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    Development of Young England players

    England have had an extremely successful year at various youth age groups and yet there is a clearly identified block to the progress of these players within the current club set up. I came across some information about FC FShM Moscow and wondered if there might be a way of creating a similar structure in England. From what I gather FC FShM Moscow was a Soviet era team, established by the Soviet football authorities which played young Moscow based players in the Soviet league in order to give them a platform for development. (Please correct me if I've got the wrong end of the stick here).

    Is it feasible to create say 4 regional young England squads (up to 21 year olds) - loosely based on North West, North East and Yorkshire, Midlands and London with say 20 players each loaned to them on a similar basis by professional clubs as they are currently loaned to lower league teams and based on the philosophy that the players will get rotated and experience a similar amount of game time? These four teams would start in league 2 and be able to be promoted up but not relegated out of the FL. The current FA youth coaches role would be expanded to run these teams. In order to balance the fixture load the The EFL Trophy would be abolished and for one season 6 teams would be promoted to League 1 from League 2 to allow both of these leagues to then run as 26 club leagues.

    Lots of other details would need to be sorted but as a basic idea would this work? Is this desirable?

    #2
    In a word, no. It's one step away from having Man Utd B or Chelsea B playing in the Football League. If the divisions were increased to 26 teams there would be more meaningless games played midweek between teams that covered an even bigger area of mid-table mediocrity and if the divisions didn't expand it would be at the expense of clubs with a long standing base in their community and a proper identity.

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      #3
      Also it's not like some of the younger players aren't finding their way into the first teams in the Premier League either at their own club or on loan, at Everton alone there is Davies, Lookman, Calvert-Lewin and Holgate getting regular games. If they are of a good enough standard then they seem to be getting starting places.

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        #4
        I don’t see this as any different from the B teams idea which has been roundly, and rightly, rejected.

        If you want to stop PL clubs stockpiling young players without playing with them then tinker and experiment with those clubs, not the Football League.

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          #5
          Originally posted by Glass Half Empty View Post
          In order to balance the fixture load the The EFL Trophy would be abolished and for one season 6 teams would be promoted to League 1 from League 2 to allow both of these leagues to then run as 26 club leagues.
          Steady on, we used to like it before they started pissing about with it.

          On the wider suggestion though, it would just undermine the integrity of the League. The League is currently a meritocracy, albeit one where merit can be significantly driven by money and resources. Once you start making special cases - placing teams in the League, exempting them from relegation - then all bets are off. Where does it go next, allowing the Qatar national team in for a year to prepare for the World Cup, if they wave enough money around? (ok bad example maybe, playing at Carlisle in the pissing rain doesn't prepare you for much other than playing at Carlisle in the pissing rain).

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            #6
            Originally posted by Walt Flanagans Dog View Post
            playing at Carlisle in the pissing rain doesn't prepare you for much other than playing at Carlisle in the pissing rain
            Well, that and existential angst.

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              #7
              This is all a bit roryfsmith.

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                #8
                Hmmmm, I have to say I wasn't expecting a ringing endorsement for the idea and the points raised are mostly valid but it is frustrating that the development model we have at the moment seems to leave English players somewhat behind their rivals from other major European footballing countries by the time they get to full international stage. Re. the playing at Carlisle in the pissing rain argument - I can't see that it would do any harm and it might well do some good. The issue with the young players coming through the PL academies does't seem to be a lack of skill/ability but is often a questionable attitude and a lack of grounding and desire closeted as they are in their entitled bubbles. Would a team made up of players that had had to scrap it through a League 2 winter have played so pathetically as England did against Iceland for example?

                I was as opposed as anyone to the B team plan but I would have thought (perhaps naively) that if a proposal like this could be genuinely seen as part of the England set up, with clear co-operation between the FA the EFL and PL in general supporters would be prepared to tolerate it. If it was seen as B teams by the back door then it would be a non starter.

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                  #9
                  Originally posted by Glass Half Empty View Post
                  Re. the playing at Carlisle in the pissing rain argument - I can't see that it would do any harm and it might well do some good. The issue with the young players coming through the PL academies does't seem to be a lack of skill/ability but is often a questionable attitude and a lack of grounding and desire closeted as they are in their entitled bubbles. Would a team made up of players that had had to scrap it through a League 2 winter have played so pathetically as England did against Iceland for example?
                  The Carlisle thing was me arguing with myself - I floated the idea that if you allowed this, what would be next, the Qatar national team buying in for a season, and then shot down my own hypothetical myself before someone else did.

                  The hypothetical itself isn't that outrageous given the story of the Chinese team playing in the Regionalliga. See, I'm talking myself back into it now.

                  I agree that players spending their 17-21 years only playing other 17-21 year olds on 4G pitches in front of no fans is no sort of preparation for the rest of their football careers, but there must be better ways than assembling them into some supporterless Team North West.

                  I'm still old fashioned enough to think, parochially, that the Peter Beardsley route to the top is optimal - rejection, lifeline (from Carlisle, of pissing rain fame) and redemption - but maybe it isn't any more. I do know that in the modern era for every Leon Osman or Tom Lawrence we've had on loan from Premier League clubs (meaning those who you immediately think, he's going places, and who eventually did to an extent) we've had half a dozen fishes out of water who have never made it. So maybe the problem isn't what happens to them between 17 and 21, but what happens earlier, and that can only be solved by limiting the numbers that big clubs are allowed to sign and retain.

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                    #10
                    Ah, Peter Beardsley. As a bit of a diversion my first teaching job was at Peter Beardsley's old school, albeit after he was a pupil, in fact I started there when he was tearing up Div 2 with Keegan and Waddle et al. Anyway, I became good friends with the teacher who had run the school team for Peter's year. His favourite pub quiz type question was "what position did Peter Beardsley play for Longbenton School team?" I'll leave it there for a while to let folks run with it.

                    On topic though one of the real issues with the current loan/borrow system is the variable quality of the placements that the young footballers experience. We, Sheffield United, have had some goodies, Matty Phillips springs to mind, although his was more a getting back to fitness type loan than a real youth development one, but we've had some shockers too like John Cofie from Man Utd. The real problem about this system is that it is always the big club calling the shots. They put pressure on for the loanee to be played as a condition of the move, which can go right to the heart of the club's own squad if they don't rate the player and the player doesn't cut it. If the loan is a success and the player develops well then there's every chance the loan will be ended early by the parent club and the player recalled as happened to us with Kyle Walker who was meant to have spent the season with us after we sold him to Spurs but Tottenham called him back in January.

                    I can only think that loans that don't work out for a young player must be extremely damaging for their development which is why I thought that a more structured development like the one outlined which doesn't have the same impact on other clubs and the livelihoods of other players might be a better option.

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