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3 hours ago, Smith&Weston said:

Hearts have already said that the Academy has been neglected for the past 5 years with everything that has went on but are now working to build it back up.  Agree we need a proper strategy to bring through some of these players but I’m sure Neilson would put them in if they were good enough.  I would think we will start to see some fruits again in 2-3 years.


Neglected? I thought the Levein fanboys on here told us he was doing a fantastic job with the Academy! 😏

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Pasquale for King
2 hours ago, colinmaroon said:

 

 

The rule should be 5 subs including at least two under 21.

 

 

Spot on, with bonuses for playing them as it used to be. 

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Pasquale for King
8 minutes ago, Thomaso said:


Neglected? I thought the Levein fanboys on here told us he was doing a fantastic job with the Academy! 😏

With everything, just unlucky 🤦🏽

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Pasquale for King
56 minutes ago, Hesh said:

 

Pretty sure an Academy player goes onto a different payscale once they've played for the first team so if you play a lot of them it will affect the wage bill 

Doesn’t seem to bother other clubs?

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1 hour ago, Thomaso said:


Neglected? I thought the Levein fanboys on here told us he was doing a fantastic job with the Academy! 😏


It’s absolutely shocking. Makes a big song and dance about ‘principles of play’ and how important youth development is and produces zilch in nigh on 7 years. 
 

The right word is mismanaged. Neglected implies that it was forgotten about, as opposed to woefully run with seemingly no actual goals or demands placed on it.

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7 hours ago, Smith&Weston said:

Hearts have already said that the Academy has been neglected for the past 5 years with everything that has went on but are now working to build it back up.  Agree we need a proper strategy to bring through some of these players but I’m sure Neilson would put them in if they were good enough.  I would think we will start to see some fruits again in 2-3 years.

Ann Budge said in summer 2019 that the club had invested £4m on the academy on the previous 5 years.  So presumably another big chunk of cash since then.

 

There has been a lot of hope and bluster all the way through particularly with the drivel from Levein.  But the performance in terms of getting first team players or transfer income has been shocking.  Perhaps a change of Academy Manager after this fruitless period would help.

 

 

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Guest ToqueJambo

Can't believe I'm reading Neilson doesn't want to play youngsters. Aside from last season - which was an unusual one for reasons done to death - he's always played youngsters as Hearts manager. He stuck by many of the kids who got lots of games (out of necessity in most cases rather than them necessarily being ready) under McGlynn and Locke and gave debuts and chances to many more, like Hamilton, Brandon, Morrison, Buchanan, Zanatta, McKirdy, Oliver and most recently McGill, Denholm and Pollock. The likes of Paterson, Walker and Nicolson developed into very good players under him and arguably played their best football under him. Even ones who chose to leave like McGhee and Holt showed they were decent players and he was right to want to keep them. With McGhee Neilson was proven right that he wasn't big enough to be a top level CB as his best football has been as a DM.

 

Take a look at the teams that started the first games of 14/15, 15/16 and 16/17 - lots of young players, even for huge openers against Rangers and Celtic. It's rare for a rookie manager to place so much faith in kids (Cathro didn't) and Neilson made good decisions about which kids were worth a first team spot and which weren't ready. He was given a decent budget in each of those pre-seasons and could easily have signed more experienced players and not relied so heavily on as many youngsters in the first team squad as he did.

 

Even last season, with COVID and no real pre-season to assess the kids when he took over he picked the one he thought could hack it in Irving and surrounded him with experienced pros. Maybe we would have still won the league or played better with more kids in the team but who would put money on that, especially the play better part? Maybe experience was exactly what we needed when teams just parked the bus against us every week?

 

This season is different as the first team bar has been raised so kids will need to be better to get a chance. Makes sense most are out on loan, but it sounds like at minimum, Pollock, Logan and Stone are good prospects.

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I’ve said this before. 
 

There is zero point in our academy. I really think they do a great job developing kids to about 17/18. At that point they must get opportunities to play first team football or their careers stagnate. 
 

I honestly think someone like Connor smith should have been a star but he wasn’t given a chance to play 20-30 games, even in the championship. 
 

By the way I’m not having a go at RN here. His job is to win football matches for Hearts. If he sees signing players as the way to do it then fair enough. 
 

but that means we are wasting a whole lot of £ on an academy we don’t use. Interesting to see a number of quality coaches have left Hearts academy recently, I believe as they feel the same way. 
 

imho the money spent on the academy each year would be better spent on the first team. 

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Guest ToqueJambo
4 minutes ago, robbogoal said:

I’ve said this before. 
 

There is zero point in our academy. I really think they do a great job developing kids to about 17/18. At that point they must get opportunities to play first team football or their careers stagnate. 
 

I honestly think someone like Connor smith should have been a star but he wasn’t given a chance to play 20-30 games, even in the championship. 
 

By the way I’m not having a go at RN here. His job is to win football matches for Hearts. If he sees signing players as the way to do it then fair enough. 
 

but that means we are wasting a whole lot of £ on an academy we don’t use. Interesting to see a number of quality coaches have left Hearts academy recently, I believe as they feel the same way. 
 

imho the money spent on the academy each year would be better spent on the first team. 

 

I don't know or especially care how much the academy costs, but that money is being spent on the first team, it just takes time. There are no guarantees with signings as we've seen many times, just as there are no guarantees with trying to bring our own players through.

 

I don't see a single Academy in Scotland churning out first team regulars or players that go for big fees year after year. It usually comes in cycles. It'll be our turn again at some point. In recent seasons Cochrane was a great prospect and without injury who knows. Irving did very well too. Pollock looked good to me this season. Stone is apparently very highly rated but would he really be better off on our bench?

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Getintaethem

 If you qualify for Europe, which looks likely, the new set up means that we’d have a pretty good chance of making it to the group stages of the conference league.

  That means we’d be playing virtually every midweek up until January.  We’ll need a far bigger squad to compete on all fronts.  
 

  Next season will be the time while you see a few youngsters emerging.  This season we need the experienced guys to get us to that position.

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19 hours ago, Coco said:

Ann Budge said in summer 2019 that the club had invested £4m on the academy on the previous 5 years.  So presumably another big chunk of cash since then.

 

There has been a lot of hope and bluster all the way through particularly with the drivel from Levein.  But the performance in terms of getting first team players or transfer income has been shocking.  Perhaps a change of Academy Manager after this fruitless period would help.

 

 


Drivel right enough! 😏

B7280A4E-F2A8-4C90-A709-B7CFB206DB67.jpeg

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  • 4 months later...
husref musemic

Worth a bump.

 

Reflecting on yesterday, a real disappointment was the contrast of the rangers youth players coming through.

 

Our academy was back up & running properly 2016 i guess & has produced nothing since.

 

How long should this go on before you pull the plug ?

 

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Malinga the Swinga
6 minutes ago, husref musemic said:

Worth a bump.

 

Reflecting on yesterday, a real disappointment was the contrast of the rangers youth players coming through.

 

Our academy was back up & running properly 2016 i guess & has produced nothing since.

 

How long should this go on before you pull the plug ?

 

Congratulations on finding a different sort of negative as the rest of us look forward to Cup final.

 

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25 minutes ago, husref musemic said:

Worth a bump.

 

Reflecting on yesterday, a real disappointment was the contrast of the rangers youth players coming through.

 

Our academy was back up & running properly 2016 i guess & has produced nothing since.

 

How long should this go on before you pull the plug ?

 

Not going to happen 

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husref musemic
4 minutes ago, Hesh said:

Not going to happen 

why ? id love to see us produce our own but it's just not happening. 

 

We're either not doing it right - staff / stategy change required or it's not doable & we cut our losses. six years is long enough.

 

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41 minutes ago, husref musemic said:

Worth a bump.

 

Reflecting on yesterday, a real disappointment was the contrast of the rangers youth players coming through.

 

Our academy was back up & running properly 2016 i guess & has produced nothing since.

 

How long should this go on before you pull the plug ?

 


Wait a minute the last resort from the Levein fanboys on here was that he was doing a fantastic job with our academy……

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2 minutes ago, husref musemic said:

why ? id love to see us produce our own but it's just not happening. 

 

We're either not doing it right - staff / stategy change required or it's not doable & we cut our losses. six years is long enough.

 

Because in 2022 clubs have academies (I suppose the womens teams will be next for the chop)

 

 

 

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32 minutes ago, husref musemic said:

Worth a bump.

 

Reflecting on yesterday, a real disappointment was the contrast of the rangers youth players coming through.

 

Our academy was back up & running properly 2016 i guess & has produced nothing since.

 

How long should this go on before you pull the plug ?

 

 

I don't think we can. To do so would take away from the community side of the club. I do share your frustrations and to be cast aside by effectively rangers U20s + a few senior players is really annoying to see. 

 

Thing is: 


Callum Flatman, Harry Stone, Ewan Simpson and a few others seem to have attracted interest from EPL sides IIRC, so its not like the academy isn't producing players that have ability, its just realising that ability in the first team. Savage has went away and recruited Frankie McAvoy to replace Arnott and he has bags of experience in this area. I'm optimistic that we may begin to see some gains over the next couple of years. But these things take time, and we need to have a little more patience. The guy that wasn't producing the goods is gone now, so we can't expect McAvoy to suddenly be producing talent. 

 

The Brentford model seems to be what some folk hint towards, but they have Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, West Ham, Crystal Palace, Fulham, QPR and a variety of smaller sides to draw players from. We don't. We can maybe look to emulate some of in terms of trying to poach talented youngsters from the OF using a kind of Hickey blueprint to sell them on the move, but ultimately its going to be a tough sell. I think we're best just letting the academy bubble away in the background and if any of the lads are doing well enough to bring into the team then great, but otherwise don't focus too much time and energy on it. There isn't the loyalty in football to justify it. Instead, see if we can go away and find players like Beni who are coming to the end of their deals that we believe can come here and make an immediate impact. 

 

I'd love to see 11 academy lads in the first team, but its very obvious that nowadays they'll happily run their contract down and go sit in the reserves of an EPL side till they're in their mid 20s. Its just not worth the hassle. 

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4 minutes ago, OTT said:

 

I don't think we can. To do so would take away from the community side of the club. I do share your frustrations and to be cast aside by effectively rangers U20s + a few senior players is really annoying to see. 

 

Thing is: 


Callum Flatman, Harry Stone, Ewan Simpson and a few others seem to have attracted interest from EPL sides IIRC, so its not like the academy isn't producing players that have ability, its just realising that ability in the first team. Savage has went away and recruited Frankie McAvoy to replace Arnott and he has bags of experience in this area. I'm optimistic that we may begin to see some gains over the next couple of years. But these things take time, and we need to have a little more patience. The guy that wasn't producing the goods is gone now, so we can't expect McAvoy to suddenly be producing talent. 

 

The Brentford model seems to be what some folk hint towards, but they have Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, West Ham, Crystal Palace, Fulham, QPR and a variety of smaller sides to draw players from. We don't. We can maybe look to emulate some of in terms of trying to poach talented youngsters from the OF using a kind of Hickey blueprint to sell them on the move, but ultimately its going to be a tough sell. I think we're best just letting the academy bubble away in the background and if any of the lads are doing well enough to bring into the team then great, but otherwise don't focus too much time and energy on it. There isn't the loyalty in football to justify it. Instead, see if we can go away and find players like Beni who are coming to the end of their deals that we believe can come here and make an immediate impact. 

 

I'd love to see 11 academy lads in the first team, but its very obvious that nowadays they'll happily run their contract down and go sit in the reserves of an EPL side till they're in their mid 20s. Its just not worth the hassle. 


Sadly your assessment is spot on.

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Watt-Zeefuik
2 minutes ago, jr ewing said:

Imagine using £1m a year on buying a player every year 😳 

 

As pointed out on the other thread, £1m players often want £1m wages. So freeing up £1m/year probably gets us about one £600k player every three years or so.

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Just now, Led Tasso said:

 

As pointed out on the other thread, £1m players often want £1m wages. So freeing up £1m/year probably gets us about one £600k player every three years or so.

Either way, we would get better value for money than we do now or since the academy was formed. 

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Leveins Battalion

I'd imagine Frank McEvoy and John Macglauhlin will be the last throw of the dice at this.We have produced nothing since the admin season.

 

I rarely watch Hearts below 1st team level but I watched the youth cup final,to me they all just follow a blueprint of robotic footballers,no individual flair or creativity,nothing that really stands out.

 

The only player from what I've seen who looks like he could progress is Macualay Tait but he is about 5 foot tall and would not stand a chance unless he sprouts a bit.

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Watt-Zeefuik
4 minutes ago, jr ewing said:

Either way, we would get better value for money than we do now or since the academy was formed. 

 

We've had a dry spell recently, exacerbated by the lack of a reserves league, but our academy has produced some gems over the years.

 

Meanwhile £600k/year might get you a real player, or it might get you an Oshaniwa.

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2 minutes ago, Led Tasso said:

 

We've had a dry spell recently, exacerbated by the lack of a reserves league, but our academy has produced some gems over the years.

 

Meanwhile £600k/year might get you a real player, or it might get you an Oshaniwa.

Would trust Joe with our money 💰 

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Watt-Zeefuik
2 hours ago, jr ewing said:

Would trust Joe with our money 💰 

I also trust him with our academy.

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1 minute ago, Led Tasso said:

I also trust him with our academy.

Results based business. Already showed that he can unearth good pros who can go straight into a team. Academy unfortunately is a bit of a pipedream.

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husref musemic
3 hours ago, Hesh said:

Because in 2022 clubs have academies (I suppose the womens teams will be next for the chop)

 

 

 

Clubs have these (in 2022) to produce first team talent. What we have is an expensive youth club.

 

The women's team is another debate.

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4 hours ago, husref musemic said:

Worth a bump.

 

Reflecting on yesterday, a real disappointment was the contrast of the rangers youth players coming through.

 

Our academy was back up & running properly 2016 i guess & has produced nothing since.

 

How long should this go on before you pull the plug ?

 


They weren’t academy players that was their colts team. Our 18s more than matched theirs in the cup final a few weeks ago.

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15 minutes ago, husref musemic said:

Clubs have these (in 2022) to produce first team talent. What we have is an expensive youth club.

 

The women's team is another debate.

Those comments say more about you than anything else 

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husref musemic
3 hours ago, OTT said:

 

I don't think we can. To do so would take away from the community side of the club. I do share your frustrations and to be cast aside by effectively rangers U20s + a few senior players is really annoying to see. 

 

Thing is: 


Callum Flatman, Harry Stone, Ewan Simpson and a few others seem to have attracted interest from EPL sides IIRC, so its not like the academy isn't producing players that have ability, its just realising that ability in the first team. Savage has went away and recruited Frankie McAvoy to replace Arnott and he has bags of experience in this area. I'm optimistic that we may begin to see some gains over the next couple of years. But these things take time, and we need to have a little more patience. The guy that wasn't producing the goods is gone now, so we can't expect McAvoy to suddenly be producing talent. 

 

The Brentford model seems to be what some folk hint towards, but they have Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, West Ham, Crystal Palace, Fulham, QPR and a variety of smaller sides to draw players from. We don't. We can maybe look to emulate some of in terms of trying to poach talented youngsters from the OF using a kind of Hickey blueprint to sell them on the move, but ultimately its going to be a tough sell. I think we're best just letting the academy bubble away in the background and if any of the lads are doing well enough to bring into the team then great, but otherwise don't focus too much time and energy on it. There isn't the loyalty in football to justify it. Instead, see if we can go away and find players like Beni who are coming to the end of their deals that we believe can come here and make an immediate impact. 

 

I'd love to see 11 academy lads in the first team, but its very obvious that nowadays they'll happily run their contract down and go sit in the reserves of an EPL side till they're in their mid 20s. Its just not worth the hassle. 

Thanks for the reply OTT. you clearly know allot of detail regarding the setup.

 

I agree McAvoy should not be saddled with the last 6 years & it'll take time to turn it around. I hope he with the backing of joe savage can turn it around. 

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husref musemic
6 minutes ago, Hesh said:

Those comments say more about you than anything else 

does it ? 

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Bongo 1874
4 hours ago, Thomaso said:


Wait a minute the last resort from the Levein fanboys on here was that he was doing a fantastic job with our academy……

And Bob has them playing football 🙄

 

 

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Watt-Zeefuik
1 hour ago, jr ewing said:

Results based business. Already showed that he can unearth good pros who can go straight into a team. Academy unfortunately is a bit of a pipedream.

 

Paterson, Nicholson, Walker, King, Gordon, and others are not pipedreams.

 

We've gotten good value out of our academy before. We can do it again.

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Bongo 1874
6 minutes ago, Led Tasso said:

 

Paterson, Nicholson, Walker, King, Gordon, and others are not pipedreams.

 

We've gotten good value out of our academy before. We can do it again.

We might if we implement a certain style of play, and a manager that can get the squad all buying into it.

 

 

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15 minutes ago, Led Tasso said:

 

Paterson, Nicholson, Walker, King, Gordon, and others are not pipedreams.

 

We've gotten good value out of our academy before. We can do it again.

They're all pre academy players. Nothing since. 

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Nikoliunas
5 hours ago, Hesh said:

Because in 2022 clubs have academies (I suppose the womens teams will be next for the chop)

 

Excellent idea 

 

 

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5 hours ago, husref musemic said:

why ? id love to see us produce our own but it's just not happening. 

 

We're either not doing it right - staff / stategy change required or it's not doable & we cut our losses. six years is long enough.

 

****ing Ell 🤣🤣🤣 

Tell everyone you are clueless about Youth football , whats been going on the last few years , Scottish Football and Academies without telling everyone you are clueless 🙈🙈

 

 

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42 minutes ago, Bongo 1874 said:

We might if we implement a certain style of play, and a manager that can get the squad all buying into it.

 

 

**** me got one thats clueless and one thats blinded by Stendel and Robbie hate. Glad this thread got bumped and I was stupid enough to expect it to be interesting 

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5 hours ago, OTT said:

 

I don't think we can. To do so would take away from the community side of the club. 

 

Thing is: 


Callum Flatman, Harry Stone, Ewan Simpson and a few others seem to have attracted interest from EPL sides IIRC, so its not like the academy isn't producing players that have ability, its just realising that ability in the first team. Savage has went away and recruited Frankie McAvoy to replace Arnott and he has bags of experience in this area. I'm optimistic that we may begin to see some gains over the next couple of years. But these things take time, and we need to have a little more patience. The guy that wasn't producing the goods is gone now, so we can't expect McAvoy to suddenly be producing talent. 

 

The Brentford model seems to be what some folk hint towards, but they have Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, West Ham, Crystal Palace, Fulham, QPR and a variety of smaller sides to draw players from. We don't. We can maybe look to emulate some of in terms of trying to poach talented youngsters from the OF using a kind of Hickey blueprint to sell them on the move, but ultimately its going to be a tough sell. I think we're best just letting the academy bubble away in the background and if any of the lads are doing well enough to bring into the team then great, but otherwise don't focus too much time and energy on it. There isn't the loyalty in football to justify it. Instead, see if we can go away and find players like Beni who are coming to the end of their deals that we believe can come here and make an immediate impact. 

 

I'd love to see 11 academy lads in the first team, but its very obvious that nowadays they'll happily run their contract down and go sit in the reserves of an EPL side till they're in their mid 20s. Its just not worth the hassle. 


Broadly speaking this post is very much spot on sadly (for clarity i took out the bit thats just 🙈 - the rest is difficult to argue with)

Edited by sadj
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54 minutes ago, Led Tasso said:

 

Paterson, Nicholson, Walker, King, Gordon, and others are not pipedreams.

 

We've gotten good value out of our academy before. We can do it again.

We may but its also a different world now sadly and what OTT says is fairly accurate.

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Bongo 1874
14 minutes ago, sadj said:

**** me got one thats clueless and one thats blinded by Stendel and Robbie hate. Glad this thread got bumped and I was stupid enough to expect it to be interesting 

No? one that understands why Rangers youth handed us our arses yesterday 👍.

 

Because every single Rangers side plays the same formation and style 😉👍 this creates no confusion of what is expected, for example James Tav isn't playing yesterday, young Adam Devine comes in as the attacking full back 😉😁, it also helps if you have a manager that can get his team playing that sort of football, the transition from Steven Gerrard to GVB has been easy, and that's the difference between a coach that wants to play attacking football and a high press. 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Bongo 1874
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2 hours ago, husref musemic said:

Thanks for the reply OTT. you clearly know allot of detail regarding the setup.

 

I agree McAvoy should not be saddled with the last 6 years & it'll take time to turn it around. I hope he with the backing of joe savage can turn it around. 

 

Honestly, there is much better informed people than me. @Footballfirst I think has a better understanding/ more knowledge of all things academy related so could probably offer more than just opinion. 

 

The fact that Arnott was moved on with no discernible success to speak of I think speaks volumes, although I could be totally wrong and he's chosen to move? I much prefer the prospect of someone with bags of experience running our academy than someone who seems relatively new to it. Leveins whole coaching structure needed torn up and it seems clear thats exactly whats happened. Just need to give Savage and his team time to get things back on track :) - Are there any survivors of Leveins tenure? Recruitment & Scouting, gone. Academy, gone. First team coaches, gone. Doesn't speak to us being left in a good state despite the cleared decks of 2014. 

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KyleLafferty
25 minutes ago, Bongo 1874 said:

No? one that understands why Rangers youth handed us our arses yesterday 👍.

 

Because every single Rangers side plays the same formation and style 😉👍 this creates no confusion of what is expected, for example James Tav isn't playing yesterday, young Adam Devine comes in as the attacking full back 😉😁, it also helps if you have a manager that can get his team playing that sort of football, the transition from Steven Gerrard to GVB has been easy, and that's the difference between a coach that wants to play attacking football and a high press. 

 

 

 

 

From what I’ve seen from the 18s they play the exact same way as the first team.

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1 hour ago, sadj said:

We may but its also a different world now sadly and what OTT says is fairly accurate.

Craig Gordon is old enough to be their Dad.

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1 hour ago, OTT said:

 

Honestly, there is much better informed people than me. @Footballfirst I think has a better understanding/ more knowledge of all things academy related so could probably offer more than just opinion. 

 

The fact that Arnott was moved on with no discernible success to speak of I think speaks volumes, although I could be totally wrong and he's chosen to move? I much prefer the prospect of someone with bags of experience running our academy than someone who seems relatively new to it. Leveins whole coaching structure needed torn up and it seems clear thats exactly whats happened. Just need to give Savage and his team time to get things back on track :) - Are there any survivors of Leveins tenure? Recruitment & Scouting, gone. Academy, gone. First team coaches, gone. Doesn't speak to us being left in a good state despite the cleared decks of 2014. 


The damage caused by Levein went to the very core of our Club from the Academy right through to our first team!

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