Success or Failure Arsenal Academy Focus, Part 2

When Pat Rice retired from his role of first team coach last summer, youth team coach Steve Bould and Reserve Manager Neil Bandfield were promoted in his place.This left a major voids to fill, at U18 Manager and Reserve Team Manage. It’s my understanding that several former Gooner first teamers where considered and even contacted for the job, but for one reason or another none of them were interested enough to take on the role.

Return to Part 1 here 

Coaching

 For the reserve team managers job Arsenal made as far as I’m concerned a very good choice in Terry Burton.  He has been very successful at helping Arsenal to produce very good players in the past such as Adams, Keown, Thomas, Merson, Rocastle etc.  Burton became Arsenal Reserve and Head Development Coach, which actually ended up with him doing more on the development side of things with Steve Gatting doing extra duties with the U21’s (reserve team on match days).

But Arsenal made a choice right out of left field when appointing a new U18 Manager, Pat Holland the former West Ham player.  This just did not work out at all, he did not last long in the job, it was never made clear if he was removed from the role or if he stepped down, and if he was sacked was there more to it than purely results.  Amid rumours that right from the off many in the Academy – other coaches, staff and players – had major doubts about his coaching style, especially his man management skills, which was seen as very un Arsenal, in that his constant shouting instructions at players during games was seen as more of a distraction to them than a help.  He was seen as old school by many or more to the point out dated. 

Steve Gatting, the former Arsenal player, and already a mainstay of the Academy was promoted to the role for a while, but as already mentioned he also moved up to reserve team duties, what made this whole thing odd was that he had not got the job in the first place as he was seen as the best man for the role he already held, which combined coaching with helping the young players with their educational needs.

We also seen by the seasons end Carl Laramar promoted to the management of the U18’s, he has had a fine record managing the U15 and 16’s, and it will be interesting to see if he can make the step up. So lots of coaching staff changes made over the course of the last year at all levels, including former Gooner player Kwame Ampadu joining the Academy (u14/15)

Big Changes Coming

There are more changes afoot at Arsenal Academy this summer, with the possibility of the biggest of all happening.  Liam Brady announced during last season that he would not be renewing his contract as Head of Arsenal Youth Academy, when his deal runs out in 2014.  He is willing to stay on in that role for next season if Arsenal do not find a suitable replacement, but he will happily step aside this summer if the right man can be persuaded to come in.

There have been discussions at the club as to suitable replacements, I do hope Arsenal do not take the easy option and just promote David Court from this role as assistant.  I would much rather one of the other higher calibre names mentioned be selected.  Dermot Drummy, who was a fine coach in the Arsenal Academy for years before taking over the youth teams at Chelsea has been mentioned, and there are reports that he has told Chelsea that he is leaving them this summer, media reports say he has chance of getting a job as manager of some League 1 clubs or even a championship side.

 I hope he can be persuaded to return to Arsenal.  The other names being whispered at London Colney as being possible are Marc Overmars and Dennis Bergkamp, possibly even both coming in, Overmars taking over the Brady role, which is similar to the one he holds now at Ajax, and Bergkamp coming in as one of the coaches.  Maybe another step in copying the Bayern Munich model Ivan Gazidis seems so fond of.

Talking of which, I hear a little rumour that the new role Arsenal are considering for Liam Brady is a place on the Arsenal Board, sadly the perfect scenario would have been for Brady to have replaced  Peter Hill-Wood as Chairman.  But it seems we do not want to go too far with copying Bayern Munich, so Sir Chips gets that job instead.

Youth Player Cull Not A Sign Of Problems

Something like 14 youths and young pros are leaving Arsenal this summer, and I have seen several bloggers suggest that this shows that our Academy System is a mess.  Firstly let me state that only about ten of those players leave by Arsenal’s choice, 3 or 4 of them where offered new contracts by Arsenal but refused them as they did not see a clear path in to the first team.  Anyway its 14 players leaving and this has got a few bloggers knickers in a twist.  I’m of the view that this is fantastic news, following on from last summer when we also discarded a large amount of youths, we are back to how it should be, decisions have to be made on the likelihood of them making it at Arsenal, and once we decide they will not make it then of course they should be let go..

Too many times in the past the club have handed out pro deals to players who had little or no chance of being good enough for the first team, we even gave a contract to a player who failed to find a new club after we had released him and he has the distinction of being released two years in a row by Arsenal – (yes it was a special case, as he had awful luck with injuries in his two year Academy stay, and it was a nice gesture by the club, but should it have been made). 

This summer Arsenal assessed the players in a proper manner, some of the questions asked were – are they good enough to make it in the Arsenal first team within two years, will they force their way in to the first team picture past those already ahead of them within two years, have the more potential than those coming behind them-and if the answer to any of those questions was no, then no deal, thanks and bye, just as it should be.

  Since I began writing this article news has filtered through that one of those we released – Zack Fagan – has now been offered an extra year in our Academy, this slightly concerns me, is this back track due to a change of opinion about him, did we miss out on a young signing we intended to make, or did someone just realise that letting him go meant we are short of bodies in his position.  Whatever the reason, I don't see it as being good.

So What Is The Answer To The Question In The Title

There is a peculiar fascination Gooners have with our Youth players, only rivalled by Man U fans with theirs, maybe this is due to the fact both have long histories of having trophy winning sides backboned by own produced players, unrivalled by any other English teams.  The problem with this fascination is that any Tom, Dick or Harry who plays for our youth team tends to get far too many column inches written about them, too many Youtube clips posted and too many mentions on a Merlion list (Arsenal Times regulars will know what I mean), the expectations are built up far too much.  So when they invariably fail to become real stars the frustrated Gooners in Blog World have the usual over simplistic childlike reaction that the Academy is a failure, a hoax, a waste of money etc, when the reality is much different. 

Something like only 2% of kids taken on by pro clubs in England at 16 manage to still be in the pro game by 21.  Arsenal’s Academy has much better stats than that over the last ten years, and one look at our regular first team last season shows even better again, Szczesny, Gibbs and Wilshere.   Add in other players from our Academy who are on the fringes of the first team squad like Miquel, Coquelin, Gnabry etc and the stats look good.

So to finally answer the question, although it needs to be and can be better, its still a success as far as I’m concerned, not the roaring success that Wenger's utopian dream aims for,  I really hope it becomes the sort of success Wenger envisages for it, and hopefully sometime real soon.  Overmars as Head of Youth Academy, Bergkamp as a Youth Coach, other former players like Keown, Seaman or even to poach the best coaches from other top Academies across the world, and put Brady on the Board and I’d start to believe we could well copy the Bayern Munich model Ivan seems so fond of these days.

Finally in passing I would point out that I deliberately have not gone into discussing what players we have coming through the Academy who may make it big at Arsenal, for the simple reason that as already stated I believe we tend to over hype them as it is, so they and we don't need another article jazzing up their reputations.