minutes has a lot of bearing when the coaches who award the contracts see them day in, day out at training and are far better positioned to judge ability & potential than we are.
We certainly awarded those contracts at a younger age than the other names you mentioned, but that's part and parcel of an evolving club strategy to focus on youth as well as where the club was at that point in time. These players likely wouldn't have got those same contracts as early without the significant cut in funds distributed by the APL so they're coming through in a different financial environment to Surman, Old and AP. At the same time, the overall depth in the academy is better than when those players were promoted which makes the gap look smaller.
On an individual level, GSR has shown a similar X-factor to LBS in the reserves (albeit in a more technical sense than LBS's strength and speed), but had his last season derailed by injury. Walker had 24 matches for Fencibles before switching to the academy, so I think your minutes count is off significantly on him - development doesn't magically start when they join the club . We've already turned down approaches from the UK for Supyk too, so we aren't the only club seeing potential there. Even if he hasn't kicked on in his first team minutes to date, I recall he was clearly one of our better players at the U17 WC he went to compared to his peers, especially those not already in overseas academies. With the information available at the time, I think those were all reasonable contracts to give.
To summarise:
Players you were ok giving contracts to in the last 2-3 seasons: Hughes, Sheridan, LKH, Conchie, Loke, LBS, AKH
Players you're skeptical about: Walker, Smith, GSR, Supyk.
Even if you're right, its hard to say that a >60% success rate is an indicator of contracts being handed out willy nilly and instead says to me that we have a strong academy and good practices for identifying players with the potential to make it at the pro level.
My metric for whether this strategy is a success or not is that the Club is able to generate a decent return on their investment. Could debate whether LKH could have done with a season or two more in the Reserves (had age on his side to do so) but in general, yes would have been happy to take a punt on those you have listed. In reality the Club will in all probability only profit from a few of those so to call it a 60% success rate is a stretch.
To start, its unreasonable to expect every contract given to youth players to be a hit and demand a transfer fee or regular first team minutes immediately. That's simply not how development works. There are going to be misses but just because that may yet happen doesn't mean it was an incorrect decision to give the contract at the time.
I regularly watch the reserves and yes, those players mentioned are generally a class above the rest, though there are other players who are probably unlucky not to have contracts - Gardiner, Cassidy, McCarron and Flowerdew the first that jump to mind, maybe Gillion and Candy too.
I don't think there's any point looking at a preseason game where the first team was out of season and the reserve side had been playing together week in, week out in Central League. No real useful information to be gained there, 45 minutes simply isn't a big enough sample size.
I also don't think the number of minutes has a lot of bearing when the coaches who award the contracts see them day in, day out at training and are far better positioned to judge ability & potential than we are.
We certainly awarded those contracts at a younger age than the other names you mentioned, but that's part and parcel of an evolving club strategy to focus on youth as well as where the club was at that point in time. These players likely wouldn't have got those same contracts as early without the significant cut in funds distributed by the APL so they're coming through in a different financial environment to Surman, Old and AP. At the same time, the overall depth in the academy is better than when those players were promoted which makes the gap look smaller.
On an individual level, GSR has shown a similar X-factor to LBS in the reserves (albeit in a more technical sense than LBS's strength and speed), but had his last season derailed by injury. Walker had 24 matches for Fencibles before switching to the academy, so I think your minutes count is off significantly on him - development doesn't magically start when they join the club . We've already turned down approaches from the UK for Supyk too, so we aren't the only club seeing potential there. Even if he hasn't kicked on in his first team minutes to date, I recall he was clearly one of our better players at the U17 WC he went to compared to his peers, especially those not already in overseas academies. With the information available at the time, I think those were all reasonable contracts to give.
To summarise:
Players you were ok giving contracts to in the last 2-3 seasons: Hughes, Sheridan, LKH, Conchie, Loke, LBS, AKH
Players you're skeptical about: Walker, Smith, GSR, Supyk.
Even if you're right, its hard to say that a >60% success rate is an indicator of contracts being handed out willy nilly and instead says to me that we have a strong academy and good practices for identifying players with the potential to make it at the pro level.
I regularly watch the reserves and yes, those players mentioned are generally a class above the rest, though there are other players who are probably unlucky not to have contracts - Gardiner, Cassidy, McCarron and Flowerdew the first that jump to mind, maybe Gillion and Candy too.
I don't think there's any point looking at a preseason game where the first team was out of season and the reserve side had been playing together week in, week out in Central League. No real useful information to be gained there, 45 minutes simply isn't a big enough sample size.
I also don't think the number of minutes has a lot of bearing when the coaches who award the contracts see them day in, day out at training and are far better positioned to judge ability & potential than we are.
We certainly awarded those contracts at a younger age than the other names you mentioned, but that's part and parcel of an evolving club strategy to focus on youth as well as where the club was at that point in time. These players likely wouldn't have got those same contracts as early without the significant cut in funds distributed by the APL so they're coming through in a different financial environment to Surman, Old and AP. At the same time, the overall depth in the academy is better than when those players were promoted which makes the gap look smaller.
On an individual level, GSR has shown a similar X-factor to LBS in the reserves (albeit in a more technical sense than LBS's strength and speed), but had his last season derailed by injury. Walker had 24 matches for Fencibles before switching to the academy, so I think your minutes count is off significantly on him - development doesn't magically start when they join the club . We've already turned down approaches from the UK for Supyk too, so we aren't the only club seeing potential there. Even if he hasn't kicked on in his first team minutes to date, I recall he was clearly one of our better players at the U17 WC he went to compared to his peers, especially those not already in overseas academies. With the information available at the time, I think those were all reasonable contracts to give.
To summarise:
Players you were ok giving contracts to in the last 2-3 seasons: Hughes, Sheridan, LKH, Conchie, Loke, LBS, AKH
Players you're skeptical about: Walker, Smith, GSR, Supyk.
Even if you're right, its hard to say that a >60% success rate is an indicator of contracts being handed out willy nilly and instead says to me that we have a strong academy and good practices for identifying players with the potential to make it at the pro level.
No-one is expecting a transfer fee immediately, just before they depart on a free and the Club has burnt circa $150,000 per player. Also acknowledge that not all calls will be correct and there will be misses, as long as the Club profits from the overall exercise...which I can't see happening. I am not only referencing the Wrexham game but also the N and CL games this and last year. I too watch most of the Reserve team games and clearly, we look for different things in a player. Talent is in the eye of the beholder but love him or loathe him, Declan Edge was always of the view that giving young players too much too soon was detrimental to their development. Most would agree that he is a weirdo, but he knows a thing or two about developing young talent. Happy to be corrected but don't think that NW was playing for the Fencibles 1st team and even if he was they were not in NL at the time...were playing the equivalent of Cap Prem. re GSR...I have seen very little of the X Factor that you refer to. As an attacker in my book your currency is goals and assists and his stats across N and CL are pretty underwhelming for a pro, albeit a young one. Perhaps the Club should have taken the offer for Supyk.....highly unlikely they will be getting anything for him before the end of his contract.