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U23s & Academy


Skirge

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  • 3 weeks later...
Guest Lalasialex

Curtis Not so good?

 

If was nearly as good as we hoped he should've played instead of Willy - but then again it's AP's decision so hard to say...

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Academy new boy Ben Drennan has been called up by England ahead of an under-17 tournament in Norway later this summer.

The 16-year-old midfielder is one of several scholars to join Newcastle this summer, although he made 12 appearances for the Magpies in the Barclays Under-18 Premier League last term while still at school, scoring once.

He has been named in Kenny Swain's squad for the Nordic Tournament, which takes place in August and will see England face the Faroe Islands, Finland and the host nation in the group stages.

 

The Young Lions will play Faroe Islands in Brumunddal on Monday, 5th August, then Finland the following day in Vang before taking on Norway in Brumunddal on Thursday, 8th August.

Fellow Newcastle youngster Freddie Woodman represented his country in last year's competition, when England finished as runners-up. It is Drennan's first international call-up.

The full squad is: Dean Henderson (Manchester United), Tom Huddart (Arsenal), Matthew Elsdon (Middlesbrough), Jay DaSilva (Chelsea), Archie Edwards (Charlton Athletic), Jonathan Helm (Middlesbrough), Cameron Humphries (Manchester City), Easiah Sulliman (Aston Villa), Callum Cooke (Middlesbrough), Ben Drennan (Newcastle United), Foday Nabay (Birmingham City), Daniel Pybus (Sunderland), Liam Walsh (Everton), Denzeil Boadu (Manchester City), Brandon Fox (Leicester City), Hugo Logan (MK Dons), Ainsley Maitland-Niles (Arsenal), Giorgio Rasulo (MK Dons).

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Six young Newcastle United players have put pen to paper on new deals at St. James' Park, the Club can confirm.

 

Goalkeepers Jak Alnwick and Jonathan Mitchell, defender Paul Dummett, midfielders Conor Newton and Michael Richardson and forward Alex Gilliead have all extended their stays on Tyneside.

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Guest Roger Kint

No news on Inman then? Sounds like he might be off.

 

Theres going to be pages of jokes if he does

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  • 2 weeks later...

The latest club to announce that their academy has Category One status is Reading, this category is the highest ranking within the Premier League’s Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP).

 

There are massive benefits that come with that top status, especially the fact that Category One clubs can cast their nets far wider in terms of bringing in promising young kids from further afield.

 

A rigorous auditing system is used to see if a club meets the highest standards in football and coaching philosophy, facilities and personnel, and player development.

 

A Reading club statement reads;

 

“Reading Football Club are absolutely delighted to announce that our Academy has been awarded the highest possible rating of Category One.

 

From day one, owner Anton Zingarevich has placed huge emphasis on our youth set-up and this categorisation gives us the best chance of maintaining and building upon the fantastic successes from within our youth set-up.”

 

Reading’s Director of Football, Nick Hammond;

 

“There are all sorts of benefits but also all sorts of costs as well. I’m delighted from the club’s perspective, from Anton and the board we’ve had that sort of support, because it has been a cornerstone of the club.”

 

This is now the updated list of clubs with that top Category One Academy status.

 

Arsenal

Aston Villa

Bolton

Blackburn

Chelsea

Everton

Fulham

Leicester

Liverpool

Manchester City

Manchester United

Middlesbrough

Norwich

Reading

Southampton

Stoke

Sunderland

Tottenham

West Brom

West Ham

Wolves

 

As for Newcastle United? Well, last year Newcastle were given Category Two status which puts severe limitations on United’s ability to recruit young players from a wider area. It also unfortunately makes the club a less attractive proposition to promising kids in even our own catchment area, with the likes of Sunderland and Middlesbrough able to offer kids that top Academy status. If you’re a parent and really want to do the best for your son, where would you send them?

 

Newcastle United haven’t made any statement themselves on the subject but their friendly journalists have been happy to put out stories without any substance, along the lines of ‘United expect to be upgraded to Category One by Christmas (2012)’, which them became ‘by the end of the season’, that being the one that just ended.

 

At the time when it was revealed that Newcastle had failed to get top status, I looked into the subject and found it was stated that clubs getting the lower status could re-apply after a two year wait to be upgraded. Which by my reckoning would mean it would be at least another year until our club could get that Category One status and able to compete on a level footing with the likes of Reading, Sunderland, Boro, Wolves…

 

As always, Newcastle United’s subservient press are happy to just repeat the lines they are fed, terrified of actually saying anything that might interfere with the propaganda that is drip fed to them by the club.

 

In the past we have seen headlines such as ‘Mike Ashley to pump £10m into the Academy’, while one of the spins that was put on the Wonga deal was that a proportion of the sponsorship money was going to be used for the academy. Surely that just a ridiculous spin, it is like your employer giving you your weekly/monthly payslip and on it having a breakdown of £XXX for food, £XXX mortgage/rent and so on.

 

The simple fact is that Newcastle United’s Academy was found to be not as good as the twenty clubs listed above and the more telling result that we can see with our own eyes is that the Academy is failing miserably in producing players good enough to play in the Premier League.

 

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Are any of these academies actually producing many premier league standard young English players?

 

If I was a parent of a talented young footballer, I'd rather send them to the academy of a Championship/League 1 team where they have a far better chance of being given a chance to break into the first team and then kick on from there.

 

The number of local rejects from the likes of Newcastle, Sunderland etc plummeting down to local league football seems to have massively increased in the past 5 years. At one time you'd have released players going off to other football league clubs and making it there or even in the Conference, now they seem to even bypass that and in a lot of cases just bomb all the way down to the Northern League (which was almost unheard of 10 years ago). That's a 8 league drop!

 

Something in the last 10 years has drastically gone wrong with the way North East players are produced (or not), if we want to see a new generation of Gazzas, Waddles, Beardsleys etc, then things have to change. I don't think this new academies setup is going to produce that, the u21/reserve team football seems to be physically weak also so as when the player does arrive at a point to be introduced to 1st team football, they don't appear to be anywhere near up to that transition.

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