Orient - Liverpool - Yourh Players

[Thor]

We’ve been told many times how we are friends with Liverpool, how we have a great relationship with them which I beleive. Up at Liverpool we have one of our old players Alex Inglethorpe running the youth system, and is someone who is very highly rated in the game at what he does. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Spurs and now Liverpool have had a raft of players come through their first teams under his watch.

Yesterday I posted that we’ve lost from our youth system which incidentally was rebuilt under Hearn and Porter, Andy Edwards, Richard Thomas, Omar Riza and now Danny Webb. The effect of those appointments and the philosophy that they implemented has been immense with a whole raft of youth coming through to the first team and a further raft who we’ve sold on to premier league clubs before they made the grade here. It’s been pretty impressive. It’s a shame that the last link to that collective is about to walk out the door.

As a fan and it doesn’t matter who you support all fans love to see their own players come through their systems and pull on that first team shirt, there’s something special and magical about it. After the lunatic dismantled the club, we have been rebuilding the whole club, but I’m speaking specifically about the youth setup, which has attracted many comments on this matter this past week in the 7 million to break even thread. Plenty of comments of too many staff etc. I’ve argued that we are building a business for the long term and part of that business is investing in its youth academy and the flow of boys into men capable of playing first team football. 1) to help us achieve our goals and 2) to enable a return on investment, to balance the books financially and to help the club grow into a sustainable business in the long term.

I do beleive that we, if we have not already done it get on the phone to Alex Inglethorpe and send Lewis up there to work, study and understand what they are doing and look to implement the best bits back here in our club. That’s how we grow our relationship in a football sense, it’s how we grow our youth system and it’s how we can help to prepare the boys so that the conveyer belt keeps on turning our first team ready men. Along the way we will lose some of them to the PL still, but at some point the pendulum will swing in our direction as we keep more than we lose and those players can help move us up the leagues as they have all bought into the Orient way.

I hope that the owners do beleive the same thing and that the long term plan includes the development of youth ready for first team football. In time they will one day earn the club money to help move us to the next level as we climb back to the championship where we may be able to keep our best ones or make serious money when they are sold. All the while we become a beacon of hope for player development in the game.

[eagwgw]

The link is tenuous IMO, no real evidence of any relationship with Liverpool. We've had one player on loan that I can recall (Maguire) and barely used him.

Inglethorpe owes us nothing really, he was a player for us and a coach for a few months. Don't really see it in his interest as making closer links, especially when for a loanee it might be difficult to move halfway across the country to play no games. It would be more beneficial for him to look at clubs closer to home. Anyway, as a League Two club I think our standard is too low. Looking at who they have on loan, those who have progressed their academy are too high a level for us, those who have not by definition are quite young and face the first problem mentioned.

It sounds like emotion talking over logic really, because no doubt every small team might have had the same idea. The 'Orient way' is pretty much non-existent, let's not delude ourselves on that and there are very few clubs that have a consistent style of play. We've had managers that like to get it down and play but it's very much contingent on results and when the sh*t hits the fan we have shown no real preference for manager. With our current set of players we are actually some way from the gegen-pressing, all action style of Liverpool, ironically it seemed that from the first half of that Carlisle game Fletcher wanted something similar but the players ran out of gas.

It would be far more useful to develop links with the bigger London teams, even if their coaches have had no past with us. It's easier to get their players on loan as they don't have to move, and the way the football transfer market works, we can pick up some of their rejects for nothing, yet they may be worth £500k after half a season. For instance Harry Kane is probably our most famous loanee, at his age I doubt he would have come if he was born and bred in Manchester and had no connection with the area.

[Rich Tea Wellin]

I’d like us to develop an ‘Orient way’ and make player and manager decisions based on those, and then play that way from first team to under 8s.
The closest we got was under Slade. But since then there’s been no recognisable style or much of a plan on how we want to play. If we manage to have a big clear out in the summer, it would be good if the board could think about this before bringing in new players and making sure they fit a style that we want to play.

[Thor]

I wasn’t talking about taking players on loan I was talking about studying what their youth system is doing and trying to replicate that at Orient.

As for the Orient way, Ross needs to develop that as you’re right who knows what our style of play is as we’ve tried many different things this season. We do need to design one and then have the whole club from the youngest all the way through to the first team playing the same way and with a DOF in place it is easier to implement as the head coach changes, but not necessarily the style or players on bloc as would happen with a manager. Slade was the last person who derived an Orient way and it nearly paid off and would have done had a nutter never took over.

[spen666]

I wasn’t talking about taking players on loan I was talking about studying what their youth system is doing and trying to replicate that at Orient.

Well for a start Liverpool have £millions to spend on facilities to get a top rated academy that Orient don't.

We can determine that without travelling to Liverpool

As for the Orient way, Ross needs to develop that as you’re right who knows what our style of play is as we’ve tried many different things this season. We do need to design one and then have the whole club from the youngest all the way through to the first team playing the same way and with a DOF in place it is easier to implement as the head coach changes, but not necessarily the style or players on bloc as would happen with a manager. Slade was the last person who derived an Orient way and it nearly paid off and would have done had a nutter never took over.

[eagwgw]

I’d like us to develop an ‘Orient way’ and make player and manager decisions based on those, and then play that way from first team to under 8s.
The closest we got was under Slade. But since then there’s been no recognisable style or much of a plan on how we want to play. If we manage to have a big clear out in the summer, it would be good if the board could think about this before bringing in new players and making sure they fit a style that we want to play.

Actually this is wrong isn't it? When the takeover originally happened one of the key points of Ling and his position would be to instil a certain philosophy of playing from the first team down to the youth. As he said himself, his remit was the oldest first team player to the under-9s.

He chose a head coach in order in line with his philosophy, and who had a track record of developing youth players and thus might be an advocate of the conveyor belt. It would have been wonderful if it had worked, but the prospect of going to National League South meant that we had to change.

I also don't think it worked entirely with Slade. He spoke about this football dynasty after the 10/11 season, but it was quickly forgotten the next year as we struggled. I don't really regard the 13/14 side as one built on passing, more that he assembled a group of players whose skills complemented each other very well, and whose product was greater than the sum of the parts. We should be chasing that first instead of going for any type of 'identity', rather than the other way around.

All very romantic wanting a constant style of play, but I don't think it's apt for a club like us, who due to our size will probably rebound between Leagues 1 and 2 in the long-term. Given the differences in stature in these Leagues I don't think it is really appropriate.

For instance at League Two level, we can afford some of the best players in the division, because we are bigger. At League One level, other sides will be able to afford them, because they are bigger. Given a manager's job is to devise a system to get the best out of the players he has, fixing a certain style of play is a hinderance.

Anyway, do Liverpool really have much better a youth system than anyone else to make it worthwhile studying? Their side only features one real graduate (Alexander-Arnold), everyone else was bought. By contrast, Man U have four or five genuine home-grown players around their first team.

[AckneyAwks]

I think Thor makes a lot of good points and investment and structure within the youth system will dictate where the future lies for this football club. We will never have the finances to compete at the top level but reaching for the championship is definetly attainable. A mixture of developing your own and picking up one or two young players released from other clubs is the way forward. If we produce one or two players each 2/3 years of outstanding quality then if they are sold on for large fees this would enable the club to move forward with a ambitious plan in place.
This club made a grave error of judgement in i think it was the late eighties when employed at this club was a coach by the name of John Gorman. He was the youth team coach at the time and his whole phylosophy was on developing and encouraging the youngsters to be brave, ambitious and express themselves without fear. I used to attend youth and reserve games regularly during the seventies, eighties and nineties. In those days we played all the top sides in the south-east i.e Arsenal,Spurs,Chelsea, W.H.U,Ipswich etc. We were a match for all them teams and under Johns short guidance we produced Chris Bart-Williams. One or two like him every two or three years and your financially sound. When Peter Eustace was appointed manager by Frank Clark he was preffered to John who unfortunately was to popular with the players. John Gorman left the club and went onto be assistant manager and coach at Spurs and England under Glenn Hoddle.
Invest in the youth and we could have a positive future.

[Thor]

Eagwgw is quite correct in his assertion that it is Limgs responsibility for all football from the youngest through to the first team, and that the same philosophy would be adopted throughout the club. Now more than ever we need that approach to be nailed on.

Thanks AA, I do beleive that that the owners are attempting to put in place a plan to develop the youth and we should look at best in class and adapt what we do and try to move us closer to that model. The return on investment will come as we produce better players than the next club for example.