No difference in quality of kids at Villa and S'pore: Hunt
Aston Villa are one club who pride themselves on producing their own players, with the likes of Gabby Agbonlahor, Jack Grealish and Marc Albrighton rising through the ranks over the years.
With a reputation of honing raw talents through their youth development system, Villa's former head of football development, Joe Hunt, believes that the rewards Villa have reaped owe to the heavy emphasis on moulding their own players.
Hunt, who was recently appointed as ESPZEN Soccer School's academy director in Singapore, told The New Paper: "Over the years, Aston Villa have always had a good reputation when it comes to youth development and bringing their players through from a very young age."
Another player who went through Villa's system was centre back Gary Cahill, who is now with Chelsea.
"They were all good players, Gary Cahill especially," Hunt said. "He's now with Chelsea but he was one of Villa's youth players who came when he was about 12 or 13 because unlike many of the boys, he was originally from Dronfield.
"I don't know why they sold him (to Bolton Wanderers) at one point," he said with a laugh, "but Cahill's an unbelievable player who came through the system."
Villa are fourth on the English Championship, the second tier of English football.
Just last month, the Birmingham-based outfit secured a play-off spot for the EPL.
Hunt, who oversaw Villa's football development for over 16 years, also spearheaded the female age groups and helmed the women's senior squad for five years. He led the team to their first ever trophy in the 2012-13 Women's Premier League Cup.
But with any developmental team, Hunt stressed the importance of inculcating the right mindset in the young players as they progress further into their footballing years.
Despite being equipped with the knowledge and tools from Villa to implement similar programmes at ESPZEN, he feels the football scenes in England and Singapore have striking differences in how their academies are run.
"At Villa, players worked towards the top where it was the professional men's team," Hunt said.
STRUCTURE
"At ESPZEN, we've got a great structure of all these youth teams but there's no adult team to push these players into."
That said, Hunt sees no difference in the quality of youth players at Villa and in Singapore. He said: "The boys I'm coaching now are very similar (to those in England), and the girls I've seen here are technically good and very aggressive as well.
"There's really no difference at all and many of these kids could go straight into the elite teams (in England)...
"There's never going to be a direct pathway to producing great players. Youth development might take years, but give these kids a chance and I'm sure they could do wonders."
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