I think that one issue with our academy players getting into the first team may be the system. You don't just have to be good enough, you have to be able to play in an unusual way. Someone like Lankshear could benefit, but he's not completely a club product, unfortunately. Others may struggle to get meaningful opportunities, though there were a few short ones. I'm hoping that we have an extremely strong squad and can get the loans right. Another good year for the U21s with various players stepping up could help, too. Donley, Moore and Hall are all still very young, to use a few examples.
The academy should have harsh performance judgement criteria. For example, it should be producing at the end of each season at least one outfield player *** to go into the senior squad with the intent that they are good enough to make X starts / play a total of Y minutes in their first season. Time will tell what their std/longevity will be, but those that do not make it should at least be saleable and make the club some profit (which then creates a "virtuous circle" ) . *** For GKs, say one every 5 seasons.
Does the club have a designated loan manager? Also what happened to affiliated clubs? One of them in League 1 could be very useful.
I mentioned about that a year or so ago, we use to loan a few out to the likes of Leyton and Yeovil simultaneously. Think Swindon had a few too in one go. No idea why we stopped, it seemed to benefit both us and the loaning clubs.
Yeah it makes sense to have a proper loan club, makes it easier to know how they’re getting on and sending multiple youngsters to the same club will make it easier for the players too.
He has been impressive but this has been a very recent flourish and iirc he is going into the last year of his contract, so he and the club will have an important decision to make over the summer. From the club's perspective, it makes sense to hedge our bets and put as many irons in the fire as possible. But this is difficult to do inexpensively and without watching some talents slip through the net. Right now we have Parrott, Scarlett, Lankshear and Veliz all roughly the same age and all with a point to prove. Statistically, none of them will make it at PL level but as one of them came through the youth, another was signed for a few hundred grand, another for £2m and the last one for £10m, it isn't silly money and therefore very sensible in theory to see how they all develop. But to develop, they either need proper game time or proper loans and currently whilst the former is unrealistic, the latter just hasn't been working for many years, to the point where we hit rock bottom a few years back by loaning Jack Clarke to a team who couldn't actually legally name him in the match day squad most weeks, which was farcical.
There were claims that Roda JC were being lined up to be one around five years ago, but that went nowhere
Realistically I don’t see Richarlison leaving, his insta post mentioned he won’t be leaving England this summer so even if the Saudis made a bid he’s not accepting. No one in Europe will give us our money back on him and I doubt we’d even get offers in the region of £30m-£40m either. I think more or less everyone knew this would be the case the moment we signed him though, we horrifically overpaid and left ourselves with a midtable striker that probably won’t fancy heading back to a midtable/ bottom half club nor will we get a bid that Levy will deem satisfactory. If we can focus on shifting Emerson, Lo Celso, Hojbjerg, Davies and the senior returning loanees though then we should be in a solid position to add their funds on top of what our budget is (we’re circa £250m under FFP as it stands, so make of that what you will) and there’s no reason we can’t have a big summer, despite the initial disappointment of Werner returning.
This is what annoyed me more than anything when we signed him. The fact we could all see exactly how it would pan out. The guy has never managed more than 13 league goals, not even in the Brazilian league. All he's done since joining us is added 'injury prone' to his CV. And yet, ironically, we are much better with him in the team than not, simply because Ange's system really needs that focal point and Son really needs to start on the left. So that fills me with a bit of optimism that if we seriously invest in an upgrade at ST, we will be a force to be reckoned with in attack. This is one of the biggest tests of Levy's resolve imo. Old Levy would have broken out in a rash at the thought of leaving a £60m striker on the bench every game. New Levy hopefully acknowledges that supporting your manager doesn't include a requirement to polish turds and we will ignore sunk costs and just move on.
After quite a few years where I felt he really dropped the ball, I can't have too many complaints with Levy of late. I feel like we're reaching the end game for him in terms of his long term plan and that he's more or less put all of the pieces of the puzzle together for other people to make a success - or failure - of it. The stadium's bringing in significant income, there are proper footballing people in place making most of the footballing decisions and we've got one of the best training grounds for players to develop. On paper we're now a lot of manager's dream workplaces I'd say and it results in more pressure falling on the manager to deliver than it does blaming lack of funds or ambition from those above. I do believe that Richarlison staying or going won't affect our intent to bring in what will hopefully be a 20+ goal a season striker, along with other much needed additions to the XI or squad. I'll reserve judgement of course until the window slams shut but I see no reason why we shouldn't be in for a big window - and fairly continuous big windows for the foreseeable future.
If Werner and Richarlison are going to be prepared to be squad players and be on the bench a lot then I don't have too much issue with them being here. We need squad depth and not many top players are prepared to sign as squad players so it could be difficult and too expensive (financial rules wise) to sign better than these two to be squad players. If they are to be definite starters then I think it'll be a long season.
The painful reality is that the teams we're trying to catch have multiple players sitting on their benches who cost and earn far more than £60m / £165k. Grealish starts most games from the bench and he cost £100m and earns £275k a week. Liverpool have that bloke whose surname I can't spell. Cost £62m, earns £120k pw and sits on the bench. So whilst Richarlison and Werner aren't the best case studies, we have to accept the fact that these are the sorts of numbers we need to spend just on back up, in order to be competitive. Insane, really, but we've got Sky, Chelsea and City to thank for it.
All players are by definition "squad players" . Wanna be first on the starting XI team sheet ?? Then deliver the performances whenever you get on the pitch.
I’d say I’m about 90% certain a new striker will arrive. The sticky point will be whether it’s a (hopefully) 20+ goal a season striker or someone to compete with Richarlison, if the latter, I won’t be impressed.
I assume you are referring to Szoboszlai who was first choice got injured came back from injury but was in poor form so lost his place (later than he should have in the opinion of most of others ) to £7m Elliott .
There was a report yesterday in Portugal that said Edwards was very keen to return. Today Ally Gold has said we’re keeping tabs on him. I was all for bringing back Edwards in recent seasons but it feels like right now if we’re adding another RW, it’s got to be someone guaranteed to be of starting quality, not just to compete with Kulu or Johnson. The CG bonus will be nice but it isn’t a necessity either.
