Stephen Hopcroft...

[Cuzer]

Off to Villa, been on the cards for a while

The worry is the message this sends to Tulloch, Rico Richards, Joval Malcolm who those fisheatingdeludedsealcunts down the road would take in a heartbeat

Wankers, I hate them!

Cuzer

Unfuckingbelievable this is. Hopcroft has brilliant connections within the area and I said a while back he was our last hope in securing the best kids around after Harrison.

If he goes to that lot that'll be a massive kick in the bollocks. 

How long have they all been conspiring in all this and destabilising the current wonder kids we have? Barry, Malcolm, Richards, Tulloch etc etc

Fucking scum club.

It’s also huge egg on the face for Dowlings wind of change!

Cuzer

[Johnnykayeengland]

This is worrying. It's no help calling the Villa names.
Why do these very successful academy/ youth coaches want to leave us?
If it's money, then are we being the usual penny pinching Albion of old?
Ambition of club? Quite likely. One season where we may swap places doesn't speak to the long term..
If there's one place to invest in for a club our size it has to be youth.
Doesn't bode well.

[HeathAyIt]

This is worrying. It's no help calling the Villa names.
Why do these very successful academy/ youth coaches want to leave us?
If it's money, then are we being the usual penny pinching Albion of old?
Ambition of club? Quite likely. One season where we may swap places doesn't speak to the long term..
If there's one place to invest in for a club our size it has to be youth.
Doesn't bode well.

Money and focus. We are totally geared towards getting the club into the prem (rightly or wrongly) and the Academy has been heavily neglected in the past couple of years

[Peachy]

This is worrying. It's no help calling the Villa names.
Why do these very successful academy/ youth coaches want to leave us?
If it's money, then are we being the usual penny pinching Albion of old?
Ambition of club? Quite likely. One season where we may swap places doesn't speak to the long term..
If there's one place to invest in for a club our size it has to be youth.
Doesn't bode well.

I agree to a certain extent but as I see it Villa are just throwing stupid money around and cherry picking our best talent. 

They've nicked them both from us and our best academy prospect for years in the space of 6 months. They don't care but we have to move on and fight back. They have no class and never have had. 

By all accounts the guy we bought in from Coventry is excellent and we now have to trust him to get the right people in. 

Wether we like it or not going forwards the Villa will undoubtedly be the front runners for snapping up the best local kids though.

"We are considerably richer than yow"............. Cnuts.

[Squid]

This is worrying. It's no help calling the Villa names.
Why do these very successful academy/ youth coaches want to leave us?
If it's money, then are we being the usual penny pinching Albion of old?
Ambition of club? Quite likely. One season where we may swap places doesn't speak to the long term..
If there's one place to invest in for a club our size it has to be youth.
Doesn't bode well.

Money and focus. We are totally geared towards getting the club into the prem (rightly or wrongly) and the Academy has been heavily neglected in the past couple of years

Really? Even though we've got several promising young players coming though?
I think it's probably because he doesn't like Dowling's changes, though they do seem to make sense to me.

[MassDebater]

This is worrying. It's no help calling the Villa names.
Why do these very successful academy/ youth coaches want to leave us?
If it's money, then are we being the usual penny pinching Albion of old?
Ambition of club? Quite likely. One season where we may swap places doesn't speak to the long term..
If there's one place to invest in for a club our size it has to be youth.
Doesn't bode well.

Money and focus. We are totally geared towards getting the club into the prem (rightly or wrongly) and the Academy has been heavily neglected in the past couple of years

Heavily neglected, based on what? The number of youth team players that have gone to bigger clubs or have actually made it into the first team? If this is neglect long may it continue!

[Borin' Baggie]

This is worrying. It's no help calling the Villa names.
Why do these very successful academy/ youth coaches want to leave us?
If it's money, then are we being the usual penny pinching Albion of old?
Ambition of club? Quite likely. One season where we may swap places doesn't speak to the long term..
If there's one place to invest in for a club our size it has to be youth.
Doesn't bode well.

I agree to a certain extent but as I see it Villa are just throwing stupid money around and cherry picking our best talent. 

They've nicked them both from us and our best academy prospect for years in the space of 6 months. They don't care but we have to move on and fight back. They have no class and never have had. 

By all accounts the guy we bought in from Coventry is excellent and we now have to trust him to get the right people in. 

Wether we like it or not going forwards the Villa will undoubtedly be the front runners for snapping up the best local kids though.

"We are considerably richer than yow"............. Cnuts.

If the Villa accounts on their academy are right, they're spending almost double what Chelsea and Man City are on their academies. And that's before Harrison's reforms this season.

[HeathAyIt]

This is worrying. It's no help calling the Villa names.
Why do these very successful academy/ youth coaches want to leave us?
If it's money, then are we being the usual penny pinching Albion of old?
Ambition of club? Quite likely. One season where we may swap places doesn't speak to the long term..
If there's one place to invest in for a club our size it has to be youth.
Doesn't bode well.

Money and focus. We are totally geared towards getting the club into the prem (rightly or wrongly) and the Academy has been heavily neglected in the past couple of years

Heavily neglected, based on what? The number of youth team players that have gone to bigger clubs or have actually made it into the first team? If this is neglect long may it continue!

You're referring to the products of the many years that it was a higher priority fella. I can assure you what im saying is correct.

[Albionmad]

We should take a leaf out of Brentford's book. They did away with their academy and concentrated on recruiting 16/17 year olds who hadn't  been retained by the clubs they'd joined as boys.

I'm  getting cheesed off with with losing our kids to bigger clubs when we've  invested time and money in them and end up receiving peanuts in return. Until the football authorities make it worth our while I think we should close the academy.

As more and more clubs do this maybe they'll finally  get the message

[Peachy]

We should take a leaf out of Brentford's book. They did away with their academy and concentrated on recruiting 16/17 year olds who hadn't  been retained by the clubs they'd joined as boys.

I'm  getting cheesed off with with losing our kids to bigger clubs when we've  invested time and money in them and end up receiving peanuts in return. Until the football authorities make it worth our while I think we should close the academy.

As more and more clubs do this maybe they'll finally  get the message

Massive +1. I'd write to the FA and tell them we are closing down our academy and following Brentfords example. Can you imagine if everyone starts to do it. They'd shit themselves.

It makes perfect sense. Let other teams polish them up and then look for value through the scouting of other academies.

For example we released Marcus Forss a few years back and they picked him up. Gone on and scored goals on loan for them and is very highly regarded by all accounts.