The Academy/Development squads watch thread 2024/25

[Royal Rother]

Would like to see Tanner and Cardwell play together, Cardwell looks a better prospect than Ugwe now, is physically as strong despite being a first year scholar. An all home grown first team in the next 2 seasons is a real possibility as long as we manage to avoid promotion ....

Love the last point!

Promotion would potentially set us back years.

We need these players to get chances to play in order that we / they can truly develop and achieve their potential both in terms of playing ability but also value to Reading FC. (Those chances would be massively diminished if we were in the PL.)

Same goes for the Academy itself.

[Nameless]

If only 2% of 30 players make it into a RFC team then that's just less than one of our u18 and u21 sides. Frankly I just cannot see that. I think there are six players at least that will play for the first team. Several have already made the bench this season and those aren't even the best prospects.
Who knows, obviously many good youngsters don't train on but Tanner, Kuhl, Fosu, Hyam, Dickie, Stacey and others all look very capable of emulating Pearce, McCarthy, Hrk, Karacan and Obita

[ZacNaloen]

The number was more of an average and one pulled out my arse, i don'w know the real number.

It's small though.

[Ian Royal]

Couldn't make it today due to illness, but I'm really pleased that we won.

Now that's out the way, I'd like to see several members of this side compete for places in the first team. Tanner and Kuhl are obvious candidates, but I think Stacey could be a useful impact player in the coming weeks.

Could someone who's seen a bit of both run a comparison between the U21s who aren't also in the U18s and that team...

Mainly the defence I guess, I'd like to know how the likes of Griffin, Long, Keown, Cooper & Sweeney stack up to Watson, Owusu, Dickie and Hyam, who've all near blown me away with their potential.

I've never been particularly impressed with Griffin. From what I've seen of him he's reasonable, but not outstanding. OK, sometimes that's what you want (Murty, Armstrong), but I've been much more impressed by Owusu, who isn't exactly defensively frail.

I'm not a fan of Long, to be honest. I prefer, in age order, Arnold, Keown, Stacey and Watson. Stacey has adapted really well to playing as a winger, but if we have a crisis at full back I'd not want Long to be the one stepping up. Keown is better suited to playing as a right back than a centre back.

I reluctantly agree somewhat with Zac's comments on Cooper. I think he's got a lot of potential, but he used to struggle with players running at him, which Dickie has no problem with. In fairness to Cooper, he was playing with Keown last season, whereas Dickie is with Hyam (a genuine centre back). And when you're 6'6 at 18, you can be an absolute monster in the air.

I haven't really seen enough of Sweeney, he didn't play much for our U18s (Partridge kept him out of the side).

I think Tish is much better than Sammi, and Tanner is currently a class above Kelly, though that's at least partially due to the difference in age.

Super stuff, that was exactly what I was after.

[ZacNaloen]

Thats an indicator of how far youth football can be from first team, Arnold looked arguably better than Long (from what I recall) at same age struggling at Wycombe & unlikely to make it at Reading sad to see for a Reading lad and season ticket holder but it's very tough at the pro levels.

Sometimes though, there are qualities you can't really see that make all the difference. So who knows, with both of them.

My overriding memory of Long was the beating he got against Fulham in the under 18 league finals.

[Royal Rother]

My overriding memory of Kenny Sansome was the beating he got from Jerry Williams.

[ZacNaloen]

I never saw either but looking at your careers, I do get your point.

[Nameless]

The number was more of an average and one pulled out my arse, i don'w know the real number.

It's small though.

There was a piece in he paper today about a young lad who was released by Spurs aged 16 and killed himself, terrible incident and the article talked about the duty of care clubs have to youngsters who get sold the dream of fame and riches then get rejected and cast aside. In the article it said that only 1% of players offered scholarships actually make a career in the game, which is a quite unbelieveable figure. To me it suggests that these scholarship schemes are actually a complete waste of time if their success rate is so low. Of course you'd need to understand the figures to know for sure, and clearly our current success rate is way above 1%.

I remain convinced that we have the talent at the club to see half a dozen of more players to graduate to the professional ranks in the next 2 or 3 years, and more coming through at the younger ages. Only time will tell and some of those may fall by the wayside due to injury, attitude, circumstances. A home grown starting x1 is possible, didn't Middlesboro do it 5 or 6 years ago ?

[SPARTA]

And so it begins...

Aaron Kuhl wanted by Man City as Pellegrini lines up Reading youngster - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... gster.html

[Ian Royal]

That would be a poor move for him IMO. Stay here, get a chance in our first team in the Championship. Or go to Citeh and never make it through into their first team, maybe getting a loan move to the Championship before having to restart your career.

Mind you, £2m? That'd be welcome.

[akranes]

And so it begins...

Aaron Kuhl wanted by Man City as Pellegrini lines up Reading youngster - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... gster.html

Wow. Obviously all rumours but this could get very annoying...

We'd let him go for £2 million no hesitation though.

[winchester_royal]

Obviously want him to stay, and going to City would be completely the wrong move for him as a player. But....

£2m plus sell on fee for an 18 year old with no first team experience and questionable physique? We'd rightly bite their hands off.

[SPARTA]

If we lose the likes of Kuhl but keep the over-paid wasters I will be desperately pissed off this summer.

[genome]

Moving to City would be a disaster for him

[urz13]

Why take £2m? Why not keep him for a few seasons and sell for £5m+? I never understand this logic.

[ZacNaloen]

To lose him before he's played a season would be worse than gylfi. Especially as he's local.

[winchester_royal]

Why take £2m? Why not keep him for a few seasons and sell for £5m+? I never understand this logic.

Because there's no guarantee he'll become that good a player. Basically depends on how likely we think it is that he'll become a player capable of demanding that type of fee. That will determine our value.

[mambo3]

For those who know the U21s quite well, how ready are Ugwu and Tanner for the first team?

Ugwu is pretty average imo, quick and skillful but very little awareness. Will be surprised if he makes the leap anytime soon. My opinion of Tanner is well known, but just in case... I think the kid is the real deal. Everything good we did today came through him and when we got the ball to him (far too rare an occurence in the first half) he always took it in, beat a man, and looked to make something happen. Just the type of player we're lacking in the first team, and he seems to have the physicality now to handle rough defenders. Should be in the squad for Tuesday.

How about Dom Samuel?

[P!ssed Off]

Why take £2m? Why not keep him for a few seasons and sell for £5m+? I never understand this logic.

Too right.
As you say the 'he's young and inexperienced' angle means we shouldn't sell him, not we should
If he's worth 2 mill now he'll be worth a lot more later.

If it's a case of bring in a few million or bust then the 1st team has still got a few valuable wasters to offload first.

[P!ssed Off]

Why take £2m? Why not keep him for a few seasons and sell for £5m+? I never understand this logic.

Because there's no guarantee he'll become that good a player. Basically depends on how likely we think it is that he'll become a player capable of demanding that type of fee. That will determine our value.

Apparently he is already capable of commanding such a fee.
The club have seen plenty of players develop over the years and have so far given every impression that they believe Kuhl will go on to have a great future.