Poor season for the U21s and U18s. Do we need an Academy shake up?

Has anyone been keeping track of our our U21 or U18 teams this season?

We have been "relegated" by finishing in the bottom half of the new Professional Development Under 21 League: http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/matchday/barclays-u21-premier-league-tables.html?paramYouthStage=NATIONAL. The Top tier is being split into 2 sections next season and as a result our U21s will play in division 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013–14_Professional_U21_Development_League.

Not a major setback as I'm sure we can get promoted soon enough, but does it show a bit of a decline from the team crowned Champions of Europe? Grealish and Carruthers have gone on loan - but the likes of Watkins Webb Donacien Lewis Kinsella Burke Robinson Calder Graham have all been available, along with Johnson and Siegrist. Drennan has also been available for half the season. I'm not sure about the injury situation, but surely that squad should have had enough quality to be in the top 12?

I have seen a couple of games and the style has been worryingly similar to our first team - very direct, sometimes employing a 3-5-2. It seems to me that Lambert has a strong influence over the way they play. We're having a similarly poor season in the Under 18s, 7th in the South division of the top tier. We haven't had the distraction of the NextGen. We got knocked out of the new 'Under 21 Cup' in our first round and the FA Youth Cup in our second round, heavily defeated by Fulham and Liverpool respectively. Though Robinson has been called up lately, it's also not like our reserves have been missing regularly through call ups to the first team.

We have a strong, proud academy record. But is there a cause for concern here? The Academy Director Bryan Jones is retiring. Gordon Cowans has stepped up to look after the seniors. Should we be seriously looking into changes to our youth teams over the summer? Should this be taken as an opportunity to have a re-structure, particularly if new ownership arrives?

Surprised by that considering how good our academy has been for the past few years. I actually think that stamping one way of playing across the club is a good way of working. The problem is that we did it the wrong way. Instead of stamping a few ideas from our academy team on to the first team we did it the other way round resulting in a style (if one could use that word) that failed at both levels.

We've heard a suggestion that Lambert is not receptive to the ideas of other coaches outside himself and the departed Tweedledee and Tweedledum and this could be evidence of that. Of course as a manager he has every right to do that but he also has rhe responsibility to change it if it doesn't work.

As for the future, I think whoever is in charge from next season has some work to do on that side. It's heartening to see that a few of the names linked with a takeover seem to have a believe in youth sides (cf the Texas Rangers blokes and their strengthening of their farm system) so you'd hope that they'd bring in some good people to run that side of things.

Isn't our academy director retiring this year?

I agree that putting a style in place across the Youth, Reserve and First team is a good idea. But not a direct style. You can adapt to play a direct style of football if you have been trained in a passing game, but it is much more difficult to play a possession based game if you have spent your development getting behind the ball and punting it forward.

I understand that only a select few of the players from the under 21s will ever become good enough for the Villa first team, but I definitely think there is work to be done and we should be doing better. If we pride ourselves on our academy, recent youth champions of Europe, 'number 1' academy in England, then these teams have to be performing better.

AndyD wrote:Isn't our academy director retiring this year?

Yes, I mentioned that in the last paragraph.

From top to bottom, our club has turned to shit.

Perhaps the youth team coaches have been working under 'restrictions' this year?

  

slightly off topic but can someone help me by identifying a player in a picture on the official site? in the picture it looks like there doing sprint drills and I know boy Webb is in front but who is the other player in the pic? obviously I know the rest in the pic..

I saw the U18s being slaughtered by Southampton a few weeks ago, two or three good players but it was hard to tell.

The U21s have had key players missing. Siegrist, Drennan and Grealish have been out on loan, Gardner is injured, Carruthers was on loan and is now injured, that's a few from the U21s, I wonder if a few of the U18s have moved up to the U21s.

I imagine the youth squads are rather fluid anyway.

That is a very sudden drop in standards. Villa have been doing well at underage level for as long as I can remember. In the last ten years or so we always seem to have a good set up at youth?

What the heck is happening behind the scenes?