catcherintherye
Player Valuation: £80m
And Dowell is a good example, that actually what younger players need is not a 6 month loan, but a permanent deal somewhere else, where the club is committed to their long term development.
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And Dowell is a good example, that actually what younger players need is not a 6 month loan, but a permanent deal somewhere else, where the club is committed to their long term development.
catcherintherye
Player Valuation: £80m
I think there is something in that Ledson shout. I wonder if Astley may be more suited to playing in midfield too given his height. He's very comfortable on the ball, but just not quite big enough.
catcherintherye
Player Valuation: £80m
I always say, at 16 Rooney was ahead of Ronaldo. He was probably ahead of Ronaldo at 19 in honesty. I only really saw Messi at 17, who was world class in a different way to Rooney. Rooney was more rounded, but Messi just had outrageous dribbling ability. I remember saying to my mates, watching him is like watching what George Best would have been for our grandads. Rooney was more grounded. A lot of why he didn't get to that level, was down to Wayne himself probably not taking as much care of himself between seasons as they did. However yes, it creates an impossibly high standard that every young player is judged too, and in honesty, every young player will fail at compared to him. People consider Barkley a failure, yet the lad has 35 England caps. Some failure that.
On your 2nd point, thats absolutely the case, and in honesty why I don't really go overboard if they have a bad game etc. Thats partly why they are loan, because it's priced in it will happen, and you are finding out what do they have in terms of learning and responding from it. It seems to be people think the loan only works if they get man of the match every other week, but they might not learn anything that way. We all generally learn when things go wrong. So it doesn't have to be a bad sign. But from Gordon's perspective, I think he has to probably break through this summer in pre-season. Thats going to be his challenge.
Funny Astley v Feeney, both were promoted to the 23's very early, and in honesty both stagnated. I was never massively on the Feeney bandwagon, as people can probably see on my posts on here. Never thought he was quite big enough, which is strange now as he's shot up to be abour 6 ft 3.
Astley is a better footballer than Feeney but a fair bit smaller, he's only about 5 ft 11. There aren't many footballers who make it at that height playing CB. The hope might be he fills out, and maybe grows another inch or so. While I think in general we should be moving more lads on at 20, (he's 19 now) I wouldn't be averse to a year extension and seeing how he does on loan.
John is interesting. Same youth age group as Gordon and considered similarly to him. He's more the right "style" for what a team would wanst than Kenny- in that he's quicker. However to me he's just not big or quick enough, so again I'd let him go. I only really saw Mallon for the 1st time in the youth cup but was very impressed. He's been given time in the 23's shortly after, and he looks a really big-strong lad to me. Probably 6 ft 2. It sounds cut throat, but I'd like to see more attention and exposure given to him next season. He's still only 17 I believe.
Ring master
Player Valuation: £90m
Philw
Player Valuation: £50m
Yes, certainly an interesting point. I don't know if it's allowed here, but on the continent they quite often do 18m to 2yr loans. I wonder if something like that would work better (with a break clause after 12m maybe), especially with players like Dowell/Gordon. Make it more worthwhile for the loanee (?) team in that it makes them worth developing/investing more as they would get to sample the fruits of that labour, and it's just a bit more settled and appealing than a 6 or even 12 month loan.
What age did Feeney grow to 6"3'?
Interesting on Mallon. I've always thought of FB/WBs as smaller any way, and almost height working against them (think Lescott v Baines. Digne is not tall either). Obviously that's a disadvantage defending crosses etc, but - Ronaldo aside (and I'm sure a few less well known others) - most wide players are generally not that tall, and normally shorter players are a bit nippier/more agile, which I would have thought to be more of a benefit than height at that position. And not that there's anything wrong with strength/power/height/athleticism, but many of the best players are smaller in stature. Obviously our league has traditionally been more about size and athleticism, but more players like Foden (size wise) are coming through now (and look at the attacking core of their team for the last 5-10 years). Obviously the skill level needs to be there, but if it is then I think maybe we need to/can place less emphasis on physical attributes now/going forward.
Is that not what we want? It doesn't get any easier stepping up to the PL. To me these kids need as tough as a challenge as possible; they get it too easy in academy football for me on big wages playing against other kids with a sense that games and results don't really matter.
Yeah as I said initially, I do understand the argument that we should have a team full of young lads, i'm not saying it's daft or anything. Personally I think it can be beneficial to have a couple of players around who know the ropes and can teach you the tricks of the trade if you like. I'm not talking about 23 year olds who've been playing under 23s forever, but people who've got a bit more nous and are a bit more physical than the younger lads.
I've said before, with the best will in the world, not all of the next crop will be potential first teamers. There's always this idea that somebody's path is being blocked or whatever, but realistically that just isn't the case. All you're denying them is the opportunity to prove on a pitch that they aren't good enough, rather than in training. On that basis if the coaches thought it would be beneficial to have someone like Astley in the side for another year to help the younger lads then i'd have no issue with it.
We should never have got rid of the reserves league as it served this exact purpose. You'd have some older pros returning from injury or just getting some minutes under the belt who could show the kids the ropes.
I wouldn’t disagree too much with your older heads point if it’s the right players, but the other side of that is a young player who’s career is stagnating. Both Anderson and Ouzounidis fit the bill as older heads, but we know they’re not going to be challenging for a first team spot with us. They need to have careers too, whether playing in lower leagues or something else, and we as a club need to be helping them to achieve that . Keeping Anderson say for another year as a back up for Small wouldn’t be much help to him come next year for instance.
Given that we are musing about such things on this forum then you’d hope and believe that Brands/Unsworth/ Ebbrell have been discussing this for months and have plans in place as to who goes and stays and who fills the gaps left.
Yeah it's a difficult one, there's maybe no right or wrong answer. In regards to the players themselves, whether we like it or not, many of them would jump at the chance of another year here with the wages and comforts they'd get from it. It may not help them in the long run but they have to look after themselves to an extent.
EDIT - Just to clarify, I mean look out for their own interests money wise etc, not that we should leave them to sort themselves out when their contract is up.
Ring master
Player Valuation: £90m
Everton are 8th and a win will move us 7th, while Blackburn are 2nd and will stay 2nd whatever the score,
Everton u23s have won the last 3 home games v Blackburn u23s [2 league/1 cup]
There’s a good article on Ellis Simms’ loan at Blackpool in the Echo, with most of the comments from the assistant manager. I won’t repeat it here, but there’s lots of positives particularly them working on an aspect that we’ve seen in him for us, his tendency to lose concentration and drift out of games for periods . I’m hoping that he’ll continue to improve and score goals for Blackpool and show he’s worthy of a step up to the Championship next season . For me he’s always been a slow , steady work in progress with gradual improvements each season . He’s still a long way from our first team , cue a hat trick in his next match and calls for him to start next season , but I think it may well be another couple of seasons until it’s clear where his level is.
mightymoyes
Player Valuation: £70m
yeh just read it, found it interesting that he doesn't really know how to use his physicality which must be a common problem with relatively bigger lads in under age football who then start playing against fully grown men.
Indeed, it was too easy at times for Simms, particularly u18, run onto the ball , brush defender aside shoot and score. DCL was much more physical at the same age. This is what good loans do, work on weaknesses with the player, it’s good to see.
Youth footy for anyone bored: