What becomes of the academy

[MickTheBeard]

If rodak decides to pack his bags,after when Fabio leaves for the hubcap knickers, their won't any graduates in the squad.Admittedly we have had a good academy but even though we have lost the best  we haven't retained some of the best of the rest.Lots have left like spence and the player at Blackpool and then player on loan at Cardiff from Leeds a right back.Something is very wrong with the system, hense players go to pastures new.Why ,you can say you can't run afootball from America,but the employees can't run it from here.Their are some talent here still,their is no fabios their but their is good fringe players, that's if they don't threaten to leave, like Ollie.But does not mean he's   good enough.If you take sonny hilton who is 21 next birthday he will be 22 and had a loan in Finland he hasn't played against men in our British leagues to find out can he cope.It's allright winning 23 leagues but their not queuing up for the 1st team.Obviously being a yo yo club with Tony buying and not selling for profits doesn't help.If we had survived going up you can put a young player in and take him out so not overwhelm to allow them to adjust. Alas that doesn't seem to happen,something needs to happen or we might have to follow the Brentford way.

[Sting of the North]

But the academy has produced some good players for the first team, and it has surely been quite profitable as well. So what would be the rationale to ditch it, because I could not find any reasons in your post actually supporting such an action?

[70sPimlico]

"They're not queuing up for the 1st team".

Man alive, we've got about 4 or 5 that are probably hoping for some 1st team action next season. I'm fairly sure if they work hard, they'll get a chance in pre-season, cups and the latter part of the season. I think Stansfield's got a chance of breaking through and expect to see him pre-season.

[b+w geezer]

I've just, funnily enough, argued in the thread about Brentford that abandoning your academy is not how a senior club should be pullling its weight. Unless you reckon (do you?) that academies in general are a waste of time (and standards won't suffer if they all disappear) then a club with any pretensions to stature needs to chip in.

It's to SOME extent a red herring whether your club fields players from its own academy. High chances are that, at our level, just about everyone who puts on a senior shirt will have been through somebody's academy. We contribute to the system and rely on it. Swings and roundabouts and maybe we should have more of the swings than we do (if they're better than roundabouts -- I've never quite understood the saying!) but that doesn't mean giving up the whole idea.

One other thing -- even if we benefit less than we should in direct terms, there are spin-off factors. Example: Tosin joined us having played as a youth international with and against Fulham players and against Fulham teams at all age levels. This would have counted a bit in how he viewed the move. Same, I'd imagine for Wilson and others who aren't quite good enough for the big guns but will do for us.

[WolverineFFC]

I've just, funnily enough, argued in the thread about Brentford that abandoning your academy is not how a senior club should be pullling its weight. Unless you reckon (do you?) that academies in general are a waste of time (and standards won't suffer if they all disappear) then a club with any pretensions to stature needs to chip in.

It's to SOME extent a red herring whether your club fields players from its own academy. High chances are that, at our level, just about everyone who puts on a senior shirt will have been through somebody's academy. We contribute to the system and rely on it. Swings and roundabouts and maybe we should have more of the swings than we do (if they're better than roundabouts -- I've never quite understood the saying!) but that doesn't mean giving up the whole idea.

One other thing -- even if we benefit less than we should in direct terms, there are spin-off factors. Example: Tosin joined us having played as a youth international with and against Fulham players and against Fulham teams at all age levels. This would have counted a bit in how he viewed the move. Same, I'd imagine for Wilson and others who aren't quite good enough for the big guns but will do for us.

Very good points about the importance of a robust academy system for all teams. I imagine Robinson, Tosin, Bryan, BDR, Fabio, Harry Wilson, Chalobah, Reed, Nico Williams, Rodak, and Onomah were all developed in large part by somebody's academy but also by the academies they competed against. 

This is before you consider the fact that it only takes one Zaha to come up through an academy to make decades of youth development worth it.

[Cookie6262]

Even if Rodak leaves I think you can argue he is a big success story for the academy, he must have close to 100 first team appearances, has won us promotion to the premier league twice, has become an international and we may get a fee for him this summer.

[toshes mate]

Unlese the kids that attend any academy are forced to against their will then there is obviously a demand and just like any other place of education the Newtons, Curies, Darwins, Einsteins, Bolts, Williams, Ennis-Hills, etc., don't happen too often.  But if a kid can make a living as a professional footballer earning an average wage or above then what is not to like?   

[b+w geezer]

Even if Rodak leaves I think you can argue he is a big success story for the academy, he must have close to 100 first team appearances, has won us promotion to the premier league twice, has become an international and we may get a fee for him this summer.

Yep. Definitely paid his way. In the same vein, Fabio was influential in gaining us automatic promotion, Sess was very influential in our first promotion season,, and Dembele II gave us a prolific season in which we only narrowly survived even so. Significant financial benefit to the club arose from all three of those things, even if indirect.

As for direct, an average of about £11 million for the five players who left us, with more maybe to come in two cases. Not the worst fate averaged out.

[filham]

The academy has yet to produce a player to give us service that matches that of Sean Davis who was just pre academy.
Difficult to argue against the Brentford decision to ditch their academy and feed of others.

[Sting of the North]

The academy has yet to produce a player to give us service that matches that of Sean Davis who was just pre academy.
Difficult to argue against the Brentford decision to ditch their academy and feed of others.

But the academy has produced players that have not only played huge parts in several promotions, but also gained us funds that would cover the cost of running the academy for years. And all exempt from FFP. It's a weird benchmark if the academy is only succesful if it manages to produce a player that is good enough for the first team but not good enough to attract theattention of bigger clubs.

Or is your argument that Davis was the far superior player to Carvalho, Sessegnon etc? If it is, then fair enough although I disagree. If not, then I would argue that whether or not a good player leaves or stays has little to do with the model used in acquiring him. It is not as if Brentford has been able to keep their better players.

[filham]

The academy has yet to produce a player to give us service that matches that of Sean Davis who was just pre academy.
Difficult to argue against the Brentford decision to ditch their academy and feed of others.

But the academy has produced players that have not only played huge parts in several promotions, but also gained us funds that would cover the cost of running the academy for years. And all exempt from FFP. It's a weird benchmark if the academy is only succesful if it manages to produce a player that is good enough for the first team but not good enough to attract theattention of bigger clubs.

Or is your argument that Davis was the far superior player to Carvalho, Sessegnon etc? If it is, then fair enough although I disagree. If not, then I would argue that whether or not a good player leaves or stays has little to do with the model used in acquiring him. It is not as if Brentford has been able to keep their better players.

Yes, Davis was superior to any academy player. He served us for many seasons and was involved in three promotions eventually leaving and earning  money in the transfer market, Carvalho for instance has had but one full season and is about to leave for a fee that is unlikely to buy us a decent premier league player.

[bencher]

I think fundamentally not everyone agrees on what constitutes success for the academy. Producing first team players is one goal, producing profit from transfers is another, providing supporting players to the first team is perhaps another. It all depends on the level you operate at. If you are Man City, you know that your best academy products will stay if they are good enough to become regulars like Foden, others may leave because they can't get enough minutes (Sancho). Similar for Liverpool e.g. Trent vs Wilson. At the level we've been at for the last 6-10 years, we've produced both regular starters (Carv, Betts, Rodak, Sess), profit makers (Roberts, Elliot) and support guys (Steve Sess etc). We know that the best ones may get snapped up. If we establish ourselves at PL level, we may find we can more easily keep our best prospects.
For me, a proper football club has an academy, and Brentford may have done well to get where they are, but can they establish themselves as a PL club without an academy, relying always on successful scouting and transfers? It's going to get a lot harder for them to keep it up.

[Sting of the North]

The academy has yet to produce a player to give us service that matches that of Sean Davis who was just pre academy.
Difficult to argue against the Brentford decision to ditch their academy and feed of others.

But the academy has produced players that have not only played huge parts in several promotions, but also gained us funds that would cover the cost of running the academy for years. And all exempt from FFP. It's a weird benchmark if the academy is only succesful if it manages to produce a player that is good enough for the first team but not good enough to attract theattention of bigger clubs.

Or is your argument that Davis was the far superior player to Carvalho, Sessegnon etc? If it is, then fair enough although I disagree. If not, then I would argue that whether or not a good player leaves or stays has little to do with the model used in acquiring him. It is not as if Brentford has been able to keep their better players.

Yes, Davis was superior to any academy player. He served us for many seasons and was involved in three promotions eventually leaving and earning  money in the transfer market, Carvalho for instance has had but one full season and is about to leave for a fee that is unlikely to buy us a decent premier league player.

I think you are completely missing my point. Do you believe Davis was superior because he didn't come from the academy? Otherwise him being superior or not (although you seem to base that on the actual outcome rather than quality) has nothing at all to do with whether or not we should have an academy.

So, in short, what does Sean Davis have to do with this discussion in your opinion?

[mrmicawbers]

Hopefully becomes better and better.

[Whitesideup]

Key questions:
1) How much does the academy cost?
2) How much do we receive from The EPL /Premier League for the running of the academy? 
2) How much do we recoup from transfer fees and loan deals from players from our academy?

All of these have quantifiable answers.

3) How much does the deployment of academy players in the first-team squad save the club in transfer fees? And even perhaps in reduced salary costs. A 20 year-old in the academy will certainly command less of a salary than an experienced player brought in from another club who we know to be of the required standard, even if just a squad player.

Unquantifiable, but certainly important considerations if we are looking at the real financial net cost or benefit of running the academy.

And as some of these costs and unquantifiable benefits will vary from year to year, a long-term view has to be taken. And of course, others have already mentioned non-monetary benefits.

[filham]

The academy has yet to produce a player to give us service that matches that of Sean Davis who was just pre academy.
Difficult to argue against the Brentford decision to ditch their academy and feed of others.

But the academy has produced players that have not only played huge parts in several promotions, but also gained us funds that would cover the cost of running the academy for years. And all exempt from FFP. It's a weird benchmark if the academy is only succesful if it manages to produce a player that is good enough for the first team but not good enough to attract theattention of bigger clubs.

Or is your argument that Davis was the far superior player to Carvalho, Sessegnon etc? If it is, then fair enough although I disagree. If not, then I would argue that whether or not a good player leaves or stays has little to do with the model used in acquiring him. It is not as if Brentford has been able to keep their better players.

Yes, Davis was superior to any academy player. He served us for many seasons and was involved in three promotions eventually leaving and earning  money in the transfer market, Carvalho for instance has had but one full season and is about to leave for a fee that is unlikely to buy us a decent premier league player.

I think you are completely missing my point. Do you believe Davis was superior because he didn't come from the academy? Otherwise him being superior or not (although you seem to base that on the actual outcome rather than quality) has nothing at all to do with whether or not we should have an academy.

So, in short, what does Sean Davis have to do with this discussion in your opinion?

Sorry, can't see your point of view. Surely the purpose of the academy is to produce quality talent for the first team and were they to produce, every other year, a player with Sean Davis's Fulham record then I would say mission accomplished. Carvalho a promising player is not going to serve us that well. Patrick Roberts , who I thought had a great future and was perhaps the best talent we had seen for years has a record of doing very little on the field but bringing in £12m in transfer money.

Afraid we have to look at the final results when judging the academy, the proof of the pudding is in the eating not in how the dish is prepared.

[Sting of the North]

What is there not to understand (also, again what does Sean David have to do with anything, you forgot to explain that)? The academy is bringing quality talent through. Roberts is one example. It is not the fault of the academy that the first team had incompetent managers and that the club then decided to sell him. The academy worked well there. Same with Sessegnon. Same with Bettinelli, Rodak, Carvalho etc. So you just chose to ignore everything else because the results don't match the arbitrarily set bar that you have applied?

If the academy keeps producing players to the first team, with player sales (counting positive towards FFP)  covering the costs of running it (doesn't count towards FFP), then exactly how is it not successful?

In my opinion there is no way that our academy can be viewed as having a net negative impact on this football club. If there is, then no one here has managed to offer even a hint towards why.

That we lose players to other clubs against our will is an issue,  but this is not a binary situation.

[Tabby]

I am astounded that people trust our scouts to the degree that they do. The entire reason that Brentfords model works is because of their "football computer" and stat geeks. Brentford is being run as a business where they sign cheap players whose "stats" are good and try to flip them for a profit. I've seen the same users who bemoan the academy existing any time a youth player changes clubs also bemoan the exact same kind of scouting system, and furthermore our scouts. I'm not sure if getting rid of the academy would suddenly make them brilliant at their jobs, but I have to assume that is the case given how often this gets brought up.

But yeah, we merely got a season of top Championship performance and at least £5 million out of Carvalho, so better scrap the academy. What is it exactly that we'll gain from scrapping the academy? It isn't something that affects our wage budget or operating costs if it runs at a negative (it will affect it positively with sales), and you can fault the Khan's for some things, but not putting in the money isn't one of them (we are constantly up against the very edges of FFP).

Do people assume that Sean Davis would reincarnate out of the ether the moment the academy got scrapped?

[simplyfulham]

The academy has yet to produce a player to give us service that matches that of Sean Davis who was just pre academy.
Difficult to argue against the Brentford decision to ditch their academy and feed of others.

I think we need to knock this fallacy about the Brentford system and their corresponding success on the head.

Can anybody even name two players to have come through their new system since the closure of their academy in 2016 who have gone one to make more appearances for them then Ryan Sessegnon did for us?

Brentford's mode is not successful because they've ditched their academy, they just realised their recruitment was far superior to their coaching and have doubled down on that.

[simplyfulham]

The academy has yet to produce a player to give us service that matches that of Sean Davis who was just pre academy.
Difficult to argue against the Brentford decision to ditch their academy and feed of others.

But the academy has produced players that have not only played huge parts in several promotions, but also gained us funds that would cover the cost of running the academy for years. And all exempt from FFP. It's a weird benchmark if the academy is only succesful if it manages to produce a player that is good enough for the first team but not good enough to attract theattention of bigger clubs.

Or is your argument that Davis was the far superior player to Carvalho, Sessegnon etc? If it is, then fair enough although I disagree. If not, then I would argue that whether or not a good player leaves or stays has little to do with the model used in acquiring him. It is not as if Brentford has been able to keep their better players.

Yes, Davis was superior to any academy player. He served us for many seasons and was involved in three promotions eventually leaving and earning  money in the transfer market, Carvalho for instance has had but one full season and is about to leave for a fee that is unlikely to buy us a decent premier league player.

I think you are completely missing my point. Do you believe Davis was superior because he didn't come from the academy? Otherwise him being superior or not (although you seem to base that on the actual outcome rather than quality) has nothing at all to do with whether or not we should have an academy.

So, in short, what does Sean Davis have to do with this discussion in your opinion?

Sorry, can't see your point of view. Surely the purpose of the academy is to produce quality talent for the first team and were they to produce, every other year, a player with Sean Davis's Fulham record then I would say mission accomplished. Carvalho a promising player is not going to serve us that well. Patrick Roberts , who I thought had a great future and was perhaps the best talent we had seen for years has a record of doing very little on the field but bringing in £12m in transfer money.

Afraid we have to look at the final results when judging the academy, the proof of the pudding is in the eating not in how the dish is prepared.

I must confess I'm struggling to follow your point.

A Fulham academy player has had huge impact on each of the last 3 promotion seasons we've had from the championship. Surely that's all the pudding you'd need??

(It also meets your requirement of a player every other year)

2017-18: Ryan Sessegnon
2019-20: Marek Rodak
2021-22: Fabio Carvalho