Recruitment/Development watch.

Yes. With no senior appearances prior to joining Wolves, for Monaco or anyone else.

So he gave him his senior debut, fair enough. It's hardly evidence of a youth development focus.

And while giving first team debuts is of course really important to show academy players that there is a pathway, so is the head coach being present and showing an interest (especially at Forest right now where since promotion, you could easily feel that there isn't, given the churn of players.)

(All of this largely for nothing if the owner is more interested in recruitment than development, of course, which I think is pretty clear.)

I'm honestly torn on that particular bit. I listen to retired players on things like Undr The Cosh bemoaning that the game isn't the same because the young players don't have to clean boots and are driving round in flash cars and acting like the world is theirs at 18 and I can absolutely understand and agree with your point, and theirs, that there was a lot of value to starting as a relative scrub and learning the right behaviours. But on the other hand I also listen to some of the stories and they sound like straight up bullying and victimisation of young lads who had no choice but to suck it up if they wanted to succeed in their chosen career, and it seems to me like a bloody good thing that it doesn't work like that any more.

I suspect that we've lost at least as much bad shit we don't want as good stuff we do in the development of young players, and I do wonder how many broke down or quit under the weight of treatment they shouldn't have had to receive in the name of shaping the few who did make it through. Obviously I've never spent any time in that environment but it does seem like the sepia tinged stories of the boot room gloss over a lot of much nastier experiences.

I don't like it because it's bad business, it's entirely reliant on a single operating model continuing to be successful and we all know that football is a business that's overly dependent on humans. It's the football version of moneyball and while it made for a great movie, it should also be noted that it didn't result in long term success on or off the field - they've been to the Championship series once in the last three decades, and lost, and they're about to relocate to Vegas because there isn't sufficient support for them in Oakland.

I also don't like Brentford's approach because I do share the general sentiment that a club should provide opportunities for local kids to grow up dreaming of playing for them, even if I don't have quite the same level of emotional attachment to the idea that others have. In an ideal world we'd all love to have a team full of homegrown players even if reality dictates that that's nigh on impossible to achieve, but Brentford's model takes the cynical approach to its logical conclusion and eradicates any possibility of it.

Yes, I agree. My point is that I think we do that in different ways now - we used to expose 18 and 19 year olds to senior football by making them clean boots and collect bibs and then let them get the shit kicked out of them by cynical nags in the Central League, now we send them to Lincoln and Notts and Dagenham and Scunthorpe to be fully fledged members of a senior squad for a season.

Au contraire, I think we serve them better now. Instead of making it all about whether or not they can make it at their parent club, and when they almost inevitably don't (as the vast majority of youth players won't) kicking them out on the streets to go and figure out what to do with their lives, we expose them to a wider variety of football, and football to them, to help them to find their level. Sometimes that will mean they'll need to fall back on the education that the Academy gave them because football isn't going to provide them with a living, sometimes they're going to find that their level is Lincoln or Dagenham and make it the next full time stage in their career, and every now and again they're going to shine and come back to Forest a better player, a step closer to the big stage.

To return to the original point, I don't know how that pathway is in any way impacted by the head coach standing on their sidelines every now and then. It can't do any harm, but any player who is remotely worth consideration for the first team is surely going to be identified to the head coach as such by the Academy staff. Meanwhile, the real business is doing everything possible to help young players be the best they can be, whatever that is, and getting them opportunities at that level. Because in order for the business model to work most effectively, you need to pick up a hundred grand here and three hundred there for the players you've developed who are not ever going to get a chance at your first team.

Not at all. If Nuno not being on the sideline is going to dissuade a young player from trying, they were never making it in the first place. I just don't see what value it adds in the modern Academy system, because there are inevitably steps between the Academy and the first team. It's far more useful to have him watch them playing at Lincoln or Dagenham than at Wilford Lane.

In my opinion for what its worth, academy players are far too highly paid. I was reading ( don't ask me where) we have players at that level on 3k a week and I would imagine some of the other bigger teams pay more. They drive around in big cars and act like film stars. Where is the hunger as many already earn far more than their none football friends. I think there lies the problem of potential future players never making the grade. The only players that do make it are the ones who are prepared to sacrifice the nightclubs and work hard to be the best. Unfortunately not many are prepared to do this. You can count on one hand how many of our youth players have actually made it as top players.

I predict in a short while both Worrall and Yates will be playing championship football. In their case they just are not premier quality though its not they don't try they just haven't got it. We may join them who knows how Nuno will do. He has not got an easy task playing the inform side followed by some hard matches. What ever your feelings about Cooper he threw some valuable points away in very winnable games.

Not sure I agree fully with this, though I see where you're coming from. The head coach being visible might not help someone who was never going to make it at Forest to become a Forest player. But it might lead to an increase in motivation, which might help them to become a League One player rather than League Two or non-league. And if a big part of the reason for the Academy is revenue generation, then that matters.

Another question - one to which I don't fully know the answer. Obviously the pathway to the first team is the main thing that parents look for, if their kid is good enough to have a choice of clubs. I imagine that a head coach visibly engaged in the academy would help with recruitment though? Again, not more than an owner committed to a development strategy, though.

EDIT: also potentially improves the motivation and performance of the Academy coaches if they know the head coach is particularly engaged and takes an interest in their work.

He isn't the football leader at the club, he's the head coach of the first team. If and when a young player might be worthy of consideration for the first team, he will be alerted to it by the people whose job it is to watch, nurture and develop young players. The Cloughs and Fergusons are a thing of the past.