''The academy is not wonderful'' - Freedman

Quite an interesting read on the BN website about Dougies thoughts on the academy at the moment;

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Dougie Freedman has outlined his ambition to bring more home-grown players into the first-team ranks at Wanderers.

And he is willing to put pressure on the Academy by bringing young players directly into the development squad if those coming through the youth ranks are not making the grade.

“We have talked about the Academy – and I am hearing it is a wonderful Academy. But we haven’t got anyone in the team so it can’t really be that wonderful!” he said..

“I have looked at the Tom Eaves, Josh Velas and Chris Lester. I have a coaching plan that develops players and the younger you are the more you are going to benefit from it.''

“Come the end of the season, hopefully, I will have two or three home-grown players in the team and I am looking to get more.

“I am not afraid to put anyone in. If they are good enough I will play them. If they are not then I will recruit younger ones to put in the development squad. That’s the way I think it should be done.”

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Dougie sounds like a man pissed off with the many false dawns and promises that lured him to the club.

On the other hand he speaks highly of the youngsters coming through at Palace. "Zaha is not the best, there are two or three youngsters that can go on to be even better than he is". If he thinks they are that good SIGN THEM!

To be honest he has a point, how many times do we hear how fantastic the youth/academy/ reserves set up is? and my thought is 'bollocks it is" I would judge the success of the set-up by the number of first team regulars it has provided for us - not Blackpool/Rochdale/Accrington, and there's not been many recently. I know a lad who used to scout for us and he said the whole back-room organisation is to quote 'a fucking joke, so unprofessional and penny-pinching its unbelievable'. He's Bolton through and through but now works for a team that plays in red in Trafford, he hates them but 'at least he gets his petrol money now - garaunteed'. Think about it - and Gartsides on 600K+ bonuses for relegation! nice work if you can get it - no wonder he seems unassailable if he stands to lose that kind of money for doing what exactly?

If ours is so shit and palace are brilliant then fuck off back there.

Alf Hooker wrote:To be honest he has a point, how many times do we hear how fantastic the youth/academy/ reserves set up is? and my thought is 'bollocks it is" I would judge the success of the set-up by the number of first team regulars it has provided for us - not Blackpool/Rochdale/Accrington, and there's not been many recently. I know a lad who used to scout for us and he said the whole back-room organisation is to quote 'a fucking joke, so unprofessional and penny-pinching its unbelievable'. He's Bolton through and through but now works for a team that plays in red in Trafford, he hates them but 'at least he gets his petrol money now - garaunteed'. Think about it - and Gartsides on 600K+ bonuses for relegation! nice work if you can get it - no wonder he seems unassailable if he stands to lose that kind of money for doing what exactly?

You don't know that Gartside is still on that

It seems Gartside sent Dougie the following e-mail to rempt him to Bolton:

Dear Dougie

We are ace. We have a fantastic youth set up that will produce several Ronaldo's before 2015, loads of top class first team players just itching for success, pots of money, great weather.

Please sign.

Love Phil

It seems Dougie didn't do any checking up of his own.

It's becoming more and more evident that dougie freedman has joined us for the money.

Palace fans are in agreement that he fell out with their owner and he only joined us as he would probably be sacked at the end of season. I didn't want to believe it but....

Hopefully he'll still get sacked at the end of the season.

Dougie does have a point regarding the academy. It costa about £2 million a year to run but it hasn't exactly been churning out a conveyor belt of talented players.

You're misreading this. He says “Come the end of the season, hopefully, I will have two or three home-grown players in the team and I am looking to get more."

That suggests that he doesn't have a problem with the academy so I don't know where all this whingeing bullshit comes from.

Boggersbelief wrote:It's becoming more and more evident that dougie freedman has joined us for the money.

Palace fans are in agreement that he fell out with their owner and he only joined us as he would probably be sacked at the end of season. I didn't want to believe it but....

How have you pulled that from this article?

All he's saying is there's work to be done at the academy and outlined his plans for the future. I think its encouraging to hear how he wants to change the set up from the academy upwards, he's looking at a long term project to get players into the first team.

I'd be more alarmed if he was saying how good the academy is, when we've seen next to no return in recent years.

Given time this guy will sort the club out, I'm confident of that. He left palace because long term, we're clearly the better option.

I think its good he's not just done the paper talk and said "It's all good"

There is nothing wrong with spelling out a few home truths, if he thinks that more can be done then he's within his rights to say so and if a few feathers have been ruffled well maybe they need ruffling. Until the academy and development squad provide players to the 1st eleven on a regular basis and make up a sizeable proportion of the squad 40%+ then "wonderful" is just bullshit. There is to much of this PR / marketing, "everything is great" bollocks, Dougie should be respected for giving his honest opinion.

bwfc1874 wrote:

Boggersbelief wrote:It's becoming more and more evident that dougie freedman has joined us for the money.

Palace fans are in agreement that he fell out with their owner and he only joined us as he would probably be sacked at the end of season. I didn't want to believe it but....

How have you pulled that from this article?

I'm just in a bad mood and dougie was first in the firing line.

I do sometimes wonder whether he thinks this was a mistake though, he had the chance of being a premiership manager next season..

Boggersbelief wrote:It's becoming more and more evident that dougie freedman has joined us for the money.

Palace fans are in agreement that he fell out with their owner and he only joined us as he would probably be sacked at the end of season. I didn't want to believe it but....

bwfc1874 wrote:

Boggersbelief wrote:It's becoming more and more evident that dougie freedman has joined us for the money.

Palace fans are in agreement that he fell out with their owner and he only joined us as he would probably be sacked at the end of season. I didn't want to believe it but....

How have you pulled that from this article?

All he's saying is there's work to be done at the academy and outlined his plans for the future. I think its encouraging to hear how he wants to change the set up from the academy upwards, he's looking at a long term project to get players into the first team.

I'd be more alarmed if he was saying how good the academy is, when we've seen next to no return in recent years.

Given time this guy will sort the club out, I'm confident of that. He left palace because long term, we're clearly the better option.

can you replace this with a load of lies and hyperbole please? Call yourself a Bolton fan!

bwfc1874 wrote:

Given time this guy will sort the club out, I'm confident of that. He left palace because long term, we're clearly the better option.

Ha ha. He won't last past May, trust me.

Lyric Todkill wrote:

Alf Hooker wrote:To be honest he has a point, how many times do we hear how fantastic the youth/academy/ reserves set up is? and my thought is 'bollocks it is" I would judge the success of the set-up by the number of first team regulars it has provided for us - not Blackpool/Rochdale/Accrington, and there's not been many recently. I know a lad who used to scout for us and he said the whole back-room organisation is to quote 'a fucking joke, so unprofessional and penny-pinching its unbelievable'. He's Bolton through and through but now works for a team that plays in red in Trafford, he hates them but 'at least he gets his petrol money now - guaranteed'. Think about it - and Gartsides on 600K+ bonuses for relegation! nice work if you can get it - no wonder he seems unassailable if he stands to lose that kind of money for doing what exactly?

You don't know that Gartside is still on that

You reckon he's taken a cut do you?