summerisle
The rain, it raineth every day
Delayed at least an hour, sun on the track.
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Eagle Eye
Player Valuation: £5m
Hopefully the lad keeps his feet on the ground and doesn't go off the rails...
summerisle
The rain, it raineth every day
He'll be first class.
BornBlue76
Player Valuation: £35m
Including DCL?
I never regarded DCL as someone we developed into the U23s, within months he was making his 1st team debut, then injured and as far as I recall didn’t score frequently for the U23s. My point is that we haven’t had a striker scoring at U23s/21 for years. Last season I can’t even remember who the top scorer was, season before it was Harry Charsley with about 10. So Hornby has the potential to score lots of goals for the U23s , something I feel we’ve lacked previously.
mightymoyes
Player Valuation: £70m
speaking of charsley he seems to have disappeared off the planet after his loan to bolton.
edit. just seen him in pics with unsworth and a few other u23s at that house for the homeless they bought
Charsley looks like he’s filled out a bit in the pics, Matty Foulds as skinny as ever and Feeney as peely wally as ever. I wonder how fit Feeney is as I’d expect him to be in the England U19s squad for the Euro U19 tournament starting in a week or so.
ruletero.toffee
Player Valuation: £100k
When are the next batch of the U18s announced?
Philw
Player Valuation: £50m
Maybe you would expect top, top players to be knocking on the door around 18 - Rooney, Barkley, Lampards and Gerrards etc, but even then only a few mins here and there generally. Plenty of other very good players won't have made their debuts or really started to become full time part of the squad until a few years later. It's only really about 21 imo that you have to start thinking about whether they are going to make the step up, and even then some will develop later than that.
With this new contract and the move to playing as a striker, he's certainly on the right track...
Lavery signed a 1-year deal.
..just read that myself on the OS. Interesting. I suppose 1 year is designed to analyse over a season rather than tie the lad up on a lengthy contract when there is little chance of him coming through.
The Mathew Pennington contract surprised me. 3 years when we are looking to reduce the squad size and rumours that Leeds were happy to take him on a permanent deal.
Yeh not really a massive Lavery fan myself but he’s in with the national team now so I guess this is his final look over?
Penno I dunno, depends which regime sanctioned that.
...yes, Lavery made his NI debut against Panama. He’s what I call a nice and tidy footballer, I can see the logic in him staying another season.
I think Pennington signed before Brands’ appointment but I would’ve thought he was consulted.
Obviously there are always exceptions to the rule but I think it's worth pointing out that of the 20 outfield players England have selected for this World Cup (keepers are a bit different) 12 of them made their England debut at 21 or younger. I think that shows that if you've not even made it into your club side by that age, you may well not make the step up.
Of the other 8, 3 had 'unconventional' paths to the national side, in that they were seemingly late bloomers who made their way up through the leagues, so only 5 of the 20 were at PL clubs but not playing for England at 21.
This is why I find it odd sometimes that people make out like DCL, Holgate and Kenny can't be expected to perform at a reasonable level in the PL yet but are destined for greatness. The fact is, most of the players who make it at the top are well on their way there at 21.
Young lad we released in May I think.