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32 Months


Ghost of Clough

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Not the number of months we've been under embargo over the past 4 years (which is almost 30 months), but the number of months since our U18s won the 18/19 League title, after beating an Arsenal side featuring Bakary Saka 5-2 in the Final. The young Rams also finished 8 points ahead of a Manchester United side which contained Mason Greenwood.

 

From that squad, 11 have played for our first team making a combined 419 appearances.

Those still with us and are in and around the first team:
McDonald - 8 first team apps.
JBrown - 4 first team apps.
Cashin - 3 first team apps.
Buchanan - Still only 20 but has already played 60 times.
Bird - With him making 97 appearances for the Rams, he'll be hoping to make his 100th app for the club in Feb
Thompson - Missed just 12 minutes of football since coming into the side against Bournemouth, the first of his 11 appearances.
Knight - An almost ever present in the first team since the start of the following season. He has already made 100 apps and scored 11 in the process.
Sibley - Still only 20 but has 7 goals and 4 assists in his 65 first team apps.
Festy - Already a fan favourite after 23 appearances.
Stretton - Limited to just 15 appearances given his injury troubles.

Some are still with us but are yet to play for the first team:
Dixon - Named on bench twice.
Wilson - Named on bench twice.
Matthews - yet to feature in a matchday squad.

Notable players who have since departed the club:
Whittaker - 32 appearances for Derby before moving on to Swansea where he scored 5 in 22 apps. He's currently on loan at Lincoln City where he has scored 1 in 3.
Delap - Left the club in summer 2019 for Man City, he has played for their first team on 3 occasions scoring once.

And the handful of others who have left:
Charles - Joined Mansfield and played twice, who loaned him out to York City where he made 4 apps
Archie Brown - Move to Switzerland in the summer just gone to play for Lausanne-Sport. Has made 2 apps, and a further 2 out on loan.
French
Foster
Minkley
Nto
Splatt
Greco

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Absolutely staggering to see the progression that the majority of the squad has made into the first team. Huge kudos has to be given to the youth structure and also to Rooney/co for believing in these players. Do we have the next generation coming through for use in the first team in 1-2 years or are these players all being snatched away by the likes of Liverpool and Man United? Obviously we're currently pushing all the better kids though as necessity, we just need to keep the conveyor belt turning.  

I'm sure we'd all much rather have a bench filled with own our crop with a sprinkling of experience than a bench full of £20-30k a week "earners" with more in reserve. It simply isn't sustainable as we know, and we need to keep the great camaraderie between fans and players up as much as possible.

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54 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Not the number of months we've been under embargo over the past 4 years (which is almost 30 months), but the number of months since our U18s won the 18/19 League title, after beating an Arsenal side featuring Bakary Saka 5-2 in the Final. The young Rams also finished 8 points ahead of a Manchester United side which contained Mason Greenwood.

 

From that squad, 11 have played for our first team making a combined 419 appearances.

Those still with us and are in and around the first team:
McDonald - 8 first team apps.
JBrown - 4 first team apps.
Cashin - 3 first team apps.
Buchanan - Still only 20 but has already played 60 times.
Bird - With him making 97 appearances for the Rams, he'll be hoping to make his 100th app for the club in Feb
Thompson - Missed just 12 minutes of football since coming into the side against Bournemouth, the first of his 11 appearances.
Knight - An almost ever present in the first team since the start of the following season. He has already made 100 apps and scored 11 in the process.
Sibley - Still only 20 but has 7 goals and 4 assists in his 65 first team apps.
Festy - Already a fan favourite after 23 appearances.
Stretton - Limited to just 15 appearances given his injury troubles.

Some are still with us but are yet to play for the first team:
Dixon - Named on bench twice.
Wilson - Named on bench twice.
Matthews - yet to feature in a matchday squad.

Notable players who have since departed the club:
Whittaker - 32 appearances for Derby before moving on to Swansea where he scored 5 in 22 apps. He's currently on loan at Lincoln City where he has scored 1 in 3.
Delap - Left the club in summer 2019 for Man City, he has played for their first team on 3 occasions scoring once.

And the handful of others who have left:
Charles - Joined Mansfield and played twice, who loaned him out to York City where he made 4 apps
Archie Brown - Move to Switzerland in the summer just gone to play for Lausanne-Sport. Has made 2 apps, and a further 2 out on loan.
French
Foster
Minkley
Nto
Splatt
Greco

Had no idea Buchanan had played 60 games already. 

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58 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Not the number of months we've been under embargo over the past 4 years (which is almost 30 months), but the number of months since our U18s won the 18/19 League title, after beating an Arsenal side featuring Bakary Saka 5-2 in the Final. The young Rams also finished 8 points ahead of a Manchester United side which contained Mason Greenwood.

 

From that squad, 11 have played for our first team making a combined 419 appearances.

 

Not part of that squad, but anyone know where Trialist (aka JHL) is?

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22 minutes ago, Ram@Lincoln said:

Absolutely staggering to see the progression that the majority of the squad has made into the first team. Huge kudos has to be given to the youth structure and also to Rooney/co for believing in these players. Do we have the next generation coming through for use in the first team in 1-2 years or are these players all being snatched away by the likes of Liverpool and Man United? Obviously we're currently pushing all the better kids though as necessity, we just need to keep the conveyor belt turning.  

I'm sure we'd all much rather have a bench filled with own our crop with a sprinkling of experience than a bench full of £20-30k a week "earners" with more in reserve. It simply isn't sustainable as we know, and we need to keep the great camaraderie between fans and players up as much as possible.

That U18 squad was mostly a mixture of the 2017 and 2018 youth intakes.

2017: French, JBrown, Minkley, Buchanan, Bird, Knight, Dixon, Whittaker
2018: Foster, Halwax, Cashin, Ebosele, McDonald, Archie, Charles, Sibley, LThompson, Wilson, Stretton

 

The following two intakes aren't looking as promising, although a few have been in around around the first team squad for training sessions and the odd appearance on the bench. Dylan Williams being the standout (already 9 apps). Please note Delap would have been in the 2019 group.

2019: Solomon, Bardell, Grewal-Pollard, Matthews, Aghatise, Perez de Gracia, SThompson, Cybulski (Jinkinson, Rogers and Nto have left)
2020: Roberts, Randle, Brailsford, Rutt, Christie, Ibrahim, Bokovic, Williams, Kelly

 

There next two groups look to be very promising. Please note Kaide Gordon would have been in the 2021 group, so too were Eze and Ryan who left for Norwich and Brighton. Maloney has played at various levels for England youth, Sebagabo is well thought of, Ebiowei has been very impressive, and Robinson has been training with the first team.
Several of the U16s have also featured in the U18 squad so far this season, these will be the 2022 group. Man Utd poached one of the players from this group last season (along with two from the next age group down). Kellyman has appeared on the first team bench and some will have heard of Jack Thompson, a highly thought of keeper who has played for England U15s and U16s. I also have very high hopes for Harry Hawkins.

2021: Evans, Richards, Aideyan, Maloney, Moore, Sebagabo, Fapetu, Robinson, Ebiowei, Nicholas-Davies, Dixon
2022: JThompson, Price, Cox, Robinson, Hawkins, Houston, DBrown, Kellyman

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7 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

-

Wow, thanks for the great snapshot here, much appreciated. Sounds like we have a few highly promising players in each intake. Hopefully there's a couple first team fringe players produced each year to then kick on in their second year with the first team. The likes of Hanson and Rawson would've been adequate backups instead of the highly paid hasbeens we had.

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10 minutes ago, Ram@Lincoln said:

Wow, thanks for the great snapshot here, much appreciated. Sounds like we have a few highly promising players in each intake. Hopefully there's a couple first team fringe players produced each year to then kick on in their second year with the first team. The likes of Hanson and Rawson would've been adequate backups instead of the highly paid hasbeens we had.

I completely agree. Imagine where we'd be if we'd have used Rawson, Lowe, McDonald, Hanson, Guy, Elsnik, Bennett, Vernam and Riis Jacobsen instead of Shackell, Warnock, Olsson, Baird, Butterfield, ???, Blackman, Anya, Camara, Marriott, Jozefzoon...

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2 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Not the number of months we've been under embargo over the past 4 years (which is almost 30 months), but the number of months since our U18s won the 18/19 League title, after beating an Arsenal side featuring Bakary Saka 5-2 in the Final. The young Rams also finished 8 points ahead of a Manchester United side which contained Mason Greenwood.

 

From that squad, 11 have played for our first team making a combined 419 appearances.

Those still with us and are in and around the first team:
McDonald - 8 first team apps.
JBrown - 4 first team apps.
Cashin - 3 first team apps.
Buchanan - Still only 20 but has already played 60 times.
Bird - With him making 97 appearances for the Rams, he'll be hoping to make his 100th app for the club in Feb
Thompson - Missed just 12 minutes of football since coming into the side against Bournemouth, the first of his 11 appearances.
Knight - An almost ever present in the first team since the start of the following season. He has already made 100 apps and scored 11 in the process.
Sibley - Still only 20 but has 7 goals and 4 assists in his 65 first team apps.
Festy - Already a fan favourite after 23 appearances.
Stretton - Limited to just 15 appearances given his injury troubles.

Some are still with us but are yet to play for the first team:
Dixon - Named on bench twice.
Wilson - Named on bench twice.
Matthews - yet to feature in a matchday squad.

Notable players who have since departed the club:
Whittaker - 32 appearances for Derby before moving on to Swansea where he scored 5 in 22 apps. He's currently on loan at Lincoln City where he has scored 1 in 3.
Delap - Left the club in summer 2019 for Man City, he has played for their first team on 3 occasions scoring once.

And the handful of others who have left:
Charles - Joined Mansfield and played twice, who loaned him out to York City where he made 4 apps
Archie Brown - Move to Switzerland in the summer just gone to play for Lausanne-Sport. Has made 2 apps, and a further 2 out on loan.
French
Foster
Minkley
Nto
Splatt
Greco

There is a simple and very obvious correlation between investment in the Academy and success 3 years down the line when those young players filter up into the first team. It's not Rocket Science. Instead of spending £3-4 Million on journeymen, invest in your academy infrastructure. Hopefully, this will continue. When Wayne arrived he was astounded at the "potential of this Club". He's wise enough to see that if the infrastructure and excellence and the likes of Darren Wassall are invested in, he can build a dynasty at Derby County. He has bought into that vision. It's so very important that the Club keeps this intact. 

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  Sadly this was Mel's vision for he put £100 million into the acadamey even before he became the outright owner, how did it all go so wrong my humble opinion he put to much faith in a CEO and other alleged advicers, who at the time must have thought it was their birthday's.

Thank you ghost of clough for putting this up, hopefuly it should show what value an acadamy really is. Must not forget Hendrick and Hughes, and the acadamy will be the first building block on our revival.

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43 minutes ago, angieram said:

??? Fascinating stuff, @Ghost of Clough. How do you have such a wide knowledge of the younger teams and do you ever get to see them play?

I try to get to the public games but they are usually limited to the under 23s and occasional under 18 games e.g.cups.

You know Bielsa had a spy in the Moor Farm bushes checking what our first team were doing? Well, that was actually me, but I wasn't checking out the first team ?

At least I'm not as bad as @Jubbs. That guy knows what Dylan Williams had for dinner!

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On 21/01/2022 at 11:52, RoyMac5 said:

Not part of that squad, but anyone know where Trialist (aka JHL) is?

Linked with a move to Inverness Caledonia Thistle a couple of days ago apparently:
 

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/sport/football/inverness-caledonian-thistle/3868125/caley-thistle-linked-with-english-forward-jahmal-hector-ingram/

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4 hours ago, Bald Eagle's Barmy Army said:

Great work @Ghost of Clough 

Did you ever think Liam Thompson would be the player he’s become? 

I'd be lying if I didn't have doubts about him handling the physicality of first team football. Always felt he was technically better than Bird so wasn't worried about that at all.

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16 hours ago, Ram Logan Josh said:

I guess he's finally found what he's been looking for - a club with a longer name than him!

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