This is the lad who was not offered scholarship terms by Burnley in the spring of 2016, much to the surprise of many involved at the time with our academy. He was quickly snapped up by Bury and they've now sold him for a significant undisclosed fee to Barnsley although he'll go back to Bury on loan until January. He's now played a total of 26 league games for Bury.

Any particular reason he wasn't kept on by us? Or just one that slipped the net?

BFC to BFC to BFC

MyRightFoot wrote:Any particular reason he wasn't kept on by us? Or just one that slipped the net?

Interesting one. I never saw him play but everyone I spoke to believed he had real potential. But the academy manager at the time thought different.

Is it fair to say that so far the academy manager looks to of been bang on that he wasn’t going to be good enough for a premier league team?

Thank god we got rid of him (not Styles but Howes mate)and are now looking like we could start producing young players again at a decent level. At the moment the route we are taking with snapping up released youngsters from top sides and headhunting the best of the lower league sides seems a very good mix.

Barnsley have a good record recently in producing players and aiding their development so wouldnt surprise me to see Styles moving on in a couple of years for seven figures

MRG wrote:Is it fair to say that so far the academy manager looks to of been bang on that he wasn’t going to be good enough for a premier league team?

How so? The lad is only 17/18 and 3 years younger than Dunne who has spent his career so far at a lower level. Not saying Dunne is no good as I think we have a good one in him but like a lot of players now they are not getting into sides until much later.

Sory i see you was asking a question. He has moved for half a million so i think Barnsley see something in him. And like I said they seem to be quite good at developing players

MRG wrote:Is it fair to say that so far the academy manager looks to of been bang on that he wasn’t going to be good enough for a premier league team?

Given the money Bury have got for him at the age of 18 I'd suggest it is far from fair to say that.

Who the hell was responsible for keeping Blake at Burnley for three and a half years after Howe left if he was such a liability? Someone high up needs to take some ownership about how their ongoing decisions decimated Burnleys youth setup

Devils_Advocate wrote:Who the hell was responsible for keeping Blake at Burnley for two and a half years after Howe left if he was such a liability? Someone high up needs to take some ownership about how their ongoing decisions decimated Burnleys youth setup

Couldn't agree more - and it was three and a half years too. Hoos had a lot to do with him keeping his job. Within no time of Baldwin taking over as chief exec we started the process to replace him.

ClaretTony wrote:Couldn't agree more - and it was three and a half years too. Hoos had a lot to do with him keeping his job. Within no time of Baldwin taking over as chief exec we started the process to replace him.

Edited my original post from 2 to 3 before you replied, it is getting late

ClaretTony wrote:Couldn't agree more - and it was three and a half years too. Hoos had a lot to do with him keeping his job. Within no time of Baldwin taking over as chief exec we started the process to replace him.

CT - would you put this down to Hoos preferring us not to have had a youth setup? As soon as he took over at QPR he seemed to try to do the same thing. My uncle is a season ticket holder there and said it was only Les Ferdinand getting involved which stopped him stripping the youth setup entirely as he felt it was a drain on the clubs finances

Cleveleys_claret wrote:CT - would you put this down to Hoos preferring us not to have had a youth setup? As soon as he took over at QPR he seemed to try to do the same thing. My uncle is a season ticket holder there and said it was only Les Ferdinand getting involved which stopped him stripping the youth setup entirely as he felt it was a drain on the clubs finances

Don't think so, he just strangely protected Blake despite getting complaints from staff, players and parents.

Never heard of the lad and it could be anyone, anywhere. Strikes be the young man with balls,who probably questioned what he was being told, was moved on for disagreeing with a lesser mortal.

That's how Hout always struck me. Work with young lads, who swallow everything, rather than seasoned pros...unless mates. Having to adapt with age now!

ClaretTony wrote:Given the money Bury have got for him at the age of 18 I'd suggest it is far from fair to say that.

Although I understand the fee to be undisclosed I will accept the rumoured £500k as the fee. If we had of kept him on the books for a further 2 seasons instead of releasing him, considering the additional money that we would of continued to invest into him, has this really been a big loss to us based solely on the ‘money Bury have got for him’?

MRG wrote:Although I understand the fee to be undisclosed I will accept the rumoured £500k as the fee. If we had of kept him on the books for a further 2 seasons instead of releasing him, considering the additional money that we would of continued to invest into him, has this really been a big loss to us based solely on the ‘money Bury have got for him’?

He is 18. How many 18 year olds are playing in the Premiership. I think its a hard one to judge but will know in 3/4 years time. If he had stayed we could assume this year we would have been loaning out to a league 1 club similar to Barnsley loaning him back to Bury.

We will never know buy maybe in 3/4 years we will be putting in bids of 10m+ for him. Who knows?

MRG wrote:Is it fair to say that so far the academy manager looks to of been bang on that he wasn’t going to be good enough for a premier league team?

Aye, a kid playing league one football at 16, securing a half a million quid move by 18 and on an upwards trajectory suggests the academy manager was bang in. Ps how many other kids are playing league football aged 16, and doing enough to secure a move to a bigger club at 18?

Welcome back Callum.

dandeclaret wrote:Aye, a kid playing league one football at 16, securing a half a million quid move by 18 and on an upwards trajectory suggests the academy manager was bang in. Ps how many other kids are playing league football aged 16, and doing enough to secure a move to a bigger club at 18?

Let’s see how he progresses. Playing for Bury at 16/17 is no indication that he’s been a massive loss to us.

John Cofie anybody?

MRG wrote:Playing for Bury at 16/17 is no indication that he’s been a massive loss to us.

At the time Bury said they couldn't believe their luck that they'd got him. People within our own club were in total dismay that he'd been allowed to leave. Had he stayed, how much would a two year scholarship have cost us? Yet Bury did that and have now got at least half a million in return.

MRG wrote:Let’s see how he progresses. Playing for Bury at 16/17 is no indication that he’s been a massive loss to us.

John Cofie anybody?

John Cofie wasn’t playing first team football.

There have been several threads about this lad on here in the last two years. I think he was the first "millenial" to play in the FEL. (Just checked).

"Styles made his professional senior team debut for Bury in their final game of the season against Southend United on 8 May 2016. He came on as a 75th-minute substitute for Anthony Dudley as the team won 3–2. In making his debut, Styles became the first player born in the new millennium to make an appearance in the Football League."

His progress is no surprise to at least one poster on this thread.

We let him go but good luck to the lad.

ecc wrote:There have been several threads about this lad on here in the last two years. I think he was the first "millenial" to play in the FEL. (Just checked).

"Styles made his professional senior team debut for Bury in their final game of the season against Southend United on 8 May 2016. He came on as a 75th-minute substitute for Anthony Dudley as the team won 3–2. In making his debut, Styles became the first player born in the new millennium to make an appearance in the Football League."

His progress is no surprise to at least one poster on this thread.

We let him go but good luck to the lad.

Bury got that one wrong. He'd signed for them in the March and therefore outside of the transfer window. So when he made that debut they suffered a three point penalty for playing an ineligible player.

You are right, the first player born in this millennium to play league football.

MRG wrote:Let’s see how he progresses. Playing for Bury at 16/17 is no indication that he’s been a massive loss to us.

John Cofie anybody?

But surely worth a punt when you consider the price of a scholarship vs the reward of producing a homegrown gem. Nobody can really accurately predict how good a 16/17 year old will end up being. People claim to, they will say “I knew he’d be this good when he was a young lad” but they've probably thought that about a dozen other players, who are now serving you your Sunday Brunch. And it works the other way too. Some players just don’t quite click until much later, even mid to late 20s. I see quite a few players coming out of the U23s, and they don’t look like they’ll be anywhere near Premier League level, but we pay them an actual contracted wage. So why not risk a scholarship on someone like Styles?

ClaretTony wrote:Bury got that one wrong. He'd signed for them in the March and therefore outside of the transfer window. So when he made that debut they suffered a three point penalty for playing an illegible player.

You are right, the first player born in this millennium to play league football.

Seems a harsh penalty for being unable to read his handwriting.

Can't believe I've written that. Duly corrected.

ClaretTony wrote:At the time Bury said they couldn't believe their luck that they'd got him. People within our own club were in total dismay that he'd been allowed to leave. Had he stayed, how much would a two year scholarship have cost us? Yet Bury did that and have now got at least half a million in return.

Scandalous ineptitude which has cost our club dearly. Does our manager and his team not have any say?

We are searching for young players, surely we look at our own?

Lee Hoos was a cluless fool .This is the guy who got Tripp to sign a new deal that ended up us selling Tripp for a measly £3.5m
Dismantling our youth team by keeping Eddies mate in charge was insanity and its taken 5 yrs to get it functiononing on the right path again.
Usually departing managers take all their staff with them
Eddie realised Blake couldnt cut it

Jesus, the Trippier transfer is going to confuse people for decades.

Now it was us who insisted on the 3.5m release clause. Roll on 5pm Thursday and the end of the saga that is the transfer window on here.

"Scandalous ineptitude which has cost our club dearly. Does our manager and his team not have any say?"

Hi Ian, yes we dropped one. But all clubs do. There are scores of players who were let go by clubs when young but who made it all the same.

However, Styles' departure stands out all the more because we haven't had other lads come through.

dandeclaret wrote:John Cofie wasn’t playing first team football.

But he would if he had gone to Bury instead of Liverpool!! My point exactly!

He went to Man Utd...... and if he’d been playing dirt team football then who knows how he would have developed, rather than going into a system that stops development for all players except the very best.

To answer my question from above, there were only 2 players who played at the weekend in the whole football league who were younger than Callum. Bali Mumba at Sunderland and Sam Graham at Oldham.

How did Bury manage to sign him once he was released? Were they offering more money than all the other clubs?

During the Blake era lots of coaches and some scouts moved to Bury. He was basically with Bury the day after he was released from Burnley, played u16’s, youths, reserves and made a first team appearance within 6-8 weeks of moving there. So a lad not good enough for a youth scholarship at Burnley was playing first team league one football 6-8 weeks later. Cheers Jason.

dandeclaret wrote:He went to Man Utd...... and if he’d been playing dirt team football then who knows how he would have developed, rather than going into a system that stops development for all players except the very best.

To answer my question from above, there were only 2 players who played at the weekend in the whole football league who were younger than Callum. Bali Mumba at Sunderland and Sam Graham at Oldham.

Maybe we are missing a trick not being in for Sam Graham using your logic!

I would say if we’re not keeping an eye on very young players playing first team football then we probably are missing a trick. The signing of the lad from York tells me we have this covered. There’s also a key difference. To my knowledge we didn’t have the lad at Oldham in our Youth Set up and release him.