The FA Commission | Part III - Philosophies

In this final part of the series looking at the FA commission's report we will examine why English football is struggling to bridge the gap between youth and senior football. It is simple really, it comes down to money. Yet are we seeing a change in the Premier League, are the fruits of our youth development finally starting to be seen?  

Willpower and philosophy

As the game has become richer and players more expensive surely the answer and solution is to develop your own? If English players cost so much surely it is easier and more sustainable to bring youngsters through the academy system. And this is where the problem truly lies. 

You see the major issue with English youth development is that for the majority of it is not valued highly enough by clubs. A youth academy for most is a token gesture to the fans, a symbol that a club cares about the community. Yet it should be a route for those players to senior football. Unfortunately too many clubs in England are restricting players pathways because of their philosophy and approach. 

One of the worst examples at this time is Newcastle. Now I use them as an example because of their policy of using foreign players and neglecting their youth players. They have an English owner and English manager yet don't seem to value developing English talent. For them it is more affordable to buy abroad?

On one hand you have to see their logic for not playing English players. Yet on the other hand you have to question and wonder why? Why are England's academies so bad for developing top players? Is it about a lack of talent or a lack of will?  Because of the rules Newcastle are entitled to this approach, which points towards English football's future to be at the mercy of people who care.

We marvel at Germany and Spain and wax lyrical about their development pathways and impressive national teams. Well, we could have the same. Only we choose not to. Of course when I say we I mean we I mean the owners and CEO’s of clubs. It is up to these people what direction and philosophy their club takes. 

Southampton put their Academy plan in place over a decade ago and put a new five year plan in place in 2009 when they were in League One to be in the Premier League building their success from their youth academy products. They have achieved their aims very impressively. 

Yet most owners rely on experienced pro’s on big wages to help them achieve their aims. Which begs the question, why have an Academy then? 

German football decided they ALL needed to invest in their youth system and young generation of players in order to help the national team in the future. They revolutionised their methods and all pretty much stuck to the national playing style while embracing the 6+5 rule. It was a complete buy in. 

Yet England don’t have that. This comes down to the lack of fan ownership and control at clubs yet it also comes down to the vast wealth in English football compared to clubs abroad. 

Teams like Dortmund and Ajax are marvelled at for their development of youth it is important to understand that the majority of clubs in Germany, Spain and Holland have to develop their own players because they cannot afford to enter the transfer market and pay huge sums for players. For them it is more sustainable and cost effective to develop your own. Dortmund have learnt the hard way about this model yet are now regarded as one of the best sustainable models in Europe. 

Importantly these clubs have owners and CEO’s who have hired managers with the same philosophies and ideas so that the club as a whole believe in youth development. The Barca example is used so often yet they had a manager in Pep Guardiola who obsessed over having a team full of Academy products in the first team and this vision determined his philosophy. Would a Jose Mourinho type coach have chosen a different way? Of course. In order to succeed with youth development it comes down to philosophies.

A lack of quality or opportunity?

Many will argue that the quality of English players isn't good enough. I would disagree to an extent. I believe there are some excellent producers of talent at this time; Southampton, Everton and Fulham in particular. Yet we have too many average and mediocre academies and coaches developing mediocre players not suited to the modern yet along future game. 

If the coaching and structure is poor this results in the development of poor players. Yet is this the case with English football? Perhaps that since the creation of academies this past decade too many clubs have been lax in their approach to youth development and are now paying the price for it. There are too many destroyers of talent which is restricting the pool of English players.

The truth is we have far too many players being ruined in our academies. There are 10,000 players roughly in the academy system and only 1% make it. Something is wrong. It is clear that these 'elite developers' are nothing of the sort and the EPPP is finding this out. The fact it took over a decade to go into these academies and actually ask "What are you doing here?" is so long overdue that we have been left with a generation which is dearth of talent. 

We attempt to compare ourselves to Spain, Germany, Holland and France but the truth is we are very much behind these nations because we failed to address our key foundational issues early enough. We are lagging behind the rest because these nations addressed their problems 10-30 years ago. The youth system is not an overnight fix and we need time to get it right.

There are only a handful of true developers of talent in the country, which is very worrying for England's future. It is a shame however that the model of Southampton and the use and experience of Les Reed has not being used more effectively, especially by the FA commission. This is one of the most progressive Academies in Europe and their success of player development is evidence of this. 

Their first generation produced Walcott, Bale and Chamberlain and now we see Lallana, Shaw and Ward-Prowse. This is an Academy doing it right. Yet it is not just the Academy but the club as a whole. And this is where the problems lie for English football.

Wealth ruins future generations

English football, with the wealth many clubs have do not see the need or necessity to rely on their youth academy and thus neglect it, ignore it and then complain there is no talent coming through. This is the Premier League’s own doing, and the fans too. They have loved the influx of foreign owners with deep pockets because it allows their clubs to progress and bring in expensive foreign talent. And yet these same fans argue this is a problem for England, yet you cannot have it both ways. 

Oh wait, you can. The German model of 50+1 should have been implemented when the Premier League was created yet the short-sightedness of the creators (or simple ignorance) meant that the Premier League has become a playground for the rich. Are we surprised therefore when these owners don’t care about the England national team? 

They want success for their clubs and whilst there are no rules telling them otherwise or quotas in place or changes of the ‘home-grown’ rule they will continue to spend the money on quality from elsewhere. This of course applies to the managers too who want to win the league, qualify for the Champions League, avoid relegation or simply stay in their job. 

What is needed are more sustainable minded owners who appreciate the need to develop academy players. This is why clubs like Aston Villa and Southampton may have to be the teams where English players develop and progress. Realistically being at Chelsea or Man City’s academy, or even Arsenal and Man Utd may mean a lack of playing which means a lack of development.

English football’s ‘bubble’ may burst in the coming decade in the same way Italian football’s did. It may see the rise of more English players and interest in academies if that happens. We should look at Southampton as a blueprint for developing future players.  Yet it took relegation to League One to provide their youth players with the experience required to become top players.

This period of decline allowed the club to re-build the foundations and allowed the club to offer their young players the key experience needed to develop. This aided their progress back to the Premier League and now the club has an owner and coach who value youth development. It is a near 'perfect blend' of English youth and experienced professionals. Yet would we have seen this had they not been relegated and forced to develop and provide their own with experience? Perhaps not.

The players are there, perhaps not as many as we would want and wish yet there are a greater number of players coming through an ever improving system. Yet it is opportunity which is lacking. With the emergence of coaches like Brendan Rodgers at Liverpool and Roberto Martinez at Everton we have seen young players being given a chance. Both have shown a desire to give young players opportunities and we have seen many English players in their starting XI’s this season. 

To see Liverpool in particular challenging for the title is a great example that English players can achieve good things when given the chance. Rodgers past experience is as a youth coach, thus his philosophical outlook is based on youth and opportunity. Hopefully more like Rodgers and Martinez come through and give more of these players a chance.

Building a pathway

The FA have a major role to play in youth development, in fact you can argue that their sole job as a national body is to focus on the grassroots and youth. Unfortunately Dyke’s assertion points to what many have worried about for too long, that the FA really do not value youth development as their priority. 

There is certainly a lack of community in English football, something which is prevalent certainly in Holland. A feeling of togetherness and cohesion. This is not evident in England's youth system. Grassroots and academies do not have a good enough joined up approach in order to help players on the pathway. It is too fragmented and hostile. The FA's role must be to address this and bridge the gap. Developing FA coaching centres would be a good start and yet one worries about their focus and priorities.

As we've said already had the FA cared more about youth development they would have used the £900m spent on a (needless) Wembley on investing in dozens of FA led 'talent centres' across the country similar to what Germany did, an investment in outdoor and indoor 3G facilities across all regions and more affordable coach education. Imagine what that money could have done for England these past 10 years. Instead their focus was on the senior setup and the lucrative financial possibilities of a new stadium. 

The FA neglected youth development and showed clearly what their priorities truly were. On top of that the building of the national football centre was also put on hold in order to Wembley to be built. Now I am not the biggest fan of St George’s Park, personally I think it is pretentious and over indulgent and importantly I feel that it neglects the purpose it was supposed to be used for, a centre for developing world class coaches and players. It cost so much to build, and took so much time that it’s cost the nation a decade of ‘world class education’. 

This is the key aspect which needs addressing regarding the quality of coaches in England. It is the key solution to England’s future. Yes we want more quantity yet we also need much higher quality, world class quality. 

Questions must be asked as to why are there so few English coaches at the highest level? Whether coaching or managing? Like our players there is void and limited amount of talent across football. It leads us to point blame once more at the FA’s previous methods and approach, which produced coaches who were not equipped for the modern game. 

It is very concerning that our league requires foreign coaches and players to make the league ‘world class’. Therefore we require higher standards of our coaches and their education, as well in this globalised world an ability to speak another language or two is not only an advantage but a necessity! 

We cannot accept mediocrity or excuses anymore but push and challenge coaches to strive and expect top quality standards. If we get the coaching right then it leads me to think we can improve the quality of our players.

And this lead us to consider a major issue with England’s youth development. The reason we don’t have an abundance of world class coaches is because quite simply we don’t pay world class wages for these roles. 

Youth coaching is not valued highly enough across the board which means that the top quality coaches move abroad. If we want to produce better players we need to keep our quality coaches in the country and this will require paying wages which compliment their abilities. 

I’m not talking players crazy wage, but simply £40-50k a year, something which makes coaches want to stay and commit to a role. If you pay peanuts you know what you get and you can’t complain when the quality being produced is not good enough. It’s simple really, yet the clubs need to see this need and start valuing their youth coaches more.

Developing modern players

We cannot change the past, like Dyke said, yet we can learn from it and see that the FA’s view of their role needs to change, radically to value bottom up projects over top down ones.Therefore what the FA’s role must be is to educate every grassroots coach in the country who work with young players about their model for player development. Their own FA Skills programme should be taught to every coach as a mandatory requirement and these coaches should then be instructed about what young grassroots players require (this chapter of my book The Way Forward looks at the grassroots game and its issues in more depth). 

What the FA need to make sure is that as a nation we are developing confident and skilful young players in the grassroots game, not destroying talent and skill, which is what is happening at this time. We need to place more value on futsal and the FA should seek to create more futsal centres which allow more young players to play and develop their skills. 

The truth is that we have failed our young players for too long and wonder why we don’t develop players capable to dealing with the requirements of the modern game.If we wish to have more English players playing in the Premier League (and across Europe) then we need to produce players who possess the necessary skills for the modern game. 

Technical ability under pressure is important yet so too is tactical ingenuity and intelligence as well as possessing the physical attributes required. Yet most importantly is the possession of the correct mentality and mindset, an issue which many English players fail to possess. This is why improvements in talent identification and sport psychology in academies will help find and develop players with the correct mindsets needed to become a professional.

Conclusion

To conclude this three part series I personally hoped that the FA had turned a corner. With the new appointment of Dan Ashworth and the tremendous work of Nick Levett it seemed the FA was making progress. Perhaps their next report will be more progressive and the solutions more viable to make a genuine difference. Yet I can't help but think that it is more time wasted talking about ideas and solutions without trying to make things happen. We have wasted far too long these past several decades on the Charles Hughes philosophies and then the ignorance of Howard Wilkinson's proposals in 1997. 

Luckily people like Les Reed took it on themselves to make the key decisions which has propel Southampton to the model to be admired. Yet their lesson is simple, to make youth development properly work you need investment from the whole club. Youth needs to be seen as a priority and must be nurtured accordingly. We are not as far behind as many would have you believe, our promising youngsters for the World Cup this summer are evidence of that, yet there is a lot work to be done. One feels it will be people not organisations which force the change. 

The Whitehouse Address @The_W_Address

Matt Whitehouse is the author of “The Way Forward: Solutions to England’s Football Failings” 

The book is ideally suited to the current debate on youth development and importantly offers key solutions for a better future. 

You can purchase the book from Amazon here