Brandon Buckley / The Youth Team

Now that we've got a manager who potentially might actually consider playing a product of the youth team, i thought it'd be good to maybe have a bit of a positive discussion about the yoof.

Young Buckley - Just how good is he? I realise he's probably a few years off but are we allowed to get legitimately excited about this kid? It'd be too good to be true if he came good!
I've heard nothing but good things and he seems to score more often than not when playing for the youth team (although he's apparently more of a number 10).

Just wondered if anyone on here has attended youth/reserve games that he's played in and had an insight.

And while we're at it, is anyone else in the youth team currently impressing?

Not sure if the young players could handle being called useless ect,

So just say nice things or nothing at all please.

I see a couple of the youth lads have been released already and one played for Gy Borough recently.

Hand on heart I think it may be a little longer before the revamped youth system starts to produce. This is another major reason why relegation MUST be avoided

I've seen Buckley a few times earlier in the season for the youth.

Very talented and confident on the ball, the lad definitely has talent and is capable of ghosting past players like they're not there.

That said he looked miles away, physically, from the first team. Let the lad develop over the summer and see from there.

Well we are two weeks into April and i thought we were expecting a conclusion to the Akheem Rose situation any time now. ...

but then we were also expecting further announcements on Peakes Parkway in "a couple of weeks" back in December...

If there is ability there, I'd sort of hope that we'd keep him on the books and try to introduce him in fits and starts next season (when we'll hopefully be a Football League club in a comfortable position). You can fill out and strengthen a heck of a lot in a year or two from your late teens and too many players are discarded because it is assumed they aren't up to the job physically.

I think, but happy to be corrected, he's a first year YT at the minute so he's got another year with the youth team.

Excellent points about filling out in a year at that age.  My personal belief is that there's far too little patience with young players in this country, especially at our level.   I completely understand the financial implications of keeping lads on for another year or so but I would hope that under this new philosophy that Jolley is bringing in we're far more pro-active with our young lads and their development.

At the minute we've the likes of Tom Sawyer and Jack Keeble who were given one-year professional contracts in the summer.  If they're to progress beyond that one-year deal realistically they're expected to make the transition with ease from youth team to full-time professional, make in-roads on the first team squad and/or impress to the point that they're deemed worthy of a deal as something other than cheap squad filler.  That's asking far too much for the vast majority of youngsters.  In my time as a Town fan (first game 1990) I can think of four players who have stepped up from the youth team to first team before the end of their first year professional contract - Gary Croft, Peter Handyside, John Oster and Ryan Bennett.  Only Oster was with us before he was 16 so the others possibly had greater development at their previous clubs.  Oster was a rarity in that he was the best player in the first team before he'd even finished his YTS.  The likes of Jack Lester, Daryl Clare, Danny North etc. all benefited from a couple of sustained development years before they were expected to compete with the experienced professionals.  In the case of Lester he never really looked capable of producing until he was in his early 20's.

The last two years aren't a great example as the squad has been massively bloated but at present we've someone like Karleigh Osbourne in the squad..  A 30-year-old experienced professional who has managed 9 league starts this season for us.   I'm sure he's a nice lad but what a waste.  What an absolute waste of the budget when we could have used that to give another year to two or three lads who were released without a chance last summer.  Would they have made it?  We'll never know but I would much rather have seen them get a chance than just chucking money down the drain on relatively expensive cover.

If the club is to change it's outlook then youth development has to be at the heart of it, key to that is giving the lads deemed worthy of a professional deal far more than year to adapt and impress.

I've lost count of the times in the last few summers we've heard the line about 18 professionals, supported by the young lads.  Yet every year we end up with 25+ professionals on the books, a handful of whom never make it into double figure appearances.  I hope this summer is the year we buck that trend.

Quoted from diehardmariner

I think, but happy to be corrected, he's a first year YT at the minute so he's got another year with the youth team.

Excellent points about filling out in a year at that age.  My personal belief is that there's far too little patience with young players in this country, especially at our level.   I completely understand the financial implications of keeping lads on for another year or so but I would hope that under this new philosophy that Jolley is bringing in we're far more pro-active with our young lads and their development.

At the minute we've the likes of Tom Sawyer and Jack Keeble who were given one-year professional contracts in the summer.  If they're to progress beyond that one-year deal realistically they're expected to make the transition with ease from youth team to full-time professional, make in-roads on the first team squad and/or impress to the point that they're deemed worthy of a deal as something other than cheap squad filler.  That's asking far too much for the vast majority of youngsters.  In my time as a Town fan (first game 1990) I can think of four players who have stepped up from the youth team to first team before the end of their first year professional contract - Gary Croft, Peter Handyside, John Oster and Ryan Bennett.  Only Oster was with us before he was 16 so the others possibly had greater development at their previous clubs.  Oster was a rarity in that he was the best player in the first team before he'd even finished his YTS.  The likes of Jack Lester, Daryl Clare, Danny North etc. all benefited from a couple of sustained development years before they were expected to compete with the experienced professionals.  In the case of Lester he never really looked capable of producing until he was in his early 20's.

The last two years aren't a great example as the squad has been massively bloated but at present we've someone like Karleigh Osbourne in the squad..  A 30-year-old experienced professional who has managed 9 league starts this season for us.   I'm sure he's a nice lad but what a waste.  What an absolute waste of the budget when we could have used that to give another year to two or three lads who were released without a chance last summer.  Would they have made it?  We'll never know but I would much rather have seen them get a chance than just chucking money down the drain on relatively expensive cover.

If the club is to change it's outlook then youth development has to be at the heart of it, key to that is giving the lads deemed worthy of a professional deal far more than year to adapt and impress.

I've lost count of the times in the last few summers we've heard the line about 18 professionals, supported by the young lads.  Yet every year we end up with 25+ professionals on the books, a handful of whom never make it into double figure appearances.  I hope this summer is the year we buck that trend.

Excellent post, completely agree.

I agree too.

At the end of this season you could probably group three or four players under that bracket of not making double figures in appearances and wonder if that money was spent wisely.

Easy to say retrospectively but the way Slade was signing players left right and centre, permanents and loans, to replace players he hadn't even given a run in the team to, is probably a contributing factor to where we are right now.

Developing youth takes patience and in this world of instant gratification not many clubs have the foresight to do it properly.

Quoted from RichMariner

I agree too.

At the end of this season you could probably group three or four players under that bracket of not making double figures in appearances and wonder if that money was spent wisely.

Easy to say retrospectively but the way Slade was signing players left right and centre, permanents and loans, to replace players he hadn't even given a run in the team to, is probably a contributing factor to where we are right now.

Developing youth takes patience and in this world of instant gratification not many clubs have the foresight to do it properly.

developing that point about loanees a little. 6 weeks ago we were stressing about the possibility of falling foul of the rules about the number of loanees we could play.
i wonder how much the loaness have cost us and what exactly they've achieved. wilkes and vernham injured and gone, keane(?) disappeared into the ether, sulaiman (remember him?), jackson injured plus matt and dj who are squad players at best