The Academy/Development squads watch thread 2024/25

[Royalwaster]

Interesting stat I’ve just seen

97% of former cat 1 academy players now aged 21 to 26 never made a Premier League appearance.

70% weren't handed a pro contract at an EPL or EFL club. And only 1 in 10 went on to make more than 20 league appearances in the top four tiers of English football.

So 30% signed a professional contract and 10% played more than 20 games in the top 4 tiers ... that's not that bad. It means they'll have at least made a very good living for a while and some of them a very good living.

It fits pretty well with my knowledge of players I know who were academies - even the most highly rated ones in their age group haven't made it. Some are playing in the conference or below ... but there is always the chance that they may get picked up by a league club somewhere down the line.

[Crusader Royal]

Would be interesting to see the stats for our Academy, gut feel says we produce more 20+ game players but that may be way off. You would think a Cat 1 academy attached to a non PL club is going to push more players through.

[Stranded]

Would be interesting to see the stats for our Academy, gut feel says we produce more 20+ game players but that may be way off. You would think a Cat 1 academy attached to a non PL club is going to push more players through.

I doubt we do, memory skews these things, for every player you can name who went through our Academy and played in the EFL or higher for a decent period of time will be dwarfed by the number of players you either can't remember or never even heard of.

Youth development in football (and to be fair in most sports) is a numbers game for any club.

[rabidbee]

Yeah, I remember reading somewhere that most of the kids in an academy are only there to make up the numbers for the one or two kids who will actually make it.

[WestYorksRoyal]

Academies bring in young talent, but it takes more than talent to make it. You need to be highly driven and competitive, and able to handle pressure. The stats don't really surprise me, it’s attritional at every age group. If you start at the U11s and skim off 20% each year, you'll see a very small amount at the end. I'd be interested to see how many who are still there when they reach U18s make it.

[Sutekh]

Academies bring in young talent, but it takes more than talent to make it. You need to be highly driven and competitive, and able to handle pressure. The stats don't really surprise me, it’s attritional at every age group. If you start at the U11s and skim off 20% each year, you'll see a very small amount at the end. I'd be interested to see how many who are still there when they reach U18s make it.

Apparently previous studies on Premier League academies have shown just one per cent of under-nine players make it to the top tier.

Presume there must be some stats out there from British academies that give more detail eg. how many into the other English leagues etc.

[Snowflake Royal]

Interesting stat I’ve just seen

97% of former cat 1 academy players now aged 21 to 26 never made a Premier League appearance.

70% weren't handed a pro contract at an EPL or EFL club. And only 1 in 10 went on to make more than 20 league appearances in the top four tiers of English football.

Yes, it’s extremely competitive; that’s not a failure of those academies but a reflection of how difficult it is to make it as a pro footballer

I imagine a lot of those kids end up tiers 5/6 which is still a great achievement

Each Academy has about 8 - 15 per year group, roughly right?, so with about 20 Cat 1 Academies, that's 160 - 300 players per year. Many clubs don’t have room for more than a couple of young players to break into a squad each season, if that.

So yeah, you'd expect a high failure rate.

A guy I know was in an academy and said keepers in particular are often kept on knowing they won’t ever make it professionally, because the Academy needs a couple at each major age grouo to make up the numbers. And support on training and warm ups for the senior players.

[Crusader Royal]

Must admit I was thinking academy as in Scholars but of course it covers all ages
I still think over the last few years we’ve had more than a couple of players per year break through and play good numbers of games. Need to find the entry level groups for the last decade and compare the names, although I don’t think they make the names public at the younger end of the academy.

[morganb]

Surely the majority of Cat 1 academies are attached to Premier League clubs

These clubs tend to buy in players, rather than promote from their Cat 1 academy, therefore the figures quoted probably mainly apply to Premier League

However there are a few lower league clubs, ourselves included, that have Cat 1 academies. I wonder what the figures look like solely for these clubs?

[Sutekh]

According to Wiki:

Since the [Reading FC] Academy opened in 1999, 89 graduates have gone on to play for the first team [listed roughly in order of debut]….

Alex Haddow
Darius Henderson
Nathan Tyson
Jamie Ashdown
Darren Campbell
Peter Castle
Jamie Young
Simon Cox
Shane Long
Curtis Osano
Alex Pearce
James Henry
Julian Kelly
Jem Karacan
Gylfi Sigurðsson
Simon Church
Scott Davies
Hal Robson-Kanu
Nicholas Bignall
Ben Hamer
Jordan Obita
Jake Taylor
Alex McCarthy
Lawson D'Ath
Dominic Samuel
Michael Hector
Ryan Edwards
Craig Tanner
Jake Cooper
Jack Stacey
Aaron Kuhl
Aaron Tshibola
Sean Long
Mikkel Andersen
Niall Keown
Andrija Novakovich
Tariqe Fosu
Josh Barrett
Robert Dickie
Tennai Watson
Liam Kelly
Omar Richards
Axel Óskar Andrésson
Andy Rinomhota
Sam Smith
Danny Loader
Tom Holmes
Tom McIntyre
Gabriel Osho
Ryan East
Michael Olise
Teddy Howe
Akin Odimayo
Andre Burley
Jeriel Dorsett
Ramarni Medford-Smith
Ben House
Luke Southwood
Ethan Bristow
Nahum Melvin-Lambert
Dejan Tetek
Lynford Sackey
Nelson Abbey
Oliver Pendlebury
Conor Lawless
Mamadi Camará
Claudio Osorio
Kian Leavy
Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan
Michael Stickland
Jamaica Jahmari Clarke
Tyrell Ashcroft
Louie Holzman
Kelvin Abrefa
Basil Tuma
Coniah Boyce-Clarke
Jack Senga
Caylan Vickers
Taylan Harris
Tom Norcott
Andre Garcia
Abraham Kanu
Emmanuel Osho
Shay Spencer
Tyler Sackey
Ashqar Ahmed
Joseph Barough
Boyd Beacroft
Jeremiah Okine-Peters

And the following, according to Wiki, have left the Academy for 1st team careers elsewhere (listed alphabetically):

1. Jökull Andrésson
2. Nick Arnold
3. Charlie Austin
4. Shandon Baptiste
5. Marvin Bartley
6. Abdulai Bell-Baggie
7. Doug Bergqvist
8. Jayden Bogle
9. Kelvin Bossman
10. Andre Boucaud
11. Oliver Bozanic
12. Henrik Breimyr
13. Andre Burley
14. Jamie Bynoe-Gittens
15. Harry Cardwell
16. Travis Clayton
17. Daniel Carr
18. Ethan Coleman
19. Harry Cooksley
20. Donervon Daniels
21. Kevin Danso
22. Cameron Edwards
23. Samúel Friðjónsson
24. Tyrese Fornah
25. Tyler Frost
26. Ben Gladwin
27. John Goddard
28. Tyler Goodrham
29. Tom Hateley
30. Jordan Holsgrove
31. Jonny Hayes
32. Bashir Humphreys
33. Noor Husin
34. Dominic Hyam
35. Uche Ikpeazu
36. Ji Dong-Won
37. Zak Jules
38. Clovis Kamdjo
39. Ibrahim Kargbo Jr.
40. Kim Won-sik
41. George Legg
42. Adam Liddle
43. Adam Lockwood
44. Angus MacDonald
45. Jay Matete
46. Carl McHugh
47. Ramarni Medford-Smith
48. Adam Mekki
49. Stuart Moore
50. Johnny Mullins
51. Nam Tae-Hee
52. Roberto Nditi
53. Thierry Nevers
54. Jack Nolan
55. Hakeem Odoffin
56. Matt Partridge
57. Frankie Raymond
58. Scott Rendell
59. Myles Roberts
60. Joel Rollinson
61. James Rowe
62. Steve Seddon
63. Conor Shaughnessy
64. Chris Smith
65. Louie Soares
66. Matty Stevens
67. Pierce Sweeney
68. Rhys Tyler
69. Gozie Ugwu
70. Terence Vancooten
71. Radoslav Vasilev
72. Bogdan Vaštšuk
73. Connor Wickham
74. Andy White

So it seems, if Wiki is accurate ( ), Reading have a very successful Academy. 163 graduates, in around 25 years, so far progressed to 1st team football somewhere.

[Crusader Royal]

According to Wiki:

Since the [Reading FC] Academy opened in 1999, 89 graduates have gone on to play for the first team [listed roughly in order of debut]….

Alex Haddow
Darius Henderson
Nathan Tyson
Jamie Ashdown
Darren Campbell
Peter Castle
Jamie Young
Simon Cox
Shane Long
Curtis Osano
Alex Pearce
James Henry
Julian Kelly
Jem Karacan
Gylfi Sigurðsson
Simon Church
Scott Davies
Hal Robson-Kanu
Nicholas Bignall
Ben Hamer
Jordan Obita
Jake Taylor
Alex McCarthy
Lawson D'Ath
Dominic Samuel
Michael Hector
Ryan Edwards
Craig Tanner
Jake Cooper
Jack Stacey
Aaron Kuhl
Aaron Tshibola
Sean Long
Mikkel Andersen
Niall Keown
Andrija Novakovich
Tariqe Fosu
Josh Barrett
Robert Dickie
Tennai Watson
Liam Kelly
Omar Richards
Axel Óskar Andrésson
Andy Rinomhota
Sam Smith
Danny Loader
Tom Holmes
Tom McIntyre
Gabriel Osho
Ryan East
Michael Olise
Teddy Howe
Akin Odimayo
Andre Burley
Jeriel Dorsett
Ramarni Medford-Smith
Ben House
Luke Southwood
Ethan Bristow
Nahum Melvin-Lambert
Dejan Tetek
Lynford Sackey
Nelson Abbey
Oliver Pendlebury
Conor Lawless
Mamadi Camará
Claudio Osorio
Kian Leavy
Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan
Michael Stickland
Jamaica Jahmari Clarke
Tyrell Ashcroft
Louie Holzman
Kelvin Abrefa
Basil Tuma
Coniah Boyce-Clarke
Jack Senga
Caylan Vickers
Taylan Harris
Tom Norcott
Andre Garcia
Abraham Kanu
Emmanuel Osho
Shay Spencer
Tyler Sackey
Ashqar Ahmed
Joseph Barough
Boyd Beacroft
Jeremiah Okine-Peters

And the following, according to Wiki, have left the Academy for 1st team careers elsewhere (listed alphabetically):

1. Jökull Andrésson
2. Nick Arnold
3. Charlie Austin
4. Shandon Baptiste
5. Marvin Bartley
6. Abdulai Bell-Baggie
7. Doug Bergqvist
8. Jayden Bogle
9. Kelvin Bossman
10. Andre Boucaud
11. Oliver Bozanic
12. Henrik Breimyr
13. Andre Burley
14. Jamie Bynoe-Gittens
15. Harry Cardwell
16. Travis Clayton
17. Daniel Carr
18. Ethan Coleman
19. Harry Cooksley
20. Donervon Daniels
21. Kevin Danso
22. Cameron Edwards
23. Samúel Friðjónsson
24. Tyrese Fornah
25. Tyler Frost
26. Ben Gladwin
27. John Goddard
28. Tyler Goodrham
29. Tom Hateley
30. Jordan Holsgrove
31. Jonny Hayes
32. Bashir Humphreys
33. Noor Husin
34. Dominic Hyam
35. Uche Ikpeazu
36. Ji Dong-Won
37. Zak Jules
38. Clovis Kamdjo
39. Ibrahim Kargbo Jr.
40. Kim Won-sik
41. George Legg
42. Adam Liddle
43. Adam Lockwood
44. Angus MacDonald
45. Jay Matete
46. Carl McHugh
47. Ramarni Medford-Smith
48. Adam Mekki
49. Stuart Moore
50. Johnny Mullins
51. Nam Tae-Hee
52. Roberto Nditi
53. Thierry Nevers
54. Jack Nolan
55. Hakeem Odoffin
56. Matt Partridge
57. Frankie Raymond
58. Scott Rendell
59. Myles Roberts
60. Joel Rollinson
61. James Rowe
62. Steve Seddon
63. Conor Shaughnessy
64. Chris Smith
65. Louie Soares
66. Matty Stevens
67. Pierce Sweeney
68. Rhys Tyler
69. Gozie Ugwu
70. Terence Vancooten
71. Radoslav Vasilev
72. Bogdan Vaštšuk
73. Connor Wickham
74. Andy White

So it seems, if Wiki is accurate ( ), Reading have a very successful Academy. 163 graduates, in around 25 years, so far progressed to 1st team football somewhere.

Assuming 15 players per intake (which is 375) then that would give us a near 50% success rate !

But those figures are questionable at best. Connor Wickham isn’t an academy graduate, nor is Charlie Austin and Shane Long is always hotly debated. There are quite a few players who may have played first team for semi pro sides but certainly haven’t been full time pros and the criteria was 20 appearances wasn’t it !
It’s a good number but needs refining for comparison purposes. ,

[Sutekh]

According to Wiki:

So it seems, if Wiki is accurate ( ), Reading have a very successful Academy. 163 graduates, in around 25 years, so far progressed to 1st team football somewhere.

Assuming 15 players per intake (which is 375) then that would give us a near 50% success rate !

But those figures are questionable at best. Connor Wickham isn’t an academy graduate, nor is Charlie Austin and Shane Long is always hotly debated. There are quite a few players who may have played first team for semi pro sides but certainly haven’t been full time pros and the criteria was 20 appearances wasn’t it !
It’s a good number but needs refining for comparison purposes. ,

It’s a start, just need someone with the time to individually check each player’s “career”.

Wickham and Austin were both part of the Academy, only leaving because family moved out of the area but still should count as a part of their development was overseen by Reading coaching staff. They might not be graduates in the true sense but some of the product of what they finally became should be credited to Reading and that’s what this is about isn’t it? Putting Academy product out into the marketplace.

The confusion over Shane comes from the fact he was, we were told, going to be in the Academy when he joined (and so he was) but he was so good he was in the first team within 6 months but, IMO, as long as a player plays within the Academy then they should be classed as an Academy product.

[Crusader Royal]

I was thinking of a graduate as someone who has completed the training rather than someone who happened to be part of it for a bit then moved on or got rejected !
Just spotted another couple of glaring omissions as neither Eze nor Gittens are listed - that’s £100 million of talent !

[Sutekh]

I was thinking of a graduate as someone who has completed the training rather than someone who happened to be part of it for a bit then moved on or got rejected !
Just spotted another couple of glaring omissions as neither Eze nor Gittens are listed - that’s £100 million of talent !

14. Jamie Bynoe-Gittens

Eze was at Reading when ge was about 14, don’t think he stayed too long but this is the issue with the real youngsters, they maybe in an Academy but at that age family decisions may mean they get yanked away before their time or they just don’t settle being away from home at such young ages before a club can really make a footballing decision on them. Chances are Eze eould have made it at Reading had he stayed - or at least been another that was signed by someone’s supposed “bigger” academy.

At the end of the day an Academy attributes to the development of all players that pass through it whether they be there for 10 years or 10 days, so any contribution to a player that “makes it” is worth noting. Perhaps the media should make a distinction between players who “passed through” an Academy as compared to those that “graduated” (i.e. moved from an Academy to scholarship and first professional contracts with the same club).

Will try to sift through the above names a bit more over the next week or so to see who falls into what bucket and what became of them/where they are now etc.

[Snowflake Royal]

It's entirely arbitrary, but there surely has to be minimum requirements to qualify. We can't just claim anyone who had trial (hyperbole)

I think at least 2 years in the Academy between 12 and 20 has to be a must to count surely?

Long was in the first team squad within six months of joining and arrived at 18. No way is he really an academy player.