Why do our players rarely improve?

[jonesy87shef]

For the past 20 seasons the majority of players we’ve had end up falling down the leagues. 

 

These are all I can name who have gone on to play premier league football:

 

Glenn Whelan

Chris Brunt

Michail Antonio

Majid Bougherra (1 season)

George Hirst (time will tell)

 

These have remained in the championship 

 

Alan Quinn (1 season prem)

Derek Geary (1 season prem)

Leigh Bromby (1 season prem)

Shefki Kuqi (1 full season in prem)

Richard Wood

Grant Holt (2 seasons in prem, 7 years after leaving us)

Steve McLean (bit part championship 4 years) 

Tommy Spurr

Marcus Tudgay (2 full seasons championship, then dropped and plummeted down the leagues)

Leon Clarke (barely played championship until united signed 6 years later) 

Mark Beevers (few championship seasons for struggling Millwall and Bolton)

Lee Grant (1 prem season)

Michael Morrison 

Gary Madine 

Jacques Maghoma

Lucas Joao

Jack Hunt

 

There have been a few more who played 1-2 seasons as back up and dropped down the leagues also.

 

So what is the root of the problem? In 20 years 3 players to play consistent premier league football. About 20 total who stay championship level or higher (1 per season). Those that remain at this level are average at best too.

 

There can’t be clubs at this level with worse records. Everyone leaves and drops down the leagues or retires. We’ve had players at a young age working for sports shops, in call centres and one retired after finding religion.

 

Our scouting and recruitment has been one of the worst in the country. Who are our senior coaches? Why are they not only not improving players but seemingly stifling them? Even though we’ve barely had money it shouldn’t have been anywhere near this bad. What are the problems?

 

For the majority of the last 20 years we’ve been run awfully. It just seems there’s something rotten at Hillsborough.

 

[Inspector Lestrade]

They are Championship players for a reason.

[Ellis Rimmer]

The fact our players haven't improved reflects why we have been rubbish for 20 odd years. If loads of our players went on to do better things we probably would have too

[jonesy87shef]

Just now, Inspector Lestrade said:

They are Championship players for a reason.

 

My point was when they leave they don’t stay at that level. The majority drop down the leagues or retire, some quite young.

[Ellis Rimmer]

1 minute ago, jonesy87shef said:

 

My point was when they leave they don’t stay at that level. The majority drop down the leagues or retire, some quite young.

Yeh exactly they peak at Wednesday many of them. If Wednesday wasn't their peak then we would also have benefitted from that. It's like Southampton have loads of players that go onto something bigger, and due to this Saints are firmly in the Pl now after a couple of relegations as they have benefitted from those players success. Basically good players = good results.

 

Put it this way, if we have 10 players like tudgay, bougherra, Beevers etc in an alternative reality all went on to be title challenging players that would mean we have some excellent players for a short period that would have got us much higher up the league's while they were here.

[malek]

We mostly play average Championship players that don't have potential to improve and play at higher level. 

[Guest wilyfox]

Why is it always the club's fault? Players train and perform for themselves first & foremost. They are responsible for their own careers. For a number of years we didn't invest in youth development. It's slowly coming back, but takes time to build and gain reputation. As for the seniors, injury plays a part - so does age and motivation. 

[Inspector Lestrade]

2 minutes ago, jonesy87shef said:

 

My point was when they leave they don’t stay at that level. The majority drop down the leagues or retire, some quite young.

 

I know, I'm in a pedantic mood today, so everyone watch out.

 

It would be interesting to know many players in general make it from the lower leagues to the Prem as opposed to home grown players coming through the ranks at Premier clubs and foreign players signed by Premier clubs what's their average stay in the Premier.

 

 

[Dutch McLovin]

A couple of things really, firstly bad coaching and management. Let’s be honest since the prem days we haven’t been abundant with good managers. If you look Bruce made this lot better pretty much straight away, would he have continued it ? I think so but that’s up for debate. Carlos bought a team and played

to there strengths and that worked for a

season then when he tried to tactically set them up differently it didn’t suit them and they tailed off. Had he continued to attack would they have improved ? Maybe. Sturrock for me made the players that Turner brought in better and some of them

went on to better things. But bar that the rest of the coaches have been appalling none more so than our current one. 
 

Also you have to look at the mentality of the players. The ones that have had the ability to go higher have possibly not had the push to do so in them. Yes we should have helped them more but ultimately they have to do it for themselves. 

[gurujuan]

Can’t explain re the younger players, though it was recognised that we were at the back of the line for younger talent. The big clubs and United took the best, and we often scooped up the rest The simple fact was, a lot of the time they weren’t good enough. In more recent times, our policy has been to sign experienced Championship ready players, who are generally unlikely to improve. Another factor has been the quality of coach. Only Carlos has really had any recognised coaching ability, and when he was here, our focus seemed to be all about the short term 

[jonesy87shef]

4 minutes ago, wilyfox said:

Why is it always the club's fault? Players train and perform for themselves first & foremost. They are responsible for their own careers. For a number of years we didn't invest in youth development. It's slowly coming back, but takes time to build and gain reputation. As for the seniors, injury plays a part - so does age and motivation. 

 

Do due diligence. Surely we should be bringing in players with the attitude to get better and want to succeed. If we are getting this aspect correct then what happens in transit that makes them not improve. Coaching, club culture, what?

 

Is it not concerning, I’ll actually change that to alarming how few players actually manage to continue at championship level once they leave. It appears players become worse footballers when they leave us.

[CF_Owl]

Firstly I wonder how many other teams have a similar record. You get the odd team like Brentford who's model is modern and built around doing exactly that, improving and selling players on. I would expect most teams lingering in the second and third tier will be similar. On top of that our transfer policy has been poor. When we had limited budget obviously you are unlikely to get world beaters, but unfortunately when we had some cash more recently we have bought older players on their way down not up.

[Ellis Rimmer]

12 minutes ago, wilyfox said:

Why is it always the club's fault? Players train and perform for themselves first & foremost. They are responsible for their own careers. For a number of years we didn't invest in youth development. It's slowly coming back, but takes time to build and gain reputation. As for the seniors, injury plays a part - so does age and motivation. 

It's only the clubs fault in that they're brought here in the first place. Ultimately coaching can help but the players own talent and how hard they work to achieve their potential is the biggest factor of what division they end up in.

 

 

[Guest wilyfox]

2 minutes ago, jonesy87shef said:

 

Do due diligence. Surely we should be bringing in players with the attitude to get better and want to succeed. If we are getting this aspect correct then what happens in transit that makes them not improve. Coaching, club culture, what?

 

Is it not concerning, I’ll actually change that to alarming how few players actually manage to continue at championship level once they leave. It appears players become worse footballers when they leave us.

 

We probably struggle to attract talent with that mentality. We don't have a reputation for producing quality players, and probably end up with dregs we can get through the door. We have some young talent coming through in midfield, so hopefully that's a sign of progression. 

[jonesy87shef]

6 minutes ago, CF_Owl said:

Firstly I wonder how many other teams have a similar record. You get the odd team like Brentford who's model is modern and built around doing exactly that, improving and selling players on. I would expect most teams lingering in the second and third tier will be similar. On top of that our transfer policy has been poor. When we had limited budget obviously you are unlikely to get world beaters, but unfortunately when we had some cash more recently we have bought older players on their way down not up.

 

I get your point, but my point is more geared towards why do our players go downhill when leaving us.Sorry the thread title could be better. Plenty of clubs don’t sell often to higher divisions, but I can’t imagine many clubs players plummeting down the leagues when they are released.

[malek]

I spoke many times about "investing in youth", by investing meaning giving younger players with potential playing time when we can afford it in order to help them learn and speed up their development. 

 

Even our recruitment proces neglects potential as something required from players we are looking to bring in. 

[CF_Owl]

3 minutes ago, jonesy87shef said:

 

I get your point, but my point is more geared towards why do our players go downhill when leaving us.Sorry the thread title could be better. Plenty of clubs don’t sell often to higher divisions, but I can’t imagine many clubs players plummeting down the leagues when they are released.

 

Probably a combination of poor scouting (most players just don't have the ability to be at this level in the first place) and general direction of the club. Someone already mentioned if we were on the up our players would get noticed more and would likely leave on a positive path.

[daveyboy66]

22 minutes ago, Dutch McLovin said:

A couple of things really, firstly bad coaching and management. Let’s be honest since the prem days we haven’t been abundant with good managers. If you look Bruce made this lot better pretty much straight away, would he have continued it ? I think so but that’s up for debate. Carlos bought a team and played

to there strengths and that worked for a

season then when he tried to tactically set them up differently it didn’t suit them and they tailed off. Had he continued to attack would they have improved ? Maybe. Sturrock for me made the players that Turner brought in better and some of them

went on to better things. But bar that the rest of the coaches have been appalling none more so than our current one. 
 

Also you have to look at the mentality of the players. The ones that have had the ability to go higher have possibly not had the push to do so in them. Yes we should have helped them more but ultimately they have to do it for themselves. 

Coaches can't give a player a mentality to improve all the time...the top players finish a season and immediately ask " How can I do better next season " You can't coach that it has to come from within. 

[OWLERTON GHOST]

If Carlsberg did poison Chalices........

 

[StudentOwl]

Crap training ground

Crap coaches (and not enough of them IMO)

Crap youth academy and integration into the first team

Crap recruitment 

 

I mean, look at the last 5 years... which isn't an insignificant amount of time (25%) of the period you're chatting about. Bar Joao... how many permanent signings have we made where you've got a player in his late teens/early 20s and you've thought "there's room for growth here"? 

 

Also it's the culture here... over the last 20 years, how many have been spent with a mindset of "we're too big for this league"... probably at least half of them? That culture encourages a "well we need to sign players to get promoted ASAP", which in turn leads you to focus on players that are the 'finished article' for that level, which in turn tends to lead you to sign players that aren't going to improve much...

 

The whole club needs to assess itself.