Editorial: The B-Team Myth | PASOTI
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Editorial: The B-Team Myth

Jul 19, 2018
211
6
London
argyle.life
Editorial: The B-Team Myth
A week ago, Pep Guardiola called once again for the introduction of b-teams into the Football League.
Understand this, Pep: managerial cowardice among the top Premier League clubs is a far bigger factor than the lack of b-teams. You wouldn't even start Phil Foden against Burton Albion! A midfield of Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan and David Silva? Two World Cup winners against Burton Albion! No wonder Sancho left. No wonder Hudson-Odoi is trying to escape Chelsea. You are the problem, not the lack of b-teams.
 
Aug 8, 2013
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Worcester
That is an absolutely brilliant article. The reaction I have seen to it on twitter has been impressive also!
 

JannerinCardiff

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♣️ SWAG Member
Jul 16, 2018
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Cardiff
Totally agree. Say no to ‘B’ teams.
 

davie nine

R.I.P
Jan 23, 2015
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Plympton
You certainly leave no stone unturned, Nick.

Guardiola is looking at the situation from a purely selfish and arrogant viewpoint. I guess he has no reason to support the future of soccer in England and Wales.

He needs to be confronted with the data that you have produced and told to substantiate his data that appears to be grossly inaccurate and false.
Well done, Nick!!
 
Apr 4, 2010
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Cornwall
Fantastic read Nick and absolutely spot on.

Personally I'd go a step further and do away with loans as well. Limit clubs to only so many players over 17-18 and let youngsters find their level naturally. Stop the hoarding business altogether and let those who develop and play these players reap the financial rewards of their development.
 
Aug 5, 2016
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Some good research there. I looked a few years ago and a significant section of the England team from Joe Hart (Shrewsbury) to John Stones (Barnsley) and Dele Alli (MK Dons) had come through smaller clubs down the pyramid.

Their exposure to first team football at the age of 18 was crucial to their development. Clubs will not always play loan players the way they look after their own. Would Argyle have persevered with Curtis Nelson or Conor Hourihane if they weren't our own players? I'm not so sure. Their potential was obvious, but it took each player two seasons of mistakes and raw development to accelerate into players that looked a division or two above their teammates. Loan moves are temporary and don't allow for that process. Hourihane aged 19 wouldn't have benefitted a midtable League Two team so he'd have found himself in the reserves.

If I had a son who had any aspirations of becoming a footballer in the top two divisions, I'd advise to steer well clear of the academies at those levels. Find a club like Exeter, Cheltenham, Crewe, Cambridge or Grimsby. No top club will give an opportunity to develop faster in that crucial age of 18-22 than a small club that stands to get a healthy profit out of it, whose very existence nearly depends on it. The fact that Chelsea are signing a 20 year old for £60m from Borussia Dortmund, in the position of a winger they already have that was (for me) the star of the England U17 World Cup winning team says it all. The best thing Hudson Odoi could do is leave England as he is doing himself no favours trying to develop himself at the top end of the Premier League here.

The top clubs have hundreds and hundreds of millions of pounds they willingly spend on transfers every season. Yet when they look at Ollie Watkins, they think anything over £10m is a reckless gamble. If the Prem clubs dissolved their academies and left it to other smaller clubs to develop the top youth products, English football would be in a much healthier state I'm sure.
 
Jul 19, 2018
211
6
London
argyle.life
Editorial: The end of football

A reckoning is coming. Every year it grows nearer. The financial gods of football can only postpone it for so long.

This is a product of the EFL and the FA. For too long they've allowed this reckless level of spending to spiral out of control. The fit and proper test is not fit and proper. To be honest, the EFL and FA aren't fit and proper themselves. They are the great enablers in all this mess. If they worked harder to prevent small clubs from running large deficits year on year, Bury would not be in this mess.

Yes, a club like Bury deserves to be saved, for the sake of its thousands of fans, role in the community and more than a century of history. But it should not be allowed to continue on like this. Change is desperately needed.

Otherwise, the kindling is stacked, it just requires a spark to set it all off. And then, who knows what will happen? For many clubs and communities, finance shall prove to be the end of football.