New role for Jim Cass.

The club yesterday announced that Academy boss Jim Cassell will be leaving his role at Platt Lane to take up a position expanding the youth setup overseas. The club are said to be opening an academy offshooot in Abu Dhabi this year, followed by one in North American next, with others to possibly follow. Garry Cook seemed keen to point out that Jim's new position will not have a negative effect on the current setup, calling Cassell 'one of the greatest talents in youth development in the world' and revealing that he will have a big say in his replacement.

I was quite disheartened at the news initially, i must admit. Moving Jim into a new role when he's been doing such a stellar job as Academy Director is a bit unexpected. The last three or four years particularly, culminating in successive Youth Cup finals, an unbeaten league season and the likes of Stevie Ireland, Michael Johnson & Micah Richards all becoming first-team regulars, has earnt City plaudits from across the country. These things tend to change quite quickly in football, other clubs have at various times got their academies into top nick, most drop off, though, but with ours you got the feeling that progress has been steady under Cassell and the formula had been pretty much mastered.

There's little doubting the fact that as we try and push on and build a better squad there may not be as many opportunities for academy graduates to get games. The above three players got their chance in the first team primarily because we didn't have anyone better in those positions and our lack of resources at the time meant we couldn't make significant signings to strengthen the squad. Had they came through a couple of years later, like, say, Vladimir Weiss, Ryan McGivern & Kelvin Etuhu of late, they might not have been granted such chances.

I guess it's inevitable then that the Academy will serve less of a purpose over the coming years, as the manager has funds at his disposal to strengthen when necessary and each game becomes that much more vital if we have serious hopes of breaking up the monopoly at the top of the table and perhaps even winning some silverware, but i hope we can continue to be a place that encourages local youngsters to take up the game, and hopefully we'll see the odd outstanding prospect break through.

The way the game's going, though, scouting's simply moved on from a few local toe-rags being spotted having a kickabout on a local park. Premier League clubs have their people out all over the world, finding players who just might make the grade years down the line. We already have German and Spanish prospects in the youth sides, and as the game continues to get more global then perhaps it makes sense for us to have our best people going abroad and ensuring that our scouting and coaching setups are every bit as good as they are here.