Install the app
How to install the app on iOS

Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.

Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.

Ageing squad

Status
Not open for further replies.
Zatara

Zatara

Player Valuation: £100m
We have the following starters who are approaching or past 30 years old;

Neville -- 2 yars left ?
Distin -- 2 years left ?
Cahill -- 2 years left ?
Howard -- 4 years left ?
Arteta -- 4 years left ?
Jagielka -- 5 years left ?
Saha -- 1 year left ?

We also have these players who aren't going to take us too far for various reasons;

Anichebe -- Useless
Yobo -- Should have been sold for a reduced fee
Yakubu -- Injury has possibly finished him in the premiership
Bilyaletdinov -- I'm going to admit now that he wont make it
Heitinga -- Very epensive benchwarmer

So essentially we have up to 12 players whose resale values are now (or soon will be) sinking like a stone in a deep dark pond.

I can see Fellaini / Barkley / Rodwell potentially covering any midfield losses over the coming seasons....although we have potentially massive issues in central defence and attack.

I've said the same thing for the past 3 seasons, some of these players should have been moved on and young replacements brought in.


One thing that is worth thinking about, clubs will soon only be able to spend what they have generated in income.....if that's the case how many clubs will want to take ageing players off our hands rather than signing up and coming youth ?


David Moyes has always been a top manager but is he too stubborn to sell some of his old favourites ? I dont believe he can go begging for money from the board when he could have and possibly should have been offloading players over the past couple of years.

The Lescott money now seems like it has been spent on 2 bench warmers and an ageing centre back. It certainly will be interesting to see what happens at the end of this coming season when Saha surely will go as his contract will have finished....we'll potentially be left with Beckford as the only 'real' forward in the squad.


If this was a business outside of the sporting world then what would happen if there was half of your workforce coming up to retirement age / not good enough ?
 
OMFG I have seen it all now, did you see the average age of that very talented first half midfield last night! ageing squad ffs. there's never any genuine optimism about our fanbase....ever.
 
Average age of a midfield playing in a friendly match where 1 player goes off injured and we have no width ?

OR are you talking about the same midfield which I highlighted above to have the ONLY current young replacements to come in ?
 
Giving Neville a 2 year contract extension this summer was one of the most stupid decisions I've seen.
 

davek said:
Giving Neville a 2 year contract extension this summer was one of the most stupid decisions I've seen.
Click to expand...

ffs who would you rather we played at right back
Not many players get past Neville easily no matter what anyone says about his inhumanly bad stepovers
 
davek said:
Giving Neville a 2 year contract extension this summer was one of the most stupid decisions I've seen.
Click to expand...

2 years was a bit much unless he is being groomed for assistant manger/coach role but i still think he is our best RB. Seamus is a midfielder now and one of the reasons he cam tear forward so much is that Neville is behind him
 

Tim Howard can go on playing for a long time yet and we've just signed two young goalies. There's no pressing need to worry about the age of our roster of keepers.

We have a laundary list of youth international center halves (Duffy, Dier, Hammar, Mustafi) who will hopefully provide the first team with at least one viable option in the next couple of years. Jagielka has never relied on his pace and will hopefully be the kind of center back who peaks in his early 30s. I wouldn't mind adding a 22 year-old with a bit of experience to bridge the gap between Distin and our academy prospects, but I don't think we have to panic about this position at the moment. Rodwell may yet end up a center half.

Right back is a cause for concern with Hibbert and Neville both over 30 and no obvious long-term prospect in the acadmy side. I know Tyias Browning plays there for our team and alanball is an admirer, but I don't think he's been capped at any level by England and you don't often hear him talked up by our academy staff. If Coleman is going to be a winger, I agree that we need to reinforce at right back in the near future. Even if they were both 5 years younger, we should be looking to improve on Neville and Hibbert anyway (I wouldn't have minded a cheeky renewal of our interest in Kyle Naughton this summer).

You'd expect us to be alright at left back for donkey's years with Baines still a relatively young 26 and Bidwell and Garbutt apparently top prospects. No concerns there.

In Gueye, Barkley, Rodwell, Fellaini and Coleman (not to mention players like Wallace, Baxter and Lundstram who may yet play a role for the first team) we have under-23s in every position across the midfield. We're well stocked here.

Up front I have to agree with you. God only knows how old the Yak is, and I don't expect Moyes will ever give him a run in the side again unless he has to. This will probably be Saha's last season playing at a high level and even Beckford is 27, which is no spring chicken for a player who relies on his pace as he does. It would be great if Hope, Vellios and/or Silva could emerge as premiership-level goalscorers but it would be very unwise of us to rely on the mere possibility - 20-goal-a-season-strikers (TM) are rare and from the outside looking in Moyes doesn't seem impressed with Silva. Anichebe should never be used as anything but a last resort up front.

So to summarize, I think the irrevocable march of time will soon rob us of our only viable options at right back and center forward and these are problems Moyes needs to address as matters of relative urgency. On the plus side, we're relatively well set up everywhere else in terms of the age of the squad. I imagine we're in better shape than a lot of premiership clubs in that regard.
 
It has been picked up on that we have several players around the 30 mark, but three stand out for me; A lot of goalkeepers hit their prime in their 30s so I cant see Howard having 4 years left unless a serious injury occurs.

Arteta's main game is his passing ability so technically he could be positioned in a more defensive role like Carsley if need be and Jagielka, 5 years is a long time for a centre back, Jags' main part of his game isn't pace its his ability to make a last ditch tackle which makes him stand out so in 2-3 years time it wont matter how quick he was. Saying that both David Weir and Richard Gough played way into their 30s so I wouldn't start worrying just yet.

For every negative there is a positive, what we don't have in skill and pace we make up for that in experience, players named like Neville and Cahill aren't the most technically gifted players around but adapt their game to make up for it.

Yes these players may not be spring chickens anymore but they are still premier league players and will be for many years to come with the addition of younger players (mostly free transfers and league 1 players most probably)
 
The only real major concerns are Neville and Distin, the rest are just 30 or nearly 30, 30 isnt old for a footballer these days, with the diets they take and training, as long as somebody is healthy, fairly injury free and dont rely on pace, they can play forever.

Paolo Maldini, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs say hi.
 
MikelsGoat said:
The only real major concerns are Neville and Distin, the rest are just 30 or nearly 30, 30 isnt old for a footballer these days, with the diets they take and training, as long as somebody is healthy, fairly injury free and dont rely on pace, they can play forever.

Paolo Maldini, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs say hi.
Click to expand...

He was as good at 40 as he was when he was 30. Idol!
 

Status
Not open for further replies.

Welcome to GrandOldTeam

Get involved. Registration is simple and free.

Register
Back
Top