Ex-Sunderland Academy boss Paul Reid's revealing view on his spell in charge and the drastic action considered to improve U18 and U23 sides

There aren’t too many Sunderland fans who would deem Paul Reid’s spell in charge of the club’s Academy a success given the dreadful results at U-18 and U-23 level and player departures of recent years.
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Supporters have long been left concerned about the future of Sunderland’s category one academy, after a bruising year in which neither the U18 or U23 side was able to register a league win.

A raft of talented players have also left the club before signing professional contracts, leaving a lack of depth and a huge rebuilding job to be done this summer.

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Players including Sam Greenwood (Arsenal), Luca Stephenson (Liverpool), Luke Hewitson (Liverpool), James McConnell (Liverpool), Morten Spencer (Leeds United), Logan Pye (Manchester United), Joe Hugill (Manchester United), Cole Kiernan (Middlesbrough) and Bali Mumba (Norwich City).

The Academy of Light.The Academy of Light.
The Academy of Light.

Reid was appointed to the role in the aftermath of Stewart Donald’s takeover, having previously worked as head of recruitment at Eastleigh FC.

Reid, who left the club in July after deciding to move on, has now opened up in detail about the job he did at Sunderland, the challenges he faced, drastic action considered – including taking the U18s and U23s out of their respective leagues - and what gives him a sense of pride from his time at the club in an interview with the Training Ground Guru site.

Sunderland have interviewed candidates for the academy manager role but are yet to appoint Reid’s successor at the Academy of Light.

On competing with other academies and losing talented youngsters:

Reid said: “We were devastated to lose our top talent.

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“The decision to give permission for clubs to talk to the players and to sanction deals for them was made at Board level, so we had to focus on what we could influence.

“None of us wanted to lose our best talent, of course we didn’t, but we had to find a way of changing the narrative. So we used it as a recruitment tool - ‘we've developed these players to such an extent that the biggest clubs in the country want their signatures. We could do that for you too.’

“Them leaving was nothing to do with the environment at the Academy, it was the simple fact of where the club was at and the attraction of joining clubs of that stature.”

His message to academy staff when he was appointed and retaining Category One status:

Reid said: “The first thing I did when I arrived was to ask the staff what the club values of the club and the Academy were. No-one could tell me.

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“So it wasn’t a case of amending the values or vision, it was a case of starting from scratch. It’s one thing to talk about these things, it’s another to actually implement them and live and breathe them across multiple departments.

“We spent a lot of time working on that and I was so proud of the staff that we managed to do it."

“That was our biggest achievement - both as an Academy team as a whole and for me personally - to get that Category One status after the club had been put into special measures 18 months earlier. It was an unbelievable team effort."

Some of the drastic measures considered:

Reid admitted: “We looked at taking the U18s and U23s out of their respective leagues, because it was becoming counter-productive for both the staff and players to have them there, but we weren’t allowed to do that.

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"We looked at signing three experienced players, aged 33, 34, to help the young players around them. Brighton have done that with Andrew Crofts, but no-one has brought in three before.

"It’s easily said, but we didn’t manage to find the right players and people before lockdown. We needed experienced players who were willing to step away from first-team football into a coaching, mentoring and playing role and didn’t manage it.

“We also looked at getting players in from the Academies at Liverpool and Manchester City, where I have contacts, on work experience, but the clubs preferred their players to remain in-house or to get first-team football on loan.

“Everything we looked at, there was a barrier.”

Loan moves for promising youngsters makes him proud:

Reid added: “One example was Jack Diamond, who helped Harrogate to gain promotion to the Football League last season. He would have been an obvious one to keep around the U23s to give us a better chance of winning games at that level, but we felt that for his development it would be better for him to get that loan experience.

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“He will come back into the first-team squad now and be knocking on the door of the first team. I am absolutely delighted with that and think it vindicates the decision we made."

Sunderland CEO Jim Rodwell said earlier this summer: “We know we need to improve, we are absolutely aware of that.

“We need to address some of the things that went wrong last season.

“It is difficult because once we get to the 16 age group, that’s when the City’s and United’s start investing serious money.

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“It is difficult to compete but there are things we can do differently.

“It’s going to be interesting to see what the views of the candidates are. We need to have that club vision but I’m interested to see what the candidates’ views are on where we’ve gone wrong and what we need to improve.

"There is a lot of work to be done.

“Keeping the category one status at the most recent audit was impressive and Paul had to work incredibly hard to do it.”