SLF Interview

I reckon you and Col should buy them out.

 

It would seem pointless in this case to keep it open, we've got it wrong so many times that I'd be happy if we just copied everything Brentford do from now on ! Depressing really but what a job their owner has done in the time since we were last in the Prem. If only and all that

 

It's not a good business model to buy

 

Again, totally agree. Seems a waste of time and money. The whole point of the academy (at QPR) is to produce talent to sell at profit. If that gets taken away from you before you can make that happen, then it's not fit for purpose.

 

Can someone pls explain why all players below the 1st team are not good enough to play for the 1st team or at least be involved. Why is that down to having a great academy set up? If every coach thinks they are not good enough then why are we spending money on it as clearly it doesn't work. Alternatively stop getting fxxking loan players in or pensioners in terms of football age, get a coach in who can see talent in our structure and is not afraid to use them. As has been previously stated why get another striker in, give all the strikers on loan/in B team/stuck on the bench a chance, or don't buy a striker for 2m if u are not prepared to give him an opportunity, no wonder Bonne was so pissed off and wanted out

 

Thirteen players poached over hor many years

 

Probably goes back to selling Sterling for no money although sell ons have made us a few pounds. I don't know how the youth market works but I assume you "sign" an 8yr old so can't understand why u "lose" kids, but I really don't know how the " kid" system works

 

Here you go...

How Does the EPPP Category System Work | jobs4football

It has been described as only benefitting the best sides. Under the new rules, Category 1 clubs can go to any other training ground to watch a player and buy them for a relatively low fee, other category clubs can only sign players Under-18 who live in their “catchment area” of 90 minutes from the clubs training facilities.

It seems plain that we need to become Category 1 or pack up and go home.

Hopefully the new training facilities are designed towards becoming Cat 1 - that would be a proper ambition. I've not seen that mentioned, though.

 

Cheers Stroller that's quite a depressing read

 

That’s a pretty depressing synopsis Strolls. The quote that Huddersfield closed their academy down citing Man City had more scouts in Huddersfield than they did just shows how the compensation is rotten and weighted to the benefit of the EPL clubs.

The compensation figures for appearances shows how low the opinion is of any league below the premiership (10 appearances in EPL = £150,000; 10 appearances in Championship = £25,000).

Sounds pointless. Everyone might as well close up their academies and pick up the slops from the EPL academies or foreign players through a decent scouting system.

As for ambition, I don’t think that the club lacks ambition; I do believe it is shackled and restricted by FFP. SLF did say that the owners would like to spend money but their hands are tied under FFP (I realise he can say that can’t he in the circumstances, but it is true). They are investing in the new training ground, which I assume is part of their development programme (however flawed that may seem from our side of the fence).

You have to do something. So any decision/plan is better than nothing.

 

Now I understand a bit more about EPPP, the only way forward must be to achieve Cat 1 status. There doesn't seem to be any point in having an academy if your best prospects are continually hoovered up by bigger clubs. What I don't understand is what we would have to do to achieve Cat1. Surely the new training facility must be part of an ambition towards this?

 

Even as a Category 2 academy we are no great shakes, according to unofficial rankings based on

“The rankings are the only publicly-available resource of their kind and rank Academies from Categories One to Three based on the number of England-qualified graduates who made at least one league appearance in the Premier League, Football League or National League in the 2021/22 season.”

We come in 60th. ****ing 60th. Out of 80. This is based on players making league appearances for any club, but who have attended your academy at some stage. We produce just about **** all. There are plenty of Cat 3 clubs doing better than us, and only Peterborough as a lower ranked Cat 2 club.

https://trainingground.guru/article...ductivity-rankings-chelsea-top-for-first-time

 

We are not producing players just to sell them..imho.

What we are hoping is that we get lucky... Have 3 or 4 come through at same time...mould in with the first team best players. Bring in a couple of targeted loans and go up.


Each season that idea fails we will have to sell a player... but fingers crossed one day it will work.
That was the way it worked with Brentford but they did it with the B team...but they do seem to have a better scouting system than we do

 

As a club, wow the amount we have done in the community, and what we continue to do in the community is incredible. This should never be forgotten I have been so proud of being a QPR fan in the last few years, however behind the scenes there clearly is something going wrong presently in terms of the team and recruitment, which has maybe been overlooked, whilst prioritising the good work?

 

Crewe Alexandra! That's the model.

Without the paedos obviously.

 

Come on Beth, baby steps. Let’s produce just the one player as a start. Over a decade of course.

 

Don't you just have to have Cat1 facilities and then nick other clubs' prospects?

 

It would be just like the club to build a new training facility , then tell us they've lost 13 youngsters to bigger clubs for peanuts, and then not check to see if we can attain Cat 1 status ! Please somebody tell me the chumps have looked into this. I've lost all belief in the mutants

 

Leave it out Beth ffs, Brentford have been lights years ahead of us in their entire workings. They didn't go up in the play offs to begin with bit cane back stronger. Every time they sold a player they invested the profit into buying someone better ! When we sold Eze , who did we buy who was better than him ? Oh yeah that's right, we spunked most of it on total turds, not 1 singular player but a host of complete numbnuts. The Brentford owner is an astute football man, Fernandes was and still is a playboy who found a new toy, and got over excited and thought bringing in a couple of big name managers and giving them a blank chequebook would automatically bring success. Everything about the tenure since he took over is the polar opposite to since the Brentford man took over. So we are left hoping that 4 or 5 young kids come through our academy all at once ala Utd 92, or we are up **** creek. Jeez we can't even get 1 out of the youth side who's up to scratch. Things are beyond bleak if this is what the head Herbert's are pinning all their hopes on !

 

I couldn't agree more with you about the good work in the community, but it so resembles what's happened with Rashford. All the good work in the community being done whilst simultaneously everything on the pitch falling apart. Eye taken off the ball, and other priorities leading to inability to carry out your day job. We've seen with Rashford what has happened this season, now he's fully focused on his football. A revelation, any chance we as a club can follow suit ?