EPL youth academies need to be tweaked down/ remodelling of Regens from EPL Academies

note: was deliberating if this was the right forum for the post couldn't decide wheather to post it here or under League/club Data Issues.

note II: Accidently posted this in the handheld forums so I am duplicating a thread in the general discussion for PC now.

WARNING: If you are not at all interested in youth development or the future of English football avoid reading further.

Since I work in the football industry and I spent 5months last year in England visting clubs and academies of teams such as Manchester United, Aston Villa and West Ham. The consensus seems to be the same that the "Wayne Rooney" of English nationals will be the last real fruitful generation of England nationals.

Some consideration has to be given to the fact that this was during the time when "Worldclass" England manager Steve McClaren was in charge of the national team and managed to lose out to a Croatia side that had absolutley nothing to play for at Wembley.

Since the FA decided to implement their own version of the French Academy system (mid 90's) they have continously forced clubs to only recruit players from a limited geographical perimeter (basically around their area code).

This has killed the earlier "free market" situaiton that before exsisted on youth players. Such as Man United being able to recruit from outside London as was the case with Beckham.

The FA had valiant intentions with this: Attempting/forcing the clubs to cocentrate and coperate more with grass root development in their own area inorder to ensure that they will have a good base for recruitment

However the consequences have been detremental.

In the EPL and thus in the English Premier youth academies their is an unatural concentration of clubs stemming from London and Lancashire.

This means the Geographical recruitment area for these clubs is proportionally much smaller than for Aston Villa.

Rather then sit around and wait for the clubs from these area's to start outshining their academies the EPL club have looked elsewhere esp the big4. Liverpool and Man Untd who already have a strong link with Ireland/Scotland/Wales/N Ireland. I mean the math is simple a 1/6 of Lancashire can't really measure up to the whole UK + Ireland excluding England.

London based Chelsea and Arsenal are have instead of fighting for bit and scraps in London pretty much adopted the whole world as their base for youth recruitment. Tottenham and Fulham haven't been late to follow suit.

This Leads to that the Squads of the U19/U18 in 2008 team look nationality wise like the squad of the EPL team in 98, dominated by foreigners.

Its Only a question of time before Arsenal or Chelsea play their first U18 game without a single english national.

So in conclusion when progressing a couple of seasons into the FM game and engine begins to produce English nationality future superstars from team's such as Arsenal/Chelsea/Manchester United

I can't help to say that this is highly unrealistic given the development IRL.

The brunt of these consequences won't be felt by the England Team until 2014. When the "Rooney" generation will start to peak and there will be no one to take their place.

My Suggestions is therefor to either tweak the youth development down of the EPL academies

or

To simply install a wider range of nationalities being regenerated (specific to the EPL or to the bigger clubs) so that the youth teams of the EPL will continue to have a realistic look.

IMO this shouldn't change in FM.

EPL clubs are still producing english talent and FM is trying to reflect the game of football as it is now. If you start modelling the game on a future (which may not happen) you start to lose a sense of realism of football as it is today.

It's your tactics!

An excellent and very interesting post!

I am no expert at all on English football (do watch the Premier League/Match of the Day, but who doesn't these days...), but your argumentation seems solid.

I think similar fears (for degrading youth development) excist in many established nations as well. Over here in the Netherlands it is still very much a debatable issue whether we are doing things right or wrong.

Personally I think our academies are (or at least have been) very good in the last decade. Who would have thought after the golden generations of the last decades, who unlike the '88 team actually never won anything , a new talented batch of players is reaching their prime? Many didn't, but Van Persie, Van der Vaart and Sneijder (to name a few) are certainly brilliant players.

But a development over here that certainly supports your post is that increasingly a lot of talented players of Dutch Academies are being signed by English teams. Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and many other PL clubs have Dutch youth players. Over here that is regarded as a bad thing; they could better blossom in the Eredivisie first, before moving abroad and end up in the reserves.

Don't know if it would be wise to hard code this in to future versions of FM. No one can really predict the talent that will come through in the next decade. Personally I would support this, but I think a lot of people might disagree.

It's your tactics!

my tactics?

my tactics?

Ignore him. He's thinks he's funny.

IMO this shouldn't change in FM.

EPL clubs are still producing english talent and FM is trying to reflect the game of football as it is now. If you start modelling the game on a future (which may not happen) you start to lose a sense of realism of football as it is today.

Fair Point NEji

but let me break down your post.

FM is trying to reflect the game of football "as it is now".

When I start of the game (lets say with Arsenal I got a reserve/youth squad dominated 75% by non english players and 25% English) That is the situation today.

Later on in the (let say 4 seasons in) when the Regens make up the brunt of youth team its 80%English 15%Irish and UK (non English) and 5% "Continentals".

The Regen situation is not a reflection of a EPL academy today but of a EPL Academy 15 years ago.

Arsenal is a bad example but I do take your point. I'm not going to pretend I know about EPL youth academies because quite frankly, I know nothing about them apart from Arsenals.

Would you not say that most EPL clubs academies are majorly filled with British players? Thats a genuine question btw. I see the likes of Middlesborough producing alot of english players but I'm not sure how it is for all the other clubs. Maybe a half way point is better? ie tone down the 80% figure but keep the majority British.

An excellent and very interesting post!

I am no expert at all on English football (do watch the Premier League/Match of the Day, but who doesn't these days...), but your argumentation seems solid.

I think similar fears (for degrading youth development) excist in many established nations as well. Over here in the Netherlands it is still very much a debatable issue whether we are doing things right or wrong.

Personally I think our academies are (or at least have been) very good in the last decade. Who would have thought after the golden generations of the last decades, who unlike the '88 team actually never won anything , a new talented batch of players is reaching their prime? Many didn't, but Van Persie, Van der Vaart and Sneijder (to name a few) are certainly brilliant players.

But a development over here that certainly supports your post is that increasingly a lot of talented players of Dutch Academies are being signed by English teams. Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and many other PL clubs have Dutch youth players. Over here that is regarded as a bad thing; they could better blossom in the Eredivisie first, before moving abroad and end up in the reserves.

Don't know if it would be wise to hard code this in to future versions of FM. No one can really predict the talent that will come through in the next decade. Personally I would support this, but I think a lot of people might disagree.

Garion, what can I say

you wouldn't be dutch if you didn't question and doubt things

Personally as an outsider I can say the Netherlands has one of the

healthiest, strongest, most diverse and innovative systemes for youth development in the world.

Even when it comes to miniroties these have often been given the benefit of the doubt

as in opposition to England where the nation's demographic's are misrepresented in an almost disgusting fashion.

I mean you have the Extreme Academies of Noord and Ajax who already start elite recruitment at the age of 8 (something I guess we will have to wait at least 3-4years with until SIgames feel its possible to implement in the egine)

You have umbrella teams such as PSV who have a network of coperations with small clubs and snap up blossoming players at 16-21.

And you have good training facilities and a high level of coaches throughout the nation so that players that bloom very late can still get a good football education in a lower league team (Stam & RVN perfect examples).

The Problem you mentioned with youngsters moving earlier is IMHO an illusion of a problem these guys free up a space to another ambitous 15-16 year old. I think this is mostly a problem for the U-national team managers who have a headache over a selection issues.

I.E. Should I select the youngster in Chelsea that was in Ajax

Should I select the youngster in Arsenal that was in PSV

or should I select the two new blossoming players that were sent to replace them.

Ignore him. He's thinks he's funny.

Don't think, i just am!

Hasn't seemed to do Leeds United much harm...

Woodgate, Carson, Smith, Milner, Robinson, Kilgallon, Lennon, Delph...... I could go on

Hasn't seemed to do Leeds United much harm...

Woodgate, Carson, Smith, Milner, Robinson, Kilgallon, Lennon, Delph...... I could go on

sutnop's point was particularly about London and Lancashire clubs, I don't think he's claiming that no English clubs produce English youngsters.

Arsenal is a bad example but I do take your point. I'm not going to pretend I know about EPL youth academies because quite frankly, I know nothing about them apart from Arsenals.

Would you not say that most EPL clubs academies are majorly filled with British players? Thats a genuine question btw. I see the likes of Middlesborough producing alot of english players but I'm not sure how it is for all the other clubs. Maybe a half way point is better? ie tone down the 80% figure but keep the majority British.

Well to give you an honest Opinion on that Question I would have to look at a map of England and the territorial divide of the various Academies.

But as I mentioned earlier This is Predominantly an Issue for the "Lancashire Area" Clubs that represent the historical "hub of English football" and London "the current financial hub of Europe". 13 out of 20 clubs EPL clubs stemm from this area. Roughly 2/3 (and 100% of last year's top 5).

So its a significant portion.

Middlesborough are not from such a dense area.

And any ambitious club is not just gonna work with finding players in the small local geographical sphere that the FA has appointed for them.

I agree with your halfway arguement but maybe the tweak should be made to include all club's with a Continental or Semi-Continental (meaning club's with the higher number range of National reputation but since this is so broad in FM I mean Villa, Everton and Man City but not Wigan and Sunderland).

I would say most youth academies in 2/3 EPL I mentioned are following in the steps of Arsenal, Arsenal is not really a bad example they are just ahead of their time. As was the case when Vialli was manager of Chelsea and he fielded an 11 without a single Englishmen because Le Saux was injured/suspended (who was really the only potential english starter in the club). Now nobody even raises an eyebrow when this happens.

I mean its a competetive industry and club's are forced to follow the market leader, and when it comes to youth the gunners set the pace. Eriksson did exactly the same with Man City he signed a 15year old from Sweden last April to play in the U16 and U18 team of Man City.

Hasn't seemed to do Leeds United much harm...

Woodgate, Carson, Smith, Milner, Robinson, Kilgallon, Lennon, Delph...... I could go on

how many of the player's you mentioned are younger than Rooney?

Due to their financial troubles Leeds has been plundered and purged by numerous EPL club's not only for players and academy players but staff (scouts, coaches, and directors) and so on,

The Leeds academy today is a relic and a shaddow of its glory days in the early 90's.

how many of the player's you mentioned are younger than Rooney?

The Leeds academy today is a relic and a shaddow of its glory days in the early 90's.

are you actually being serious?

thorpe arch is state of the art, and one of the best acadamies in europe.

Neji,

My Halfway-point solution suggestion would be as follows

for

Regeneration:

45% (English Players)

25% (Irish and Non English UK)

20% (FM Consideration Central Europe: Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France, Poland, Czech RP, Portugal)

10% ( Scandinavia: Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway & Iceland)

This is still a "compromise" as a doubt that the starting 11 of the u18 teams have or will have a 45% majority of English players.

but just because united arnt signing them dosent mean other clubs arnt. Just take villa as an example we have loads of good english youth players in the team (e.g. agbonlahor) and more breaking through (e.g.delfonsou) You have to remember that most young players go to there local club anyway and then make the move e.g. rooney started olut at everton not united, gareth barry started at brighton micah richards started at oldham same with Paul scholes

brighton micah richards started at oldham same with Paul scholes

Micah Richards started at Farsley Celtic, a village team in Leeds.

Micah Richards started at Farsley Celtic, a village team in Leeds.

didnt realise that i know he was at oldham when he was 15 but it adds to my point anyway the rooneys of each generation will come through no matter where the big clubs get there youth players from

are you actually being serious?

thorpe arch is state of the art, and one of the best acadamies in europe.

only in the game James,

If you consider it best in Europe I suppose many of the academies/clubs I mention bellow must sound new/foreign to you:

Clairfontaine

Academia de Alochete

Coverciano (altough this is primarly for staff)

Ajax Amsterdam

Feyenoord

Juventus

Shenley Training Centre (Arsenal)

Milanello

Appiamo Gentile

Lyon

Sparta Prauge

Smena

B93

IF Brommapojkarna

Red Star

AS Roma

Man United

the list can be made long.

Either way there are statistics for the this sub branch of UEFA each year produces statistics from the top5 (England, Spain, Italy, Germany & France) leagues of Europe regarding players, transfers and movement.

When it came to statistics as to from which club most player's stemm that are currently playing in one of the top5 leagues, the list was something like:

1. Real Madrid

2. Juventus

3. FC Barcelona

4. Manchester United

5. AS Roma

(this list is a bit unfair since it doesn't take into consideration the fact that the bulk of say Sparta's, Ajax or Sporting's player's play for a team in their domestic league which is not included).

didnt realise that i know he was at oldham when he was 15 but it adds to my point anyway the rooneys of each generation will come through no matter where the big clubs get there youth players from

This is Exactly my point and that is what is flawed with the Regen:

They don't start off in Manchester United, Man City, Tottenham or Fullham

The best new youth players will come from teams such as Scunthrope, Oldham, Luton, Milton Keynes and Southampton not from the EPL (they might later be signed by the EPL)

There will not be a youth team like the one of Man United (with Neville's, Scholes, Beckham and Butt) or the one of Leeds (Smith, Woodgate, generation) coming through the youth ranks wrecking havoc and destroying all opposition. In the early days it was Giggs that was the odd man out (I.E. he was not English) now it is the other way around.

any Chief of Scouts will echoe these qualms

Very interesting read.

I noticed from FM07 to FM08 there was a significant decrease in the number of foreign players being brought through from the academy (not sure on 09 as i haven't played it yet). I agree that there should be a bit of an increase in foreigners for top teams.

I think though, that if this catchment area proves to be detremental in the future, the FA will likely revert back to the old system in the near future. So i would be hesitant to say that all top clubs should be programmed to have academies similar to the likes of Arsenal's for example.

The more I read your posts the more I agree with you.

If it was done this way, SI would have to make sure that there is still enough English talent coming through. It would have to be a careful balance because with LL clubs having poorer youth facilities English talent may dry up totally.

This is an excellent thread sutnop.

I wholeheartedly agree with your opinions on the youth generation and in a smaller version Scotland can be held up as an example.

When we had a bit of the SKY budget our game was filling up with foreigners, and then when the money bubble burst the teams realised they had to start sourcing and growing their own talent which is now coming through.

England still has the money and, in relation to your points, can source the "best" talent from anywhere.

Mickeytwigge,

why there is reason for worry in England's case is because of the design and history of their youth development.

A Grose Simplification of things can basically state that there are three main models:

1.State Controlled (Communist Countries, Finland, US and France) state run academies, and government programs to develop the best football players in the country.

2.Diluted/Diverse Club Controlled (Italy, Germany, Brazil and Sweden) focussing on quantity rather than quality, facilities are spread out to a lot of small and local clubs, good programs for having a large body of competent coaches.

3.Elite Club Controlled (Spain, Scotland Portugal, Greece and Argentina) most of the efforts, best staff and infrastructure is attributed to the top club's in the country and the responsibility is handed down to them. Staff and coach efforts are concentrating on facilitating elite coaches.

Now England was part of the latter up until the mid 90's. Historically all of its successful youth players have usually come through the ranks of the better teams of it's era (lower league teams have been famous for having a kick & run mentality and couple of pints at the pub after practise). Being as many times in history envious of the French the FA opted to be "inspired" by their model.

However the new that switching from one model to the other would produce an all out war between club's and FA (a war at which the FA was disadvantaged). Since doing this would be the equvilant of a collectivization of the Banks. So instead they opted to adjust the French academy model to better suit the English enviornment:

Thus starting minimum Youth Academy requirements for every EPL and Championship team.

Inspired by the French model they also gave each team a geographical Area to have as their own point of reign. The attempt was nobel at heart since it would force the club's to develop quality in their own area, working with improving infrastructure and making sure the local league club's had coaching qualities up to standard so that the talent would not be ruined.

Short term this solution was however quite stupid since it was the equvilant of creating local monopolies lets say for example one would split up Lancashire with different supermarkets (Tesco would only be allowed in one part, Sainsbury's in another, Mark Spencer's in another and Morrison's in another and so on)

In Response the club decided first to expand their scouting efforts in non-England UK and then gradually and succesfully branch out to Europe.

So my Conclusion is

That since The English youth System was centred around the elite clubs I am very doubtful if the local clubs can carry the weight since England lacks large body of decent coaches (not top quality) to train youngsters and make sure no one slips through the net.

England's most exciting players post Rooney

Richards and Walcott have both come from smaller clubs but they are physical phenomenon's that were discovered because of the strength or tremendous pace such players are easy to spot, I am talking about the Lampards, Van Deer Varts, Sneijders, Rauls or Del Pieros technically gifted that players that have recieved the right kind of schooling from day 1 from decent or good coaches.

The more I read your posts the more I agree with you.

If it was done this way, SI would have to make sure that there is still enough English talent coming through. It would have to be a careful balance because with LL clubs having poorer youth facilities English talent may dry up totally.

Yes but that is exactly what is happening in the Real Life compare the number of Medals won by English National U side won 03-08: to 88-03 or say 93-98.

England's attempt at a hybrid between

Elite Club controlled and State Controlled Youth Development has resulted in an "abomination" (direct quote from a Manchester Untd youth Academy coach).

The Netherlands are one of the few countries where there is a perfect blend between elite club control and dilute club control. Its National Team is made up of players who have joined the youth ranks of Ajax/Feyenoord at the age of 8-10 and players who have played for various local clubs never even managed to break National team set up until u21 and now have a successful carrear.

Neji,

My Halfway-point solution suggestion would be as follows

for

Regeneration:

45% (English Players)

25% (Irish and Non English UK)

20% (FM Consideration Central Europe: Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France, Poland, Czech RP, Portugal)

10% ( Scandinavia: Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway & Iceland)

This is still a "compromise" as a doubt that the starting 11 of the u18 teams have or will have a 45% majority of English players.

Question - I can see where you are going with this, but is it appropriate to place that in the regen code, or does it make more sense to have it occur as manager actions?

Arsenal strikes me as a very good example, not a poor one.

I think that there's a big difference between "players in the Under-18 squad" and "players in the youth academy".

Of the current Arsenal U-18 players, how many were born outside of England? Of those, how many moved to England under the age of 17? How many moved on their 17th birthday?

If it turns out that the majority are moving on their 17th birthday, that's exactly what we can do in-game now - scout the globe, identify Under-18 players, and sign them.

If the majority are moving to England below that age, and thus are graduating from Arsenal's youth academy at age 15 or 16, then your argument makes quite valid sense.

When I am managing my U-18 side as a top Premier league club, I do wind up with plenty of "foreign" players playing for my youth side - they're just players I've scouted and signed, not players who graduated my youth academy.

I saw Arsenal as a poor example because they don't really reflect all the EPL clubs. They may do at some point as sutnop said but right now EPL acadamies have alot of English players. Or at least thats what I thought.

Interesting that you mention Chelsea's youth programme, sutnop; are you aware that they are currently undergoing a huge push in Essex, an area traditionally dominated by West Ham United?

Be interested to know what you thought of Tony Carr and his team down at Chadwell Heath.

Arsenal are a good example of what may happen in the future, but it is still speculation as to whether this will or will not happen in the EPL. However Arsenal are a bad example of the current situation of current EPL youth teams judging by these squads on FM.

The main problem seems to be the restrictive catchment areas for the top teams. So how would this be implemented into the game?

E.g. Many big clubs in a small area = more foreigners produced through their academies?

There's a lot of hyperbolic nonsense in this thread. England's defeat to a Croatia side that clearly weren't uninterested in the game had everything to do with individual errors and tactical weaknesses and nothing to do with a post-Rooney generation that were too young to feature anyway. England also recently spanked that same Croatia side in their Croatian fortress, using a more youthful side...

Arsenals U18 side is full of English nationals, despite Wengers fondness for cheap purchases of slightly better foreign players who he finds much easier to man-manage. More than 45% here have a nice familiar flag next to their name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_F.C._Academy

Whilst 2/3 of the clubs may play in Lancashire/London, there's at least a third of the domestic population within their immediate catchment area... a 90 minute journey from the club. North London clubs can happily pick up a youngster near Luton or Milton Keynes. Southampton based players have a good Premiership club in their arch-rivals a short distance away. Scunthorpe is something of an anomaly because of the sad demise of all the Yorkshire/Notts clubs, but Hull is probably a feasible commute....

Anyone promising Messi-like talent can probably be persuaded to move into a catchment area anyway, as I don't think the FA's current guidelines restrict this. After all, if you can persuade someone to move from Sweden or France, then persuading them to move from just outside Scunthorpe should be a doddle.

I'm not saying that Manchester United having to leave Beckham to be picked up by a London club is necessarily a good thing... but I don't think the evidence supports it having the massive impact you're suggesting.

I remember Roy Keane complaining about this 90-minute rule when he was at Sunderland - most of his 90-minute radius was in the sea!

It's always been a really bizarre rule; understandable but inevitably stupid. It's good for bringing up the quality of youngsters in general but makes it impossible to get that special 1 or 2 that are just outside your radius without moving them all over the place.

Whilst 2/3 of the clubs may play in Lancashire/London, there's at least a third of the domestic population within their immediate catchment area... a 90 minute journey from the club.

90 minutes in a helicopter is an even larger catchment area ... wasn't someone (Man Utd possibly?) accused of pulling a stunt along these lines a few years back?

Interesting thread.

One question though - if the EPL clubs have started going out and recruiting the young stars from Spain/France/Italy/etc. for their youth academies won't the teams in Spain/France/Italy/etc. start going and recruiting promising English youngsters as their best home country youngsters have been poached?

Or does England not produce enough decent youngsters due to inherently being bad at football?

How big is the coaching gap (at all levels) between England and continental Europe?

How important for a quality player to have quality coaching at young age? Can the real quality reach the top even if they've had minimal coaching by age 18 and start their career as an amateur (like Jimmy Bullard I suppose)?

Thats 4 questions!

Question - I can see where you are going with this, but is it appropriate to place that in the regen code, or does it make more sense to have it occur as manager actions?

Arsenal strikes me as a very good example, not a poor one.

I think that there's a big difference between "players in the Under-18 squad" and "players in the youth academy".

Of the current Arsenal U-18 players, how many were born outside of England? Of those, how many moved to England under the age of 17? How many moved on their 17th birthday?

If it turns out that the majority are moving on their 17th birthday, that's exactly what we can do in-game now - scout the globe, identify Under-18 players, and sign them.

If the majority are moving to England below that age, and thus are graduating from Arsenal's youth academy at age 15 or 16, then your argument makes quite valid sense.

When I am managing my U-18 side as a top Premier league club, I do wind up with plenty of "foreign" players playing for my youth side - they're just players I've scouted and signed, not players who graduated my youth academy.

Spot on, couldn't agree more. I think the current regens are appropriately placed - the difference being that the foreign regens are slightly better technically (ie stats) than their english counterparts. In my game my youth team is full of mainly italian and spanish imports, and my reserve team houses a disproportionate amount of south americans.....(due to them not being able to be signed under 18). Seems spot on to me.

Only slight misgivings on the amount that appear to be 'best of a generation'...aside from that I don't really see the problem tbh.

There's a lot of hyperbolic nonsense in this thread. England's defeat to a Croatia side that clearly weren't uninterested in the game had everything to do with individual errors and tactical weaknesses and nothing to do with a post-Rooney generation that were too young to feature anyway. England also recently spanked that same Croatia side in their Croatian fortress, using a more youthful side...

Let me just say first of all

it is times like these a wish I knew forum code better

so that I could respond to each of your paragraps seperatley....

now I will be force to break it down into various posts

Kudos to you for stating a very valid point

I was indeed employing journalistic propaganda tactics to appeal to people's irrational and emotional feelings with this point,

to my defense I must say that such methods are usually employed in football jargon.

Also the World Cup qualifying game that England recently won was an important game for both sides, but the game last year was a do or die for England and just and an exhibition (recruitment fair for Croatian players wanting to go to EPL) for Croatia.

Even a two figure victory in Croatia can't take away that fact.

Also I know the post Rooney generation didn't feature in the game, I am just saying that look that the use Obama's quote "its going to get worse before it gets better"

Arsenals U18 side is full of English nationals, despite Wengers fondness for cheap purchases of slightly better foreign players who he finds much easier to man-manage. More than 45% here have a nice familiar flag next to their name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_F.C._Academy

.

ahhh I was waiting for someone to make this point as I am very well aware of that wikipedia page.

Using Wikipedia as a source is an academic grey area at it's best. Since this is the Arsenal U18 team (players born 90 or earlier) a few things have to be taken into account.

1. This is the second batch of the 90 and 91 generation

2. The best 90 and 91 are already moved up to the reserves or are loan they are almost exclusivley foreign (safe for Lainsbury).

Arsenal best players born 90 are:

Rui Fonte

Francisco Merida

Håvard Nordveldt

3. The Wikipedia batch would be probably not even included in the FM engine due to Databse issues only like a third of these "second tier" players would be included.

Whilst 2/3 of the clubs may play in Lancashire/London, there's at least a third of the domestic population within their immediate catchment area... a 90 minute journey from the club. North London clubs can happily pick up a youngster near Luton or Milton Keynes. Southampton based players have a good Premiership club in their arch-rivals a short distance away. Scunthorpe is something of an anomaly because of the sad demise of all the Yorkshire/Notts clubs, but Hull is probably a feasible commute....

Anyone promising Messi-like talent can probably be persuaded to move into a catchment area anyway, as I don't think the FA's current guidelines restrict this. After all, if you can persuade someone to move from Sweden or France, then persuading them to move from just outside Scunthorpe should be a doddle.

I'm not saying that Manchester United having to leave Beckham to be picked up by a London club is necessarily a good thing... but I don't think the evidence supports it having the massive impact you're suggesting.

Well Demographics thats my game so 1/3 of England's population live in this area unfortunatley places like London tend to have predominant adult population in the age range 20-35 not exactly viable for recruitment into football academies.

so it would be safe to assume that in the Lancashire/London Catchment areas only have a playing field for less than a 1/4 of Englands 11-16 year old's in a region which encompasses 2/3 of the Countries Youth Academy.

You can ask any Corporate Recruitment Company that such a scenario would create unreasonably high demand for talent in relation to its supply.

Now moving on to the risk scenario

persusasion about moving its all got to do with risk

Lets say Man U were to find a new David Beckham outside London being a 12 year old it would involve a very large risk to already at the age of 12-13 to find a suitable job for his parents and start paying them and they wouldn't be looking at a return on investment until earliest when he would turn 17.

Tottenham or Arsenal on the other hand would be looking at only giving him a youth contract not having to pay him so this 12-13 year old would be snapped up by them since they take a much smaller risk.

A Spanish/French/Swedish Wonderchild however moving at the age 15 would involve a much smaller risk and would yield a more rapid return on investment.

The Beckham-like player outside London would never wait to join a top club that long and thus would be "tied up" to a London club once the time came for Man U to make the risky investment.

Interesting thread.

One question though - if the EPL clubs have started going out and recruiting the young stars from Spain/France/Italy/etc. for their youth academies won't the teams in Spain/France/Italy/etc. start going and recruiting promising English youngsters as their best home country youngsters have been poached?

Or does England not produce enough decent youngsters due to inherently being bad at football?

How big is the coaching gap (at all levels) between England and continental Europe?

How important for a quality player to have quality coaching at young age? Can the real quality reach the top even if they've had minimal coaching by age 18 and start their career as an amateur (like Jimmy Bullard I suppose)?

Thats 4 questions!

I think your questions are pretty much entwined in each other, but lets start.

1. its a valid point but please re-read my post about (simplification of youth development strategies) France will not since they are state controlled, for Italy and Germany its not really a problem since they can fill up. For countries such as Portugal and Spain it does create a problem they are also the ones that have complained the loudest about it. However they will turn their eyes towards countries with a "diluted" development system rather than England (elite concentrated).

2. England is not inhertantly bad at football, For better or for worse few things I have noticed about the English is that they are extremley found of traditions and nostalgia. If this is due to a post Imperial/Victorian complex is an arguable thing?

This leads to 3 things:

I England houses the world's finest and most reknowned academic centre's for Sport History. Thus producing the best academic litterature on football from a historic, sociological, and even philsophical perspective.

II England has a fine tradition of amassing great interest (thus commercialising and making professional) in even quite senseless such as Lawn Bowling, Darts and more.

III English football suffers a bit because it takes a long time for the "bad traditions" to get rooted out (such as pints after training), the "gaffer" being some kind of a demonic dicatator that shouts his head off, walking off the injury (thus making it worse), prejudice towards miniorities and so on.

3. The Coaching Gap and the lower levels between England and the countries that employ "the diluted" model is quite vast, while in theory England/Spain/Portugal should have better elite coaches (or at least better enviornment for such coaches to thrive) than say ITaly/Germany.

4. Dont know about this Jimmy Bullard. But lets say as a scout there are characteristics that change less than others, when looking at 8-10 year old all you look at is physical charecteristics because the rest can be shaped/molded. Thus players coming through from smaller clubs with excellent physical characeteristics as teenagers can still be made into really good footballers.

With Physical charceristics I mean pace, agility as in Walcott's case

or Great Strength, Physical Presence and also pace as in Richard's case

But there is a danger for the Keegan's, Gazza's, Lampard's and Beckham's players they usually need tone their skills at an early age with good coaching inorder to excel.

Spot on, couldn't agree more. I think the current regens are appropriately placed - the difference being that the foreign regens are slightly better technically (ie stats) than their english counterparts. In my game my youth team is full of mainly italian and spanish imports, and my reserve team houses a disproportionate amount of south americans.....(due to them not being able to be signed under 18). Seems spot on to me.

Only slight misgivings on the amount that appear to be 'best of a generation'...aside from that I don't really see the problem tbh.

Question - I can see where you are going with this, but is it appropriate to place that in the regen code, or does it make more sense to have it occur as manager actions?

Arsenal strikes me as a very good example, not a poor one.

I think that there's a big difference between "players in the Under-18 squad" and "players in the youth academy".

Of the current Arsenal U-18 players, how many were born outside of England? Of those, how many moved to England under the age of 17? How many moved on their 17th birthday?

If it turns out that the majority are moving on their 17th birthday, that's exactly what we can do in-game now - scout the globe, identify Under-18 players, and sign them.

If the majority are moving to England below that age, and thus are graduating from Arsenal's youth academy at age 15 or 16, then your argument makes quite valid sense.

When I am managing my U-18 side as a top Premier league club, I do wind up with plenty of "foreign" players playing for my youth side - they're just players I've scouted and signed, not players who graduated my youth academy.

Amaraq as long as I am given the tools to recruit good French/Italian/Spanish/Swedish/German regens at the age of 16-17 I don't have a problem with the Regen situation I am just saying that at the moment the in FM2008 it seems quite difficult to get a 16-17 year old to come to Arsenal much more difficult than it is IRL.

Also if this is facilitated there will still be a dissproportinate amount of really good (English nationality) Regens coming through the enginge.

I want to see good football

I don't actually care what nationality the players are.

However, supporting Grimsby means it will be a long time before we see the team made up of foreigners.

In other words, the EPL =/= all of football (or even the majority for that matter)

It may even mean that the quality of lower league football goes up as those that would have been at a bigger club find themselves having to ply their trade at (eg) Grimsby

The best players WILL force themselves into contention (for one thing having a home-grown talent is a moneyspinner for lower clubs as we've all seen the internal market prices versus buying from abroad)

I want to see good football

I don't actually care what nationality the players are.

However, supporting Grimsby means it will be a long time before we see the team made up of foreigners.

In other words, the EPL =/= all of football (or even the majority for that matter)

It may even mean that the quality of lower league football goes up as those that would have been at a bigger club find themselves having to ply their trade at (eg) Grimsby

The best players WILL force themselves into contention (for one thing having a home-grown talent is a moneyspinner for lower clubs as we've all seen the internal market prices versus buying from abroad)

Yes but is the schooling and competence of the Grimsby U15, 16 and U18 Managers good enough to push the players to the final level?

Amaraq as long as I am given the tools to recruit good French/Italian/Spanish/Swedish/German regens at the age of 16-17 I don't have a problem with the Regen situation I am just saying that at the moment the in FM2008 it seems quite difficult to get a 16-17 year old to come to Arsenal much more difficult than it is IRL.

Also if this is facilitated there will still be a dissproportinate amount of really good (English nationality) Regens coming through the enginge.

My FM'08 experience was that I could purchase a foreign 16-year-old via "Immediate" purchase, or I could "poach" by signing a foreign 16-year-old up to come to my club on his 17th birthday.

Is that incorrect?

Using your Arsenal's top three born-in-1990 players example, at what age did each of those become Arsenal players? When did they move to England. Was it before or after their 17th birthday, and was there a transfer fee paid?

Not sure about those three but I know John Guidetti arrived in Man City at the age of 15

Also Rossi (Now in Villareal) arrived quite early in Man U

googled it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran_M%C3%A9rida

"Francisco Mérida Pérez (born 4 March 1990 in Barcelona) is a Spanish football midfielder who currently plays for Arsenal of the English Premier League."

"He signed professional terms with Arsenal after his 17th birthday.[4] He scored on his first team debut for Arsenal in a friendly against Boreham Wood in August 2006.[5] His competitive first-team debut came on 25 September 2007, when he came on as a 91st minute substitute in Arsenal's 2-0 victory over Newcastle in the League Cup third round,[6] and he made further substitute's appearances in a 3-0 win against Sheffield United in the fourth round, and a 3-2 win against Blackburn Rovers in the quarter-finals."

the other two

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rui_Fonte

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A5vard_Nordtveit

Altough the maybe brightest prospect of the Arsenal youth academy is paradoxally London native Englishman Jack Wilshere

I just hope for England's sake that he doesn't have any Irish or Scottish grandparents

Ironically this guy was completley forgotten about in FM08

IMO this shouldn't change in FM.

EPL clubs are still producing english talent and FM is trying to reflect the game of football as it is now. If you start modelling the game on a future (which may not happen) you start to lose a sense of realism of football as it is today.

I suggested the same as the OP in another thread. If you look at prem youth teams (as I quoted in the other thread) you'll see that over 50% of the players tend to be non-English, although some will have English passports.

It's not even at the top end either, look at championship youth teams and you see similar. Reading were recently criticised for having almost a dosen nationalities represented in their accademy and recent graduates. By checking the player's historys on official club sites you often see players joined the youth clubs aged 14/15 which means they should come through FM youth teams rather then requiring us to hunt them down.

As mentioned in previous thread as well, if knowledge has no bearing on our youth players anymore and we have to search leagues to find newgens rather then being alerted that 'staff member x' recommends players newly generated via his contacts/knowledge, then where is the point of said knowledge? Similarly where is the point of feeder clubs for foreign players which aren't in active leagues? It basically means that a large chunk of the game is now redundant.

the other two

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rui_Fonte

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A5vard_Nordtveit

So all three were not products of Arsenal's youth academy.

Merida came up through FC Barcelona's youth system but apparently did not have a professional contract with them. He signed for Arsenal on or after his 17th birthday as a free transfer.

Nordtveit came up through several Norwegian youth clubs, debuted for FK Haugesund, and was brought in to Arsenal after his 17th birthday through a normal transfer fee.

According to http://youngguns.wordpress.com/Rui-Fonte/, Fonte was loaned to Arsenal from Sporting Lisbon as a 16-year-old, the deal including a "make the deal permanent" clause which Arsenal could exercise after his 17th birthday.

I think the game is accurately reflecting those three different means of bringing a player to an English youth squad, and I don't think the "graduates of youth academy" need to be changed.

yes but as SPagbol mentioned there are a lot of players that join the club prior to this age also, and in that case the transfers should be made easier....