scram

Of course they're happy using the academy that way - it earns them money, allows them to stockpile some of the best young talent in the world and gives them the best chance of getting a prospect through to their first team It's incredibly difficult to develop players to get into the very best teams - by default the players have to be among the very best available It also sets up players to have decent careers in the game - so its ticks most of the boxes - and the one box it struggles to tick is the same for most clubs in the world

I think quite a few have gone onto decent careers And it is likely to be an earner for the club too

The academy system is broken - hopelessly so The Huddersfield decision is just another example of that - following on from Brentford recently too It's what the FA/PL kind of always wanted - the make it elitist in order to give free reign to their "darling clubs" - ie the big 6 I could go on forever about this but broadly i agree with the Huddersfield/Brentford approach - there has to be a point at which a club audits it's spending and if a part of the club is significantly underperforming then of course remedial action is needed - if it's about being a presence in the community then spend more on the community activity of the club. And if somebody can tell me how signing youngsters from Bulgaria et al is firming up our presence in the community then i'm all ears... The EPPP is based on the "Long Term Athletic Development" model (LATD) - and also took from the ridiculously flawed "10,000 hours" concept - it's been long established that the 10,000 hour concept does not apply to any type of athletic/physical development - but hell, the FA decided to base their entire process on the completely flawed and discredited model. And the FA being the FA the more they tried to "fix" it - the more ridiculous it gets Study after study has shown the folly of early specialisation in football - yet the good old FA wants our kids to specialise ever-younger - clubs are recruiting from 5 years old There are sooooo many errors and inherent dangers (which will become clearer with the longitudinal studies in the coming years - studies also show how many athletes/players who choose to specialise later on are more likely to become elite and suffer less of the problems that early starters suffer from I used to be a huge exponent of academy football - but i'm not an ostrich and i can see the massive flaws with it And here's the kicker...our kids start younger, train much longer, have better facilities, have way more coaching input - yet the current England team is as bad as we've had in my 50+ years watching football The whole FA system is wrong from inception to delivery - it was badly set up originally - and each change has made it successfully worse until we've arrived at the huge white elephant we now have - where a premier league club no longer sees the value in having a youth development system

You won't find many bigger fans of DH than me - he's one of my idols But no way would I advocate him suggesting who he thinks should be in our squad. GH should have gone on loan last January and a career development plan put in place No player should ever get to their final contracted year if a club wants to keep them. If the player won't accept the clubs offer then the club has to get what it can and part ways This situation suits nobody

People need to relax about the shirt It'll be here as soon as Lord Lucan has finished making them TBF it's not a bad thing that monstrosity is not available to buy is it?

Depends on the context doesn't it? Derisory in respect of what he thinks he is worth - or derisory in respect of what the club thinks is a reasonable offer for an unproven young player with no first team mileage at any level?

McGugan was an established championship player Whatever subsequently happened he was obviously going to get paid the rate reflecting that

Yeah Then they all burst out and start being Rude (boys) and dancing to Desmond Dekker, Dave and Ansell Collins et al

Great stuff I think we need to make this an Owlstalk "FACT" Like FF refusing to play on the left FF feigning injury in order to leave in January (how f*cking bizarre was that btw...) FF being a huge disruption among the squad etc etc

If it were then that would put a different slant on things?

The original Hippocratic Oath is not in widespread use in it's pure form Many medical colleges have an oath based on the Hippocratic Oath but made appropriate for the modern world - part of the graduation ceremony being dedicated to the assembly of graduates reading aloud the preferred version for that college Sometimes there is no formal recanting of an Oath but a part of the graduation ceremony will be dedicated to stress responsibility and sanctity of the world they are about to inhabit Maybe some medical schools have no kind of recognition at all and just defer to the GMC and law of the land as ultimate moral compass and regulators? But the Oath is no way a myth - even if the original Hippocrates version is rarely used in its original form

A person has total ownership of their medical information - it is theirs and theirs alone - and they can do with it as they wish Any contract cannot compel anybody to forego their statutory rights - it's a human rights thing Football has an unwritten law that players will not contest the majority of their medical information being made public - and generally they don't bat an eyelid when the club releases their injury status But if they want to they can - i've been in medicolegal seminars where lawyers have made this crystal clear

100% yes Look at the 7 Pillars of Clinical Governance Particularly Autonomy and Confidentiality Nobody (or entity) can have ownership of a persons autonomy unless a person is not of sound mind and cognitively able to make reliable decisions (cue multiple "jokes" here...)

His injury/medical information is HIS Nobody can stop him releasing that and he doesn't need permission to do so He can however keep his medical information confidential and prevent even the club/owner/manager etc from knowing his medical details if he so chooses

He doesn't need to ask the club to release his own personal medical information - that is ENTIRELY his domain