…I hear my song begin to say, Kiss me where the sun don’t shine, The past was yours, But the future’s mine…
Gary Karsa, possibly the most mysterious man in football. If one were so inclined, one might become suspicious of him. His job title at Norwich is Football Operations Manager, hardly a telling title. We have little to go on so far, other than that he is still at Norwich, although his contract expired on Saturday, so perhaps not for much longer, if at all. This in itself provides a mystery within a mystery, as it is unclear whether he will be joining up with Lambert along with Ian Culverhouse. A little research has suggested that Karsa has played a leading role within the youth setups at Colchester and Wycombe Wanderers, and with Kevin MacDonald leaving Aston Villa, there is a clear case for the belief that Karsa will head up the Aston Villa youth team and/or the reserve team.
There is a problem with this, however, since his job title would simply be Youth Team Coach, or Youth Team Manager, if he were indeed either of these things. He has followed Lambert in Lambert’s previous three roles, and is considered by Norwich fans to be a part of Lambo’s management team. This makes me wonder, how much do Norwich have to thank Lambert for, and how much do they have Karsa to thank? Is Lambert the same without him, and as a result, is Karsa the brains behind the whole operation? The fact that Lambert has taken him with him to three jobs (so far) indicates his importance to the manager, but not necessarily that he is a central cog in the system, at least not on his own. So why the non-descript job title?
Should Karsa join in the capacity of youth/reserve team general (a term I use loosely), he will have a lot to live up to filling the shoes of KMac, but as some of us have pointed out, much of the regard we have for KMac seems to stem from sentimentality, rather than true delivery.
He brought through a lot of players, but did he ensure the best for these players? We have brought several players into the first team over the years, and they all came through MacDonald. Some were rated as solid youngsters, but some were championed as future stars. Cahill and Barry aside, very few have made a genuine case to be classed as “stars”, and many, many more have fallen by the wayside. This is always a likely product of youth teams with a high output: there will always be players who fail to make it for any number of reasons. However, when there is a repeated failure for players to step up and kick on, where does the problem stem from?
Sentimentality tells me that I should avoid pointing the finger in KMac’s direction, but as such an important member of the youth development side of Villa, his role has to be questioned. Is our youth team ready for the challenges of professional football at the highest level when they come through?
If they are not, then why are they not? Why is it that we see so many promising youth players coming though, who, within weeks, appear to become very limited players, unable to make an impression upon the Premier League? Our facilities are first class, and have been for a number of years now; we should be seeing the benefits of the huge outlay made at the start of Lerner’s tenure. And yet, we are not. How many of the current crop look like becoming stars? Maybe two: Clark and Gardner. Beyond that, the best we can aim for are a few squad players. Of the players yet to make the breakthrough, it is too early to tell. We have gotten carried away with players who shine in the youth leagues before, and been left puzzled by the apparent vanishing of their talents, which were forecast to see them rise to prominence.
So, Gary Karsa. Can he be the man to take on the youth team and develop it? Will his role be greater than MacDonald’s, incorporating the whole club, aiding the transition between youth level and first team level? Will he make decisions such as which players might benefit from loans to other clubs? Will we see a reserve team who no longer see winning the reserve leagues as something to shout about?
In other words, will we modernise? Matt alludes to this often, that many, even most, of the top teams simply do not see the reserve league as anything but an opportunity to maintain some match fitness. This may sound unbelievable, but footballers are no different to normal people, and it may be the case that some of them are quite happy to try and dazzle in the reserve leagues, and find a comfortable rut in which to sit, rather than having ambitions to progress further. And perhaps this is why many of the youth team do not make it at Villa. Perhaps they are drilled to be winners, but as they compete for so long in such an anodyne competition, maybe this actually sets expectations too low? If Karsa does come in, maybe he will be set the target of ensuring that more of these players make the grade.
This article supposes a lot, and I’ll admit is a bit of a flight of fancy, but it is the biggest area of mystery surrounding the club. We have seen our youth teams perform so well for so long, and yet we have benefited so slightly from this that it cannot be sheer coincidence. Did KMac pay for this with his job, or did he leave only to become a manager in his own right?
Maybe he felt that the problem with Villa’s youth setup was out of his hands, that he could not remedy the problems with restrictions placed upon him. I have no idea, but I do strongly suspect that in Karsa, who I believe we will appoint, we will see a change in direction, whatever that may be. Either way, “I can feel the Earth begin to move.”
The Author
