| Aaron Drewe on 21:11 - May 9 with 2885 views | davman |
Wanted him to succeed, but way out of his depth in the Championship unfortunately. Was appalled when he got an extension at the beginning of the season and can only guess that he was all we could afford.
Gubbins next SURELY. |  |
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| Aaron Drewe on 21:23 - May 9 with 2845 views | SK_hoops |
| Aaron Drewe on 19:43 - May 9 by Pdog |
I find it intriguing that a guy who was probably the best player in his school by far, coached by a pro team since age of 8, could turn up at a 5-a side game and tear most to shreds, is then so far off what it takes for championship /L1 club.
Goes to show the levels to this game and how good the top players really are. At his age he needs real game experience, good luck to him. [Post edited 9 May 19:44]
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We used to play with this guy down the park who was absolutely unbelieveable (to us), best player I've played against by a country mile. He had a trial at Aldershot and we all told him that he basically had it in the bag. Didn't get it. |  | | |
| Aaron Drewe on 21:50 - May 9 with 2741 views | Maggsinho |
| Aaron Drewe on 21:23 - May 9 by SK_hoops |
We used to play with this guy down the park who was absolutely unbelieveable (to us), best player I've played against by a country mile. He had a trial at Aldershot and we all told him that he basically had it in the bag. Didn't get it. |
When I played at university I used to come up against someone who was head and shoulders above everyone else on the pitch. He’d been released by Oldham when he was 15. It’s incredible just how good any pro footballer is. |  | | |
| Aaron Drewe on 22:00 - May 9 with 2721 views | davman |
Wanted him to succeed, but way out of his depth in the Championship unfortunately. Was appalled when he got an extension at the beginning of the season and can only guess that he was all we could afford.
Gubbins next SURELY. | |
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| Aaron Drewe on 22:02 - May 9 with 2703 views | SK_hoops |
| Aaron Drewe on 22:00 - May 9 by davman |
Wanted him to succeed, but way out of his depth in the Championship unfortunately. Was appalled when he got an extension at the beginning of the season and can only guess that he was all we could afford.
Gubbins next SURELY. |
Has Gubbins ever played for the first team? Don't recall ever having seen him play. | | | |
| Aaron Drewe on 22:05 - May 9 with 2692 views | BazzaInTheLoft |
| Aaron Drewe on 22:02 - May 9 by SK_hoops |
Has Gubbins ever played for the first team? Don't recall ever having seen him play. |
Famously started v Watford under Ainsworth. Otherwise just a few League Cup games I think. |  | | |
| Aaron Drewe on 22:11 - May 9 with 2667 views | queensparker |
| Aaron Drewe on 20:02 - May 9 by Superhoops2808 |
For me, what I like to see is the fact that most ex first team players are being given a proper send off rather than just being part of a lengthy list as we have done in the past - So thats a positive |
Agreed - giving ex first team players a respectful goodbye and the chance to let them say goodbye is a small but meaningful sign we have moved forward.
So many great players fked off without a by your leave in the recent past |  | | |
| Aaron Drewe on 22:13 - May 9 with 2660 views | dmm |
I also expect Gubbins to depart. Duke-McKenna too, plus the usual slew of youngsters.
But more intriguingly, will anything be done about Taylor Richards? |  | | |
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| Aaron Drewe on 22:15 - May 9 with 2671 views | BazzaInTheLoft |
Every club is chock full of Gubbins, Drewes, Hamelainens, Dochertys, Germans, Hitchcocks, and Balantas.
Mediocre but cheap emergency backups from the YT are just a thing in football and play a useful part.
Like him or not, where would we have been without Drewes two (decent IMO) cameos? Willock at RB?
People get two hung up on contract extensions. If you are paying a kid from the YT £500 a week to fill a hole until a Cafu comes through the ranks then that’s a bargain.
Man United famously full of them under Ferguson. Didn’t David May stay there for eight years after his debut or something and even got his picture taken in the Champions League final.
I’m picking numbers out the air, but I would imagine every Hamelainen extension probably cost less than Tyler Robert’s and Ethan Laird’s loan fee and he contributed just as much.
Just my opinion. I certainly can’t stir myself up to get angry with them. As long as they aren’t taking the piss while they are here, Ce La Vie. | | | |
| Aaron Drewe on 22:49 - May 9 with 2602 views | Wegerles_Stairs |
| Aaron Drewe on 22:15 - May 9 by BazzaInTheLoft |
Every club is chock full of Gubbins, Drewes, Hamelainens, Dochertys, Germans, Hitchcocks, and Balantas.
Mediocre but cheap emergency backups from the YT are just a thing in football and play a useful part.
Like him or not, where would we have been without Drewes two (decent IMO) cameos? Willock at RB?
People get two hung up on contract extensions. If you are paying a kid from the YT £500 a week to fill a hole until a Cafu comes through the ranks then that’s a bargain.
Man United famously full of them under Ferguson. Didn’t David May stay there for eight years after his debut or something and even got his picture taken in the Champions League final.
I’m picking numbers out the air, but I would imagine every Hamelainen extension probably cost less than Tyler Robert’s and Ethan Laird’s loan fee and he contributed just as much.
Just my opinion. I certainly can’t stir myself up to get angry with them. As long as they aren’t taking the piss while they are here, Ce La Vie. |
David May, who United signed for £1.2m in 1994 and won multiple trophies with them? Hardly a decent comparison with the likes of Niko and Drewe, who will be lucky to have careers above non-league level. | | | |
| Aaron Drewe on 06:15 - May 10 with 2361 views | Northernr |
| Aaron Drewe on 22:02 - May 9 by SK_hoops |
Has Gubbins ever played for the first team? Don't recall ever having seen him play. |
You've a good therapist clearly, fancy sharing their number? |  | | |
| Aaron Drewe on 06:28 - May 10 with 2331 views | SK_hoops |
| Aaron Drewe on 06:15 - May 10 by Northernr |
You've a good therapist clearly, fancy sharing their number? |
Sure. They specialise in making people forget mediocre QPR players ever existed, which sounds niche, but they told me that business was booming. | | | |
| Aaron Drewe on 06:28 - May 10 with 2327 views | Northernr |
| Aaron Drewe on 06:28 - May 10 by SK_hoops |
Sure. They specialise in making people forget mediocre QPR players ever existed, which sounds niche, but they told me that business was booming. |
V lucrative. | | | |
| Aaron Drewe on 06:30 - May 10 with 2322 views | Northernr |
| Aaron Drewe on 21:50 - May 9 by Maggsinho |
When I played at university I used to come up against someone who was head and shoulders above everyone else on the pitch. He’d been released by Oldham when he was 15. It’s incredible just how good any pro footballer is. |
Agree with this. Best player at our uni was a lad called Ian Holmes, fortunately I played on his teams rather than against him because the guy was unplayable for touch, speed and finishing. Like, it was frightening.
Result...
https://www.soccerbase.com/players/player.sd?player_id=47233
TBF he did have a good non-league career, 30 goal season for Matlock at one point. | | | |
| Aaron Drewe on 06:46 - May 10 with 2304 views | Hoopstar |
I had a good mate in primary school called Phil Ifil. We tore every other Brent school team apart for fun using the timeless tactic of get the ball to Philip. The most sporting success I ever had those two years in the Gladstone Park Primary team.
He signed for Spurs when we were in Year 6. All the way through their academy, made a handful of first team appearances, loans at Millwall and Southampton in the Champ, went to Colchester for a bit and then disappeared into non-league.
Nobody else I've played with ever got close to his technique, speed and power as an II year old - it was terrifying playing against him. Always impressed me just how high the standards are that he didn't make it a higher level and drifted out the game. |  | | |
| Aaron Drewe on 07:00 - May 10 with 2261 views | mart_Goblin |
| Aaron Drewe on 22:13 - May 9 by dmm |
I also expect Gubbins to depart. Duke-McKenna too, plus the usual slew of youngsters.
But more intriguingly, will anything be done about Taylor Richards? |
Was told a week ago that Gubbins had already been released but don’t know how true that is as nothing was announced |  | | |
| Aaron Drewe on 07:47 - May 10 with 2179 views | derbyhoop |
| Aaron Drewe on 18:25 - May 9 by mart_Goblin |
Come on let’s stop getting confused between the academy and the development squad or making excuses …
Eze
Chair
Armstrong
Didn’t come through our academy .
They came as young adults into a development setup .
I’m talking about players coming from school or earlier . That’s an academy graduate .
Kakay making 100 appearances is something I won’t deny is a great achievement coming from someone who was at QPR from 13 but released at 18 because I wasn’t anywhere near good enough. It is something the academy should be proud of but let’s add up the profits made by sales of academy graduates on to bigger and better things in the last 10 years ?
Furlong . That’s a success story.
But who else ?
With our MO over the last 10 years, it should be how we survive .
Credit Les and others for signing Eze and Chair. But that’s a different thing completely .
I agree with what others have said and that the club seems to have a vision of sorts and with the new training complex hopefully we should see fruits of this in the near future .
But come on, to insinuate that it’s been successful is just ignoring basic facts.
Anyway only how I see it
I did say I’d be in the minority [Post edited 9 May 18:27]
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If you exclude those who came from elsewhere to join the Dev Squad , the definition of our own is more limited. But its a perfectly valid model that QPR have been pursuing for years.
The counter to that is the number of players from the Academy that have been poached by other clubs. 13, I recall, netting us a mere £700k.
We'd all like to see a kid join at Junior school level and go on to make 100+ appearances in the First Team but that really is a rarity. Especially in London, with so many other clubs on the doorstep.
Maybe Heston will help us to attract and retain better players who can do that. Let's hope. [Post edited 10 May 7:53]
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| "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the Earth all one's lifetime." (Mark Twain)
Find me on twitter @derbyhoop and now on Bluesky |
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| Aaron Drewe on 07:49 - May 10 with 2170 views | DeanoMD |
| Aaron Drewe on 17:13 - May 9 by mart_Goblin |
In the minority but never thought he was as bad as most think .
Gutsy tidy player who like many of our ‘youngsters’ are developing too late .
Many say he was out of his depth and I actually never saw that . Even against Thomas, he was given a tough game but blocked cross after cross and frustrated him as much as Thomas got the better of him . I know most will disagree but as an ex defender he did ok.
Not going to disagree with him being released and think it’s right for both parties as he falls a little short of what we need to progress both physically and ability wise,
But good luck to him for the future .
In a slightly negative note , there should be an inquest into everybody involved in the Academy' over the last decade as we continue to release academy products with no sell on value whatsoever.
There are a lot of people still at the club who have been involved a long time and have produced very little indeed . |
Fully agree on both points.
Especially about the academy, it's blatantly obvious this has been a huge failure, good to finally see those responsible finally getting moved out, Ramsey, Taylor etc. I would think there's more to go as well over coming weeks. | | | |
| Aaron Drewe on 07:53 - May 10 with 2154 views | BazzaInTheLoft |
| Aaron Drewe on 22:49 - May 9 by Wegerles_Stairs |
David May, who United signed for £1.2m in 1994 and won multiple trophies with them? Hardly a decent comparison with the likes of Niko and Drewe, who will be lucky to have careers above non-league level. |
I was getting him mixed up with John Curtis, but it sort of made my point that if you are a club of QPR’s size who can’t afford to pluck Premiership defenders from rivals and give them 5-10 cameos a season you need to rely on cheap youngsters.
Also, Niko Hamelainen won the Finnish Championship last season! Not sure if they renewed his contract but he could be playing Champions League qualifying games in the summer. Very far from Non League indeed. [Post edited 10 May 8:28]
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| Aaron Drewe on 08:06 - May 10 with 2090 views | SK_hoops |
On the other side of the coin, my cousin used to play in a league with Stan Collymore. Apparently SC would just go to the manager and ask how many goals he wanted him to score. | | | |
| Aaron Drewe on 08:41 - May 10 with 2010 views | Antti_Heinola |
| Aaron Drewe on 07:47 - May 10 by derbyhoop |
If you exclude those who came from elsewhere to join the Dev Squad , the definition of our own is more limited. But its a perfectly valid model that QPR have been pursuing for years.
The counter to that is the number of players from the Academy that have been poached by other clubs. 13, I recall, netting us a mere £700k.
We'd all like to see a kid join at Junior school level and go on to make 100+ appearances in the First Team but that really is a rarity. Especially in London, with so many other clubs on the doorstep.
Maybe Heston will help us to attract and retain better players who can do that. Let's hope. [Post edited 10 May 7:53]
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Agree Derby.
Some fans have this lovely romantic view of the 'youth system' being kids aged 8 joining the club, being coached for 10 years, and then being a first-teamer. In reality, this is vanishingly rare, not just at our club, but *anywhere*. Of course it is! The best players in my district in the 80s were with clubs, but within a couple of years they'd been overtaken by other players who a couple of years earlier were nowhere near as good. Then, as you say, we have to compete with other teams: if we have an outstanding talent at aged 13, we'll probably lost them (see Elliott, Harvey) - and there's not much we can do about it. It's much easier for a Chelsea or a Liverpool to have a successful academy, because they can just cherry pick the best talent elsewhere. Equally, if a smaller club has a talent at 13, we can take advantage of that ourselves.
If you're only counting youth products as players who've been at the club since the age of 10, then almost no academy system 'works'. That's why, when it does happen, there's a big fuss about it. It's why Man Utd's Class of 92 is so revered: because a success like that is and was still pretty much unheard of in modern football. |  |
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| Aaron Drewe on 08:47 - May 10 with 1995 views | Antti_Heinola |
| Aaron Drewe on 06:46 - May 10 by Hoopstar |
I had a good mate in primary school called Phil Ifil. We tore every other Brent school team apart for fun using the timeless tactic of get the ball to Philip. The most sporting success I ever had those two years in the Gladstone Park Primary team.
He signed for Spurs when we were in Year 6. All the way through their academy, made a handful of first team appearances, loans at Millwall and Southampton in the Champ, went to Colchester for a bit and then disappeared into non-league.
Nobody else I've played with ever got close to his technique, speed and power as an II year old - it was terrifying playing against him. Always impressed me just how high the standards are that he didn't make it a higher level and drifted out the game. |
Mentality.
This is why when people say a player doesn't work hard enough or doesn't care enough, it needs context. To play at Championship level in this country is extraordinarily hard - or at any professional level. Not only do you need ability, yoiu need dedication and a massive will to succeed. i don't think we quite appreciate that enough sometimes. It is, of course, why players like Richards will ultimately fail; it's why 'talent' (whatever that is, exactly: I personally don't really believe in it to much of a degree - almost everything comes through hard work, not some magic 'talent') isn't enough. That goes for any particularly competitive career though, I guess. | |
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| Aaron Drewe on 09:24 - May 10 with 1920 views | Wilkinswatercarrier |
| Aaron Drewe on 07:00 - May 10 by mart_Goblin |
Was told a week ago that Gubbins had already been released but don’t know how true that is as nothing was announced |
I imagine all those being released have already been told, but the club is announcing them one by one to give them a chance to say goodbye to the fans.
2 or 3 day gap between Adomah, then Kakay and now Drewe. Gubbins and Duke Mckenna will probably be announced individually as they have also played for the first team.
The club doing it right at last. | | | |
| Aaron Drewe on 09:30 - May 10 with 1922 views | mart_Goblin |
| Aaron Drewe on 09:24 - May 10 by Wilkinswatercarrier |
I imagine all those being released have already been told, but the club is announcing them one by one to give them a chance to say goodbye to the fans.
2 or 3 day gap between Adomah, then Kakay and now Drewe. Gubbins and Duke Mckenna will probably be announced individually as they have also played for the first team.
The club doing it right at last. |
Yes I think you are right | | | |
| Aaron Drewe on 10:42 - May 10 with 1849 views | ngbqpr |
The way I've seen it work through deep involvement in grass roots kids football for 20+ years, where I've seen dozens of kids I've coached as 5-7 year olds whisked away into the academies (plus one of my own kids having two academy spells at 7-9 and 12-14):
- from age 6 (and sadly now in some extreme cases even younger), the academies hoover up as many kids as possible to 'have a look' (usually in 6 week blocks), so paranoid are they about missing a kid 'on their patch' and a rival nabbing them
- they are officially allowed to sign them at u9 (= year 4 at school), by which point dozens, maybe even hundreds, have had a little taste, but been discarded. Somewhere between 12-15 get the golden ticket. Some of those who miss out aren't discarded completely, but kept on in 'shadow squads', 'development groups' etc
- at least 50% of that initial dozen will have been discarded by 12-14, replaced by shinier new models who developed a bit later
- by 16, make that figure 80%
- by 18, when the first pro contracts are handed out, make that 95%. You've been barged out of the way by an Eze or a Chair...there's a kid in the year above or below who plays the same position but better, they're only looking for one per position across, say, a three year age band...they realistically only expect 2 or 3 per age group max to get contracts at 18, but hey, football is 11-a-side so they need to keep enough kids on til 18 to play fixtures
I'm in Nottingham, so this is based on Forest being top of the tree, Derby & Leicester sneaking in and picking up the odd Nottingham-based kid, and Notts Co, Mansfield, Burton & Lincoln sweeping up anyone that's left who's half decent. Treble that in London in terms of competition for the best players.
What cannot be stressed enough is that 2-3 year age band factor, they're only looking for one player per position across that band...and he has to be better than the 24 year old 'finished article' they can sign from the division below, Norway, Belarus, whatever.
Looked at in that light, I'd argue Drewe and Kakay have both done pretty well - especially as they actually share a position.
Forest, whatever we think of their transfer policy, haven't done badly with academy graduates over the last few years. Sold Johnson for 47 million, Cash for 28 million, Brereton for 7 million, Lascelles for 7 million, Bamford for 5 million, Osborn for one million, Darlow for 300k. Worrall a first team regular for several years and if they offload him this summer will command a decent fee, Yates a first team squad mainstay.
Put that up against our efforts over a similar period, and it's something to crow about, and arguably one of the better track records out there. However, now look at the birth years of those players:
1990 x 1 (Darlow)
1993 x 2 (Lascelles, Bamford)
1994 x 1 (Osborn)
1997 x 3 (the bumper year: Worrall, Cash, Yates)
1999 x 1 (Brereton, not signed til 16)
2001 x 1 (Johnson)
9 players over an 11 year period. I guess most on here would have been happy with Rangers producing that many / getting those fees etc...so one coming through per year on average I'd argue is a not unreasonable aspiration. Anything above and beyond that is dreamland.
Personally, I feel picking up players at the age we did with Eze, Chair, Dieng can be more lucrative.
That kid who tore everyone a new one in your u12s team is most likely in National League South at best. |  |
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