Club youth thread

Mr Elmo

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Don't think there is a thread for this - Unless I didn't look hard enough, correct me if I'm wrong.

So how's your clubs youth going? U21s/U18s league? Any new players getting onto the first team? Post anything about how your youth is going and if the future looks bright.

It's looking pretty good for Derby right now, sitting 2nd in the U21 Premier league only 2 points behind Middlesbrough, we could be in division 1 next season. Our U18s are doing decent too, sitting mid table in Premier division North including clubs like Man Utd, Man City and Liverpool.

A few are looking at the first team too, Ivan Calero (Attacking Mid) has had odd games this season, just not ready yet. Jamie Hanson (Holding) came in for a massive debut against Norwich and did pretty good considering their attack and finally Farrend Rawson (Centre half) is playing for Rotherham on loan. I haven't seen anything of him, but according to some fans he is doing quite well, any Rotherham fans here want to give their opinions?

So far it's looking good for us, hoping we can produce a few more players of Hughes' quality soon enough too.
 

Jockney

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Fred Onyedinma
Probably the best since we brought through Lucas Neill, Steven Reid, Paul Ifill, et al. Aiden O'Brien, 20, and Sid Nelson, 18, have broken through in the past couple of months. O'Brien's a forward who plays a bit deeper than your average frontman and he's looked very composed so far: all tricks and flicks, clearly enjoys his football. Nelson's inexperience shows, and I'm not sure he's ready for this level of football just yet, but physically and technically he looks to have the tools at his disposal and he's still a decade or so from his peak.

Other than those two, we have:

Fred Onyedinma: 18-year-old winger on loan at Wycombe who's got eight goals since January.

Jake Goodman: 21-year-old fullback on loan at Wimbledon. Regular starter for them.

Jack Powell: 20-year-old central midfielder with a real touch of class about him and should definitely be involved more than he currently is.

Ben Thompson: 19-year-old midfielder who has made a few sub appearances but hasn't quite broken through yet. People I've spoken to rate him highly.

Jamie Philpott: 18-year-old striker who's banging them in in the youth leagues. Creating the biggest buzz among those at the club.

Alfie Pavey: 19-year-old striker who has been threatening to break onto the scene for about a year now, but it hasn't happened for him yet. Rumours are that he's regressed.

Others, too, though I'm not as knowledgable on the subject as most other Millwall fans.

I expect O'Brien, Nelson, Onyedinma, Goodman and Powell will all be heavily involved in the first team squad next year (if we go down, which looks extremely likely, I actually think Fred, O'Brien and Nelson will be starters). Hopefully we'll get to see Thompson and Philpot, too, as they sound like real talents.

The most exciting thing about this generation is that we probably will get to find out just how good they are, because Harris, in his previous role as U-21s manager, has spent the past two years moulding them and he looks all-but certain to be our boss next year.
 

AFCB_Mark

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Our U18s won their 'Football League Youth Alliance' league and are now in the 'Merit League South'.

The standout youngster is Baily Cargill, England U20 international centre back, played again for them in the recent international break. We've also got various youngsters on loan across League Two and the Conference.

It's all a process of recovery after the youth setup here was all but destroyed in cost cutting circa 2007/8. Of the money that the owners have put in, quite a chunk has gone into rebuilding and recruiting for the youth department. We've worked back up to a Cat 3 facility on the EPP scale and want to progress to Cat 2 soon.

We've got some good people working in the setup now, Joe Roach returned from his position with the FA to head it up, he's the bloke responsible for our production of the likes of Danny Ings, Sam Vokes, and Brett Pitman, or Wade Elliot, Carl Fletcher and James Hayter going further back. Roach has Carl Fletcher (was Plymouth manager a few years back), Matty Holmes, Steve Purches working with different age groups. We now have 'development centres' dotted around the south and have teams and coaches going down as far as under 11s and even under 9s!

I'm sure this is all very standard with most teams and their academies at this level, but we're playing catchup and hopefully things are moving in a good direction. The challenge we have is adjusting our standards for producing a slightly higher ability of player than we're used to over the last 20 years.
 

SUTSS

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Jamar Loza got his first goal for the senior side with the 98th minute equaliser v Huddersfield and Carlton Morris has also made his debut recently.

Our U21s have been competing in the Premier League International Cup where we were in a group with Chelsea, Porto and Borussia Monchengladbach. Finished 3rd in the group. There are some promising players in the U21s from the youth cup winning side of a couple of years ago and the next 18 months will probably shape whether they can make the step up or not. The most promising are the Murphy twins, both of whom have played in the first team. Cam McGeehan was always considered a good prospect but he looks like he'll be joining Luton permanently in the summer. The other one to look out for is Harry Toffolo who is playing well on loan to Swindon.
 

markwwfc1992

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Were in the same under 21 division as Derby but were bottom of the league :lol:

I'm not reading too much into it though, we have many home grown players from our academy playing in the first team now. We usually call them up early to the main squad if they are good enough rather than let them play under 21 football. Off the top of my head we have:

Dominic Iorfa
Jack Price
Carl Ikeme
Danny Batth

(Kourtney Hause and Lee Evans were signed from other clubs at a young age but were signed to play through our academy teams.)

All had been regulars in the under21's but now are all players who are in and around the starting XI every week for the main squad.

EDIT

We seem to be doing half decent in the under-18 league though, were above Derby in that! Also every age group league I seem to see Middlesbrough top of the League, they must have a great academy set up, shame they don't use it instead of loaning Chelsea's reserve team every season
 
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Mr Elmo

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I think at the moment its just waiting for the right time to bind them in, at this time its not really a good idea as teams fight for promotion. I expect to see some more next season though.
 

Madejski

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[INSERT OUR SQUAD LIST FOR 2015/16 SEASON]

But seriously, we have a lot of good youth players coming through the club at the moment, too many to mention. Some have been given decent game time this season (8 debutants, 2 of which have played 10+ games), and i'm hoping once safety is assured this year that more will play.

Don't think the youth leagues are really a true indicator of youth quality, only competition to really gauge success in is the U18 FA Youth Cup which doesn't have stupid rules and is a competition every club takes seriously. But we're 3rd in division 2 of the Premier League U21s and qualified for group 2 (out of 3) in the Premier League U18s league.

Rate of youth players coming through the team is ridiculous lately, I could see if we were relegated to League One in the next couple of seasons, a full starting 11 of purely players who have come through the Reading academy.
 
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Tom_ITFC

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We tried to get Category 1 last season and missed out on their grading by less than 1% apparently. Now we're being told the goalposts have been moved so far ahead this season that there is no chance we'll get Category 1.
 

Super_horns

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Despite the fact we do have the Pozzo family system we do seem pretty keen to maintain our tradition of bringing through youngsters..

Hoping to move up to Category B and signed up 3/4 youngsters over the past couple of seasons in lauding one las who has got about 30 goals in as many games.

Some of the big boys have been sniffing around though which us always the danger.
 

Magic

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At the moment ours is great but whether it'll still be good next year is another matter.

Our whole midfield could potentially be made up of academy products before the end of the season should Cook ever replace Murphy.

Byram-Cook-Mowatt-Phillips-Taylor

Byram's obviously been through for a while but coming back to form after having a disrupted season last year. Mowatt's added goals to his game to be a big player this season. Cook's come through and is the real deal at just 18 and then you have Taylor who's been around for a while but taking his chance now since Warnock went to Derby, and Phillips made his debut yesterday.

Obviously promising times and there will be more waiting in the wings - the likes of Walters (ST) and Dawson (CM) and I'm sure they'll get a look in at some point but I just hope we can hold onto them all for next season...it just doesn't seem likely!
 

big mean bunny

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The u21s are currently bottom of the 1st divison and the u18s are 5th in the prem like Mark mentions, however from what I have picked up though it is virtually the same squad so is a very young u21s, Wolves had a cull and promoted a lot of the younger lads into the u21 set up although not sure on the details of that, used to be a fan that went to every game from what I can tell but he doesn't update the other site I read as regularly now as he had health issues.

Personally I would still be in favour of the u21s becoming an u23s league.

Last year our match squads were averaging just sort of 8 players a game that were considered in the home grown rulings which was one of the highest.
 

El Guapo

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Our latest teenage prodigy to come off the conveyor belt, Viv Solomon-Otabor, has today signed a new three and a half year contract.

No doubt with a £100,000 release clause.
 

big mean bunny

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Hopefully he is an attacker, as that is a classy sound name. What's the thoughts on him?
 

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Offered professional deals to Matthew Hudson (GK) & Clive Smith (RB).

Who knows how they will turn out but Hudson supposedly looked quite assured when he came on against Leeds, supposedly been impressive for the youth team.

We're due a good one, Josh Brownhill looked a great prospect at 18 but his development has stalled massively.
 

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Not been so many opportunities for youth players this year. 21 y/o Tshibola came back from his loan from Hartlepool last season and really kicked on and was quite rightfully playing in most of our early season games (15 apps) but he has been injured the past couple of months. Cooper (CB) has been playing a bit recently and Keown (CB/RB) regular makes our bench, both 20. We had a 16 year old make our bench up at Preston too but that was down to a real injury crisis IIRC.

Had a lot of players out loan but most have come back after failing. Only real noticeable successes are Samuel at Gillingham and Dickie at Cheltenham.

Club keep youth transfers very quiet (and so they should), but this season we lost our best U16 player to Arsenal, whilst signing a 18 year old winger from Sporting Lisbon and last week a 17 year old winger from Zeljeznicar (Bosnia).

League wise we're 4th in the U21 Prem Div 1, though can drop down to 6th with Chelsea and Man City's games in hand. 2nd in the U18 Prem Southern section.
 

El Guapo

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Hopefully he is an attacker, as that is a classy sound name. What's the thoughts on him?
Similar to Demarai Gray... doesn't possess the same sort of skill and trickery but he looks stronger and more direct. Scored his first goal against Fulham running from inside his own half, forcing Richard Stearman to backpedal 40 yards and left him on his backside.
 
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StevieEvansRedNWhiteArmy

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Don't think there is a thread for this - Unless I didn't look hard enough, correct me if I'm wrong.

So how's your clubs youth going? U21s/U18s league? Any new players getting onto the first team? Post anything about how your youth is going and if the future looks bright.

It's looking pretty good for Derby right now, sitting 2nd in the U21 Premier league only 2 points behind Middlesbrough, we could be in division 1 next season. Our U18s are doing decent too, sitting mid table in Premier division North including clubs like Man Utd, Man City and Liverpool.

A few are looking at the first team too, Ivan Calero (Attacking Mid) has had odd games this season, just not ready yet. Jamie Hanson (Holding) came in for a massive debut against Norwich and did pretty good considering their attack and finally Farrend Rawson (Centre half) is playing for Rotherham on loan. I haven't seen anything of him, but according to some fans he is doing quite well, any Rotherham fans here want to give their opinions?

So far it's looking good for us, hoping we can produce a few more players of Hughes' quality soon enough too.


Farrend Rawson will be a regular PL player and an England centre half, no doubts about that.
 

Nuttall

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can't remember the last time a youth player had a really good impact on our first team, Liam Palmer is in and around the squad and has been for a few years but i don't particularly rate him. Joe Wildsmith has come to the fore this season with Westwoods injuries but i don't expect him to replace Westwood anytime soon, he's a good prospect mind. Thats about it.
 

Nook Terrier

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Our under 21s have won 14 on the bounce..

So some should certainly be knocking on the first team door.
 

M Dogg

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We have got a few who are looking good.

Osborn's been on the scene a while and is a first team regular. Scored *that* goal last year.

Tyler Walker's been in and out but is definitely a hot prospect whilst Jorge Grant hasn't played much but again is highly rated (scored against Spurs last year). Dimi Evtimov made his debut at Wednesday and dropped a bit of a clanger, though he actually had a decent match overall, happy enough with him as backup to DDV.

There there's Olly Burke, who looks amazing tbh. Villa keep trying to buy him to no avail. He's a 6ft winger who is probably the fastest player I've seen at Forest. 3 starts and he's scored 2 and assisted one whilst almost winning us the game against Leeds off the bench when he hammered the post. He looks pretty unreal to be honest and will be gone in the next year or so I'm sure. Look at his goal against Cardiff on his first league start... absolutely class. His assist v QPR when he ran half the length of the pitch and had QPR defenders shitting themselves was great.
 

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