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LES REED: Southampton Youth Development

This is a very interesting read, not just about the youth set up but also about the backroom scouting and statistical analysis

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/37954971
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Comments

  • edited November 2016
    Wow, a really interesting read and one that makes you realise how important consistency behind the scenes is. Potential managers/coaches are monitored for a year before they apply! A 50 page document compiled on each candidate and then 3 interviews. Total respect for their organisation and foresight. So professional and well done Les Reed.
    What damage KM and RD are doing to our youth set up and academy I hate to think.
    Oops, just seen the other thread on this.
  • This is a bug bear of mine. Reed was a useless manager, but he had done a great job coaching, and we sacked him and therefore lost a superb coach. A complete cock up, and as a club we paid a high price for it. I desperately wanted him to be allowed to dtop back into his previous job, but it never happened.

    I totally agree
  • Fingers need to be pointed at those that recruit!!!!!! Good statement
  • Come on Les this is a joke right ? 50 page documents just to hire a manager a year in advance ? What a waste of time & paper, what do you know anyway, you weren't a great manager at Charlton. Nightmeire can interview 20 applicants in a day, 24 hours Les & everytime she has chosen wisely because our ranking has improved everytime. 50 page documents? Do you have any idea how much paper we would have wasted over the last 30 months, save the trees I say. Where are you in the league anyway ? You go to all that trouble & yet you were in our division not so long ago. How many players have you brought through your academy & sold to the premier league clubs eh? Come on how many ? If it wasn't for a few bitter ex employees throwing things on the pitch because Meire's a wooden doll we would be in the premier cup already & would probably be above you. 50page documents, whatever next ?

    triple spacing ((:>)
  • Heard Les Reed speaking about the ‘black box’ at Southampton, which contains the data on every player, playing in the top European leagues. Performance data, injury data, physical data, high intensity sprints, recovery sprints, first touch, videos etc. its got the lot. There is undercover work too and the due diligence is taken to backup the data. They operate about 2 years in advance where they basically predict when a player will become attractive to other clubs and be sold on. Another player will of course already be identified as a replacement.

    I always appreciated Les Reed’s background work at Charlton under Curbs, but tbh I found this audio clip quite depressing. It seems football clubs are now to become supermarkets. I have my preference here of course (Sainsburys) but I don’t mind shopping in Asdas or Morrison’s, whereas I prefer my football club to have a lot more heart and soul - I go to Charlton not Millwall or Crystal Palace.

    The Southampton model may give them survival and moderate success, but it’s not really reaching for the stars and that’s the bit that hurts. It’s not like I’m a kid that has just discovered Father Christmas doesn’t exist - he never has. Football (at least for me) did at one time exist with true heart, passion and soul.

    (The audio starts at about 46 minutes on the link below).

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0833w1z#play
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  • Heard Les Reed speaking about the ‘black box’ at Southampton, which contains the data on every player, playing in the top European leagues. Performance data, injury data, physical data, high intensity sprints, recovery sprints, first touch, videos etc. its got the lot. There is undercover work too and the due diligence is taken to backup the data. They operate about 2 years in advance where they basically predict when a player will become attractive to other clubs and be sold on. Another player will of course already be identified as a replacement.

    I always appreciated Les Reed’s background work at Charlton under Curbs, but tbh I found this audio clip quite depressing. It seems football clubs are now to become supermarkets. I have my preference here of course (Sainsburys) but I don’t mind shopping in Asdas or Morrison’s, whereas I prefer my football club to have a lot more heart and soul - I go to Charlton not Millwall or Crystal Palace.

    The Southampton model may give them survival and moderate success, but it’s not really reaching for the stars and that’s the bit that hurts. It’s not like I’m a kid that has just discovered Father Christmas doesn’t exist - he never has. Football (at least for me) did at one time exist with true heart, passion and soul.

    (The audio starts at about 46 minutes on the link below).

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0833w1z#play

    Next Thursday Southampton are playing Sparta Praha in Europe, today they are at home to Liverpool. Compared to us they have reached the stars.
    If my club had that much passion to achieve the protests would never happened.
  • It's sickening to think that Les Reed came back to the club at exactly the time we were looking to implement a new management structure. We had a decent academy set up, and, at the time, money to invest. This genuinely could have been us. Look where we are instead.
  • Worth remembering that as well as letting go of Les Reid we also let go of Paul Hart another well thought of coach.
  • Redrobo said:

    Les Reed was one of the best football people to ever work for our club and it was unbelievable that we managed to get him back to our club when we did. Why did we feel the need to sack him when the managers job did not go well instead of reinstate him to his old job was just so disappointing, especially as those at the top knew just how good he was.

    Good luck to him. Deserves everything he has worked so hard for.

    This with knobs on.

  • Heard Les Reed speaking about the ‘black box’ at Southampton, which contains the data on every player, playing in the top European leagues. Performance data, injury data, physical data, high intensity sprints, recovery sprints, first touch, videos etc. its got the lot. There is undercover work too and the due diligence is taken to backup the data. They operate about 2 years in advance where they basically predict when a player will become attractive to other clubs and be sold on. Another player will of course already be identified as a replacement.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0833w1z#play

    I wonder if their 'black box' also records the height of the players?
  • Les Reed is proof of the English saying.
    "Those who can do.
    Those who can't teach."

    He seems to be doing pretty well at the moment.
  • Gillis said:

    Les Reed is proof of the English saying.
    "Those who can do.
    Those who can't teach."

    He seems to be doing pretty well at the moment.
    He is a excellent teacher, he was a rubbish manager. Thus fitting the saying
    What's he teaching now?

    I'm not really sure about this teaching/doing distinction that you're making. It seems like he's been successful in a number of different roles, all of which you class as teaching, and unsuccessful in one, which you class as doing. That doesn't really seem justified to me.
  • Latest from nightmeire, we ARE planning ahead similar to the Southampton model. We have a cardboard box in which I placed the names of 20 nobodies of which I will be picking three (with my eyes closed, no dishonesty at the Valley) & they will in turn be our managers for the rest of the season.
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  • edited November 2016
    I have heard that Katrien has always had a little black box, don't know if anyone's seen it though:)
    Come to think of it Mowgli might have.
    I'm sure that's how she got the job
  • In our premiership wilderness years everything good about Charlton previously was down to him, whilst everything bad at that time was down to Day. He came back alongside Dowie and was 'out of his depth'.

    Southampton are expertly and comprehensively run, but he was part of Lawrie Sanchez's Fulham who did some of the worst close season prem business with the atrocious Bouazza and Diomansy Kamara. What he coached and worked on the team for the 5-1 against Tottenham was a joke. Playing a 4411 with no pace in the link positions whilst having Rommedahl on the bench was moronic. Having Sam as the link and then not bothering to tell him to sit central right where Tottenham were imploding in the first 45 was no work of coaching competence.

    In short he seems to run organised, competent, professional processes when backed and supported by considered, financed owners with a strategy of employing 'football people' who can operate and explain/justify themselves in a coherent narrative.

    Whether you agree with Moneyball or not, signing players for millions without comprehensive psychological assesment is the pursuit of consistent failure. Sure Osvaldo was a predictable disaster, seems virtually all of our paid for european potential was doomed without even the simple assesment of physicality let alone psychology. Whereas the structure Powell operated within so often operated effectively within their budget. The madness of not assessing failure and adapting. Something Reed appears to be willing to do and should be applauded for.
  • Come on we need a campaign to bring sir les back
  • He (Les Reed) sounds like Curbishley.
  • Another article on Southampton, they're looking at London street footballers as potential players for their academy.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3808319/Southampton-tapping-street-football-inner-city-London-academy-scouts-search-prodigies.html
  • Heard Les Reed speaking about the ‘black box’ at Southampton, which contains the data on every player, playing in the top European leagues. Performance data, injury data, physical data, high intensity sprints, recovery sprints, first touch, videos etc. its got the lot. There is undercover work too and the due diligence is taken to backup the data. They operate about 2 years in advance where they basically predict when a player will become attractive to other clubs and be sold on. Another player will of course already be identified as a replacement.

    I always appreciated Les Reed’s background work at Charlton under Curbs, but tbh I found this audio clip quite depressing. It seems football clubs are now to become supermarkets. I have my preference here of course (Sainsburys) but I don’t mind shopping in Asdas or Morrison’s, whereas I prefer my football club to have a lot more heart and soul - I go to Charlton not Millwall or Crystal Palace.

    The Southampton model may give them survival and moderate success, but it’s not really reaching for the stars and that’s the bit that hurts. It’s not like I’m a kid that has just discovered Father Christmas doesn’t exist - he never has. Football (at least for me) did at one time exist with true heart, passion and soul.

    (The audio starts at about 46 minutes on the link below).

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0833w1z#play

    Next Thursday Southampton are playing Sparta Praha in Europe, today they are at home to Liverpool. Compared to us they have reached the stars.
    If my club had that much passion to achieve the protests would never happened.
    Fair comment @charltonkeston. Southampton have success beyond Charlton’s dreams at present and that’s for sure, but they still only serve to feed the bigger clubs, with their better players.

    The thing is my comments were more about the way I feel than anything else. I realise of course that I may have lived too long, but it strikes me that as time goes by - and we are introduced more and more to computer data bases, globalisation, player stats and algorithms - the less I actually enjoy watching the beautiful game.

    I’ve always doubted that stats alone tell the full story - in fact if you watched the England Spain game the other night you may have noticed that Ryan Giggs was waxing lyrical about Busquets ability to know when to stand still. I doubt if there’s a stat for that! I suppose it’s a bit like music - the notes are really important - but so are the gaps in between.

    Personally, I’d like to see a return to the organic roots of football. 11 men with a bit of spirit, ability and camaraderie just going out there and doing it.
  • Scoham said:

    Another article on Southampton, they're looking at London street footballers as potential players for their academy.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3808319/Southampton-tapping-street-football-inner-city-London-academy-scouts-search-prodigies.html

    this is what every ambitious and on the ball club should be doing .. countless talents fall through the academy scouting net be it through not very ambitious parents, language barrier, late development or any of many varied reasons ..

    surely this type of scouting and potential recruitment was the original method for recruiting players .. slum kids, factory workers, miners, kids bunking off school ..

    many academies now are full with middle class boys from privileged backgrounds or with foreign boys recruited by overseas agents .. Southampton are going back to the roots to secure the future for ENGLISH football
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