Darren Wassall has left the club

[PistoldPete]

Thanks for all the service Darren. 

[jimtastic56]

1 hour ago, cannable said:

Liam Delap had he stayed and had a chance to develop through us?

Did Liam move on at 16 when Rowett went? He has struggled in the Championship. But you never know. You can’t tell me that in 14 years there has not been a young lad from Derbyshire that could have been coached to become a good striker .

[Carl Sagan]

He's been a great servant. Absolutely stellar in so many ways. I felt his time was going to come when Cocu arrived and the Academy was going to be front and centre, but alas that all spiralled out of control. When you look at our return on investment, it's been surprisingly poor, for one reason or another, and that shows the danger of putting too much faith in it.

At the moment we have Sibley, Cashin, Bird and Knight which is incredibly impresive, but given we're a third division team with a Category 1 academy you'd hope we'd have some players to show for it. Maybe Liam Delap and Kaide Gordon were the ones who got away?

We won the English league and competed well in Europe. Timi Elsnik and Jack Stretton came close. Max Lowe, Jayden Bogle, Festy Ebesole, Lee Buchanan, Dylan Williams, Luke Thomas, Farrend Rawson, Morgan Whittaker, Archie Brown, Mason Bennett, Calum Guy and Kelle Roos all hint at us producing good players but not great players. Will Hughes and Jeff Hendrick, from the early days, have reached highest without quite fulfilling their early promise. 

If there had been a better overall plan of academy to first team I think we'd have seen the real benefit and I thought Wass should one day become the first-team coach overseeing his charges, but like it all it's been nearly but not quite. We probably won't know exactly how important and how good he's been until he's gone and we see what changes. A new broom is sweeping through the club and I think that's no bad thing, plus now we're in our second season in the third tier, we really do have to cut our cloth accordingly.

But huge thanks to Darren Wassall for everything.

[Srg]

7 minutes ago, Carl Sagan said:

He's been a great servant. Absolutely stellar in so many ways. I felt his time was going to come when Cocu arrived and the Academy was going to be front and centre, but alas that all spiralled out of control. When you look at our return on investment, it's been surprisingly poor, for one reason or another, and that shows the danger of putting too much faith in it.

At the moment we have Sibley, Cashin, Bird and Knight which is incredibly impresive, but given we're a third division team with a Category 1 academy you'd hope we'd have some players to show for it. Maybe Liam Delap and Kaide Gordon were the ones who got away?

We won the English league and competed well in Europe. Timi Elsnik and Jack Stretton came close. Max Lowe, Jayden Bogle, Festy Ebesole, Lee Buchanan, Dylan Williams, Luke Thomas, Farrend Rawson, Morgan Whittaker, Archie Brown, Mason Bennett, Calum Guy and Kelle Roos all hint at us producing good players but not great players. Will Hughes and Jeff Hendrick, from the early days, have reached highest without quite fulfilling their early promise. 

If there had been a better overall plan of academy to first team I think we'd have seen the real benefit and I thought Wass should one day become the first-team coach overseeing his charges, but like it all it's been nearly but not quite. We probably won't know exactly how important and how good he's been until he's gone and we see what changes. A new broom is sweeping through the club and I think that's no bad thing, plus now we're in our second season in the third tier, we really do have to cut our cloth accordingly.

But huge thanks to Darren Wassall for everything.

Roos was 21 or 22 when he joined us.

Agree with the rest though. Fundamentally, only having sold Jeff Hendrick for more than £10m it's actually quite disappointing. Obviously, injuries to Hughes probably hurt the prospect of another big sale and then financial issues prevented others, but when you look to the likes of those down the road and the amount of money they got for Oliver Burke et al it does look poor.

[Ghost of Clough]

4 hours ago, simmoram1995 said:

I’m still in favour of the Brentford b team model I think it’s more about scrapping it and therefore no longer needed. With a B team you buy players likely to make the progress both teams learn the same approach tactics and formation then easier transition 

If any club has aspiration of being in the Premier League, they have to have at least a Category 3 Academy (starting from 24/25). As such, Brentford started that transition this season by opening a Category 4 Academy. It will take them 2 full seasons to improve their infrastructure to meet Category 3 requirements. This is despite previously having a Category 2 Academy up until 2016.

The long term rewards from maintaining a Category 1 Academy far outweigh the short term savings from dropping down a category (or more).

[Bris Vegas]

I think I read somewhere that Derby are among those that have produced the most Football League players in the country. But that has been the limit.

When we beat Arsenal 5-2 in the final, more of our players have gone on to have a career in the Football League.

But they had Bukayo Saka who is worth probably 10x our entire XI that day combined.

Some clubs just seem to produce better quality players. Out of nowhere and without Cat 1 Norwich produced Aarons, Godfrey, Lewis and Cantwell with two of those leaving for £40m combined.

[Gerry Daly]

17 minutes ago, Srg said:

Roos was 21 or 22 when he joined us.

Agree with the rest though. Fundamentally, only having sold Jeff Hendrick for more than £10m it's actually quite disappointing. Obviously, injuries to Hughes probably hurt the prospect of another big sale and then financial issues prevented others, but when you look to the likes of those down the road and the amount of money they got for Oliver Burke et al it does look poor.

Exactly. And when Forest finally sell Brennan Johnson it will be for a humungous figure. We just haven't produced any strikers or wingers to speak of really. Having said that maybe it was just about bear fruit when Morris gave up and pulled the plug. It would have been good to see how Omari Kellyman and Kaide Gordon would have got on eventually here. We have been really robbed with those two. And I do think that Morgan Whittaker is starting to come through now as I suspected he would. Warne would have loved to have the option of Dylan Williams for left wing back I'm sure. And Festy for the right wing back. Shame

[Sparkle]

Our academy has probably produced more minutes played in professional football than it has ££££ received - strange but what’s better - probably need both I suppose  

[cannable]

There were the three under-15s we lost to Man United as well

[OohMartWright]

@David There are now three threads about Darren Wassall, all of which have his name spelled incorrectly in the title. As a courtesy to him, could you please edit these to show the correct spelling? Thank you.

[Ilkestonian]

5 minutes ago, OohMartWright said:

@David There are now three threads about Darren Wassall, all of which have his name spelled incorrectly in the title. As a courtesy to him, could you please edit these to show the correct spelling? Thank you.

And merge the three please.

[Boycie]

1 hour ago, Ilkestonian said:

And merge the three please.

Nobody tells @Davidwhat to do!!!

@rynny!!!

[Ram1988]

I just wanted to check we had a thread on Darren Wassall, incase we needed another...

[duncanjwitham]

How many first team regulars/squad-players produced is probably a better measure of an academy's quality than how many superstars.  There's always a massive amount of luck involved in producing the next Rooney or Saka or whatever.  But if you're consistently filling out your first team with decent players, then it gives you so much more flexibility in terms of buying players.  You can spend your resources on one or two really good players, instead of having to spread it around to fill your squad out.  And I'd say we've pretty damn well in that regard, with 4 regulars last season, and it could have easily been 7 or 8 without admin etc.  Plus any number of others getting regular football at Championship level or higher.

[Mihangel]

1 hour ago, Sparkle said:

Our academy has probably produced more minutes played in professional football than it has ££££ received - strange but what’s better - probably need both I suppose  

Some of this is down to luck, the odd gem that goes for £30m could come through at, literally, any academy. Just as our academy should have been really coming to frution, the club started going in to meltdown (less due to luck that bit.

Anyway, best of luck to Derren Walsall, he's been a great servant.

[YouRams]

17 minutes ago, jimtastic56 said:

Hughes and Hendrick were the two that stood out from the academy under Wassell. Apart from them we produced too many run of the mill midfielders . We always wanted a top , top striker .

I think it's all what could've beens with alot of the academy if Mel didn't self destruct. The likes of Liverpool, palace etc aren't going to be interested if they're not good players. Had they been given a chance to develop further here they might've had more first team football. I think agents have alot to answer for with them pushing players into clubs too soon just for a quick wage rise and a fee for them.

[angieram]

3 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

He's been a great servant. Absolutely stellar in so many ways. I felt his time was going to come when Cocu arrived and the Academy was going to be front and centre, but alas that all spiralled out of control. When you look at our return on investment, it's been surprisingly poor, for one reason or another, and that shows the danger of putting too much faith in it.

At the moment we have Sibley, Cashin, Bird and Knight which is incredibly impresive, but given we're a third division team with a Category 1 academy you'd hope we'd have some players to show for it. Maybe Liam Delap and Kaide Gordon were the ones who got away?

We won the English league and competed well in Europe. Timi Elsnik and Jack Stretton came close. Max Lowe, Jayden Bogle, Festy Ebesole, Lee Buchanan, Dylan Williams, Luke Thomas, Farrend Rawson, Morgan Whittaker, Archie Brown, Mason Bennett, Calum Guy and Kelle Roos all hint at us producing good players but not great players. Will Hughes and Jeff Hendrick, from the early days, have reached highest without quite fulfilling their early promise. 

If there had been a better overall plan of academy to first team I think we'd have seen the real benefit and I thought Wass should one day become the first-team coach overseeing his charges, but like it all it's been nearly but not quite. We probably won't know exactly how important and how good he's been until he's gone and we see what changes. A new broom is sweeping through the club and I think that's no bad thing, plus now we're in our second season in the third tier, we really do have to cut our cloth accordingly.

But huge thanks to Darren Wassall for everything.

Interestingly, Jayden Bogle started, and Max Lowe finished, the season as regulars in a side that has just got promoted to the Premier League again. At the time plenty thought Max was the makeweight in the deal, which was worth anywhere between £7 and £12 million. Maybe not. But it's a considerable fee that often gets missed when talking about the academy.

Pleased they are in your list.

[B4ev6is]

4 minutes ago, angieram said:

Interestingly, Jayden Bogle started, and Max Lowe finished, the season as regulars in a side that has just got promoted to the Premier League again. At the time plenty thought Max was the makeweight in the deal, which was worth anywhere between £7 and £12 million. Maybe not. But it's a considerable fee that often gets missed when talking about the academy.

Pleased they are in your list.

Who will replace darren waddle as youth system will it be some warn knows or some one else but needs fresh eyes and then try get youth players into first team but all of this will take time.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Gerry Daly said:

It would have been good to see how Omari Kellyman and Kaide Gordon would have got on eventually here. 

Gordon has been injured for nearly 18 months and is still not 100% fit and Kellyman playing u21 football which is where it would be expected at this time in his career. Delap would have been first team if he had stayed looking at level he currently playing but he didn’t want to be here so makes it a bit of hypothetical. Gordon could have stayed too but didn’t want to in the end and I think the club were happy with the sale. 

[Gerry Daly]

3 minutes ago, ExiledinDerby said:

Gordon has been injured for nearly 18 months and is still not 100% fit and Kellyman playing u21 football which is where it would be expected at this time in his career. Delap would have been first team if he had stayed looking at level he currently playing but he didn’t want to be here so makes it a bit of hypothetical. Gordon could have stayed too but didn’t want to in the end and I think the club were happy with the sale. 

I heard that Kellyman is training with the first team though. Thats a top 6 prem first team