The loan market thrives for a reason
Training is a completely different animal to playing in a competitive match
When a side loans a player usually its with the assumption that the player being loaned is preferably of superior quality (or potentially superior quality) to the pre existing options within that squad. A player can learn so much more when they are facing first team players in lower leagues than they would in what is usually a heavily curated and tailored environment as a youth/reserve team player.
It sounds cliche, but the competitive spirit and the hunger for a win knowing that the win bonus might be a vital part of your next paycheck is something that is increasingly not to be seen in the higher divisions where salaries in the Championship alone are in the thousands to tens of thousands per week and many times that in the Premier League.
In League One or League Two?
You can bet your ass that Dave the defender will do all he can to crush you to make sure that he gets that clean sheet bonus
Despite the academy having a period of unsettlement where rumours about a return to Cat 1 and even to selling the Landore site, a further downgrade in category to 3, staff leaving, its quite remarkable that there is still promise amongst the academy’s young and hope that one or two could take the step up to first team football. Earlier this month our U14 age group finished in 4th place amongst top clubs with striker Ifan Harding was top scorer with 14 goals in the Flint Micassa Competition in Norway. Not forgetting our U17 age group reaching the final of the PDL cup competition in May.
Information in English - Fotballungdom
Whilst it took some time to replace staff vacancies and a return to the academy for Ryan Davies what is desperately needed is a couple of years minimum of stability that would strengthen once again one of the most important departments of the football club, hoping that it can look back to replicate the golden era of James, Rodon, Cabango, Cullen, Cooper etc., a period as vital to the future of the club as its first team.
Arguably, is it important to have a ‘loans’ man on the staff to check over kids sent out on loan, a position that only in years gone by was carried out by the Legendary figure of Alan Curtis, who was the go to man that carried out that role with the first team squad players out on loan.
Last season saw the largest number of kids sent out on loan since the academy opened in Landore and whilst the concept of clubs ‘farming out’ young kids has been developed into an art form by top PL clubs as well as another finance source into the club for some reason – most probably a lack of budget - we have been slow to copy other clubs in that vein. I have no doubts that academy managers had that role but apart from a lack of finance how important is that role for the future of our kids, a role that other clubs appear to find more and more important.
Loans programme for players going out on loan is an important factor in any football club and perhaps a downside of that decision is what do you do when players refuse to go out on loan, preferring to stay and train with the first team on occasions and only securing a slim chance of a stint on the subs bench now and then or travelling to away matches as a reserve for the first team.
Like so many young kids, Joe Rodon can look back to that first half roasting he received from Akinfenwa at Cheltenham as one of his learning curves when stepping up to the first team squad and a taste of life outside the academy gates. A life living away from home comforts, training and playing with older professionals with a family, mortgages to pay and the need to battle for a new contract at the end of the season, meant a whole new ballgame from the non-contact world of U21 football.
If there are still Cat 1 ambitions to join other Championship clubs in Cat 1 such as Blackburn, Derby, Norwich, Middlesbrough, Stoke and League 1 club Reading, no doubt the academy yearly budget needs to be increased.
#exclusive 
