Players with potential need minutes and experience……letting them rot helps nobody
We have to utilise the loan market better
Good Evening Ladies and Gents,
I just want to pen some thoughts on our hoarding of young talent.
I completely understand and respect the idea behind signing the best talents in the world for 20m or under to avoid having to drop 115m on the likes of Caicedo and developing them ourselves. But, the big issue here is the lack of development we are providing.
I am in the small minority that likes the fact we are hoarding young talent and will either produce them for our own first team occasionally or flip them and make a profit of however amount, from a business point of view (people forget football is a business) it is a very clever way to make a lot of profit.
My biggest issue with this is the fact that we are not providing enough opportunities to allow these players to develop or gain experience, the loan rules restrict the amount of overseas loans we can use which I understand but the Championship for example is an excellent level of football albeit in the 2nd tier.
We need to utilise the Championship and the EFL as a whole a lot more, these clubs will jump at the chance to loan a player for next to nothing that can potentially have a huge impact, look at someone like Harvey Vale last season.
It is massively important that we develop and nurture these players as well as get them valuable experience in order to either get them to a stage where they are first team ready or in a position to sell them on for their highest possible value to make a tidy profit.
I am far from saying I am a fan of them selling any and every academy graduate and sometimes selling them isn’t the issue it’s the way it is handled and dealt with that is the issue, like with the cases of Trevoh Chalobah and Conor Gallagher, I love both players and both would be excellent squad players moving forwards but them leaving can/could be the best move for their careers. The way it has been handled has been absolutely appalling by the club and puts a bad taste in people’s mouth about the club and the academy now, when we are so used to having the best academy in England, and one of the best in Europe.
Thanks for reading.
Luke Rushbrook
What about the PL2?
Si (I think) said that the new U21 manager wanted to be very strong in the PL2 this season. Having American owners, my understanding is that a lot of American sports have their academy teams having equal support to the franchises (i.e., college football).
I would be very content if eligible players gain their experience from the PL2 with some of those players stepping up to first team as needed... Lesley, Guiu, Wiley, Tyrique.
I get that it is playing against fellow young players, but the EFL trophy offers a good experience too.
I think the bigger issue is the prices we're paying. Signings like Guiu and Omari are clearly smart, but I'm not sure how much profit we can make on signings that cost us 20m a pop unless they really explode onto the scene. Only so many leagues/teams that tend to sign players for much more than that.