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As the season closes, 2008/9 becomes the third consecutive season
that the Rams have not had a home-grown debutant starting a league
game – that’s no one since Barnes, Nyatanga and Addison were
introduced in the Brown/ Westley era in 2005/6.
The end of the season also
coincides with the departure of academy boss Phil Cannon, making
room for the fourth different academy regime in as many years. Blame
the managers; blame the academy bosses; blame the scouts; blame the
players for being simply not good enough – draw your own conclusions
but these are the facts:
The graph
below shows League debutants per year excepting those coming on as
sub in the last game of the season (e.g. Simmons, O’Brien, Dudley).
2002-3 Twigg,
Tudgay, Grant, Hunt, McLeod, Mills, Holmes, Camp
2003-4 Huddlestone, Doyle,
2004-5 None
2005-6 Barnes, Nyatanga, Ainsworth, Addison
2006-7 None
2007-8 None
2008/9 None
It is also
worth looking at the contribution of those players to show the role
played by Rams produced players. The graph below shows league starts
by home-grown players:
(Home-grown
players used including those who appeared as sub only but not if
only in final match!)
2002-3 Twigg,
Tudgay, Grant, Hunt, McLeod, Mills, Holmes, Camp, Riggott, Elliott,
Murray, Evatt, Robinson (13)
2003-4 Huddlestone, Holmes, Doyle, Tudgay, Grant, Mills, McLeod,
Camp, Elliott (9)
2004-5 Huddlestone, Holmes, Doyle, Tudgay, Grant, Mills, Camp, (7)
2005-6 Barnes, Nyatanga, Addison, Holmes, Tudgay, Camp, Holmes,
Mills, (8)
2006-7 Barnes, Nyatanga, Camp, Grant (4)
2007-8 Barnes, Nyatanga, Addison (3)
2008/9 Barnes, Nyatanga, Addison (3)
So what does
this tell us?
The first and
obvious point is that production seems to have dried up in the past
few seasons. Or has it? With the absence of a reserve team it’s
difficult to know who is knocking on the door of the first team. One
thing for sure is that both Davies and Jewell were very reluctant to
introduce home-grown players. Although Jewell belatedly reintroduced
Addison, it should be remembered that Jewell used and signed an
astonishing number of players and Addison followed 20+ Jewell
signings.
The great
shame of all this is the amount of money spent on agents fees, loan
fees, transfer fees and wages, when in some cases, all we needed to
go was shout down the corridor. Let’s take two recent examples: if
we wanted someone to play right-winger a couple of time before
deciding he wasn’t up to it, why didn’t we just play Paris Simmons
instead of signing Pereplotkins? If we wanted a young defender to be
our fifth sub, why not use under-contract Beardsley or Hanson
instead of signing Seb Hines?
Consider
this: Tudgay, Grant, Hunt, McLeod, Mills, Holmes, Camp, Ainsworth,
Evatt and Doyle have all made careers for themselves at Championship
level or below. The total amount of money we received for these
players is less than we paid for the season loan of Kazmierczak
(excepting the sell-on clause for McLeod). The theory that the grass
is always greener, when it comes to signing players, has held sway
for years and cost The Rams a small fortune.
Fortunately,
Clough is trying to do something about it with the new under 21
development side. Young, hungry players who won’t cost the earth and
could supplement the first team squad when required. If you consider
the contribution of Davis and Todd for the past couple of years –
and the huge expense incurred – it makes perfect sense for someone
like Jake Buxton to be playing the kind of bit-part role latterly
held by Todd and Davis. If he performs as poorly as the
aforementioned pair, there’s nothing lost. If he’s up to it, we’ve
got a Championship standard player for nothing.
So here’s to
another new era of development, let’s just hope it brings us a
player or two. |
