How many loanees have we had since relegation from the Premiership? Must be hundreds. Can anyone tell me of any who have been a success because I can't remember one. Delph and townsend the latest fiascos. Loanees don't work and never have. I just wish we could get away from the whole loan system altogether and get back to signing players who might be interested in actually playing for us rather than having a four week holiday at a different club
I think they have their place but it should be limited per club both amount you are allowed to loan out and the amount you can bring in per season. Look at Arsenal with Watts, he has been loaned out season after season he isn't going to cut the grade with Arsenal. Had there been a two player per club rule it would force the likes of Arsenal to release some of the young talent, this would filter through to lower teams which would help the quality of English football.
I think loanees only really work if there is a decent chance the loan could turn to permanent after so the player actually cares that bit more. eg. Gradel
We rarely have that situation though. We often get loanees because we need a player and we get anyone who's available for cheap. We don't identify a player and then think "we need that player, but we can only get him on loan".
The loan system currently been used in English football is only to allow Premiership clubs to develop young players whilst covering some of their costs. As the home of football we have hundreds of established clubs up and down the country, thankfully this existing club set-up stops the Premiership clubs launching B or C teams to develop their younger players. With the invention of "Super Academys" we will see more and more players grabbed by the Premiership and loaned back to their hometown clubs (Hopefully Leeds will be on the right side of this arrangement). If used correctly the loan player market is a good way of developing future talent for England whilst supporting smaller clubs who can not afford an academy set up. But I believe that players under 24 years of age should be loaned for a minimum of 6 months, I would only like to see an exception for older players returning from long term injury (e.g. Woodgate / Hargreaves). These players should be sent out for a month to get their fitness up. In regards to the current situation, I can not see why Leeds United should have cause to use the loan market to bring in kids, especially when we have such a established and well regarded academy. If we were giving players like Hargreaves a few games to get fit I would understand it, but Adam Smith is never going to be a Leeds player so why drop Zac Thompson? I personally think the Emergency Loan window is the real problem. It is constantly abused by Leeds United and other clubs, it exists to allow clubs to cover an injury crisis in any position and it should be restricted to Goal Keepers only in my opinion.
Works both ways though, for all the loanees which haven't worked, McSheffrey, Bannan, Livermore, Townsend etc. It's a system which has been beneficial to us when loaning players out. Somma, White, Nunez, Clayton & Lees all had successful loan spells & came back better players.
I think there have been successful ones like Gradel, Lichaj, Keogh and even Watt's first spell with us wasn't too bad but for the most part it doesn't work and I agree that a 2 player per club rule sounds like a very good idea. I always am quite dissapointed by loans
Out of this years loans i would say O'Dea who lets face it is a below average player (employed by Celtic) and presumably not that good at Ipswich last year otherwise (given their investment this summer) they would have gone all out to get him back. This to me is a financial limitation of the club, if the best we can do to improve our defence is to bring in one loan player. Keogh was obviously only short term and successful initially, though it got a bit of a selection dilemma when Becchio got back to fitness. Great contribution though and helped get McCormack scoring and confident. Pugh was an initial reaction to Gradel getting sold just before deadline day and he wasn't a like for like replacement. Not good enough for the biggest club in the division and fans paying the sky high prices. Townsend was an attempt to replace Gradel more like for like and give us a threat on the opposite flank to Snoddy, but again how can you expect a 20 year old to be anywhere near the standard of player of the season Gradel. Can see why Grayson went for the Smith loan because Connolly was (and still is with Warnock) out of favour and Thompson is not a natural RB. Plus Smith is out of contract at the end of the season and despite him wanting to remain at Spurs there is a chance he could have signed at the end of the season. So in conclusion the loan market can be used effectively to cover for player injuries (i.e. Keogh), but should not even be considered to cover departed players, so if you can't get anyone in permanently of a high quality, don't sell!! Did you hear that Bates? If you bring in quality like Cardiff did last season with people signing like Bellamy and Ramsey then obviously great. If you can bring in a player like Henri Lansbury who has experience of promotion and is a quality player then great. Sadly our lack of money means the best we can get is O'Dea which reflects badly on how beneficial the loan market could be if we had an owner keen on winning promotion (you know the one who actually shows it and not just talks about it).
Leeds Down South, I don't think you can say if you can't bring in anybody of any quality don't sell because you don't know until you have sold whether you can get quality or not and thats why the transfer fee needs to reflect that. But for the most I do agree with what you have said
The benefits or otherwise of the loan system depends on who you talk to. Our experience of incoming loanees has been mixed. But what about our outgoing loanees? Didn't do beckford, Lees or Somma any harm. & the club benefitted as a result. I foresee Somma going back out on loan for a month or so as soon as he gets back to full fitness. Not because Warnock doesn't want him. Quite the opposite I suspect. If we can keep pushing for a play off place and at the same time have Somma getting game time & matches elsewhere, it isn't beyond the relms of possibilities that Somma returns to play a bit part in the play off final & scores the goal that takes us up!! Having said that, we have the alternative situation with Townsend. 'nuff said, the little sh%t!!!
It's certainly worked that way for us, we loaned Stewart, Chester and Evans from Man United last season and signed them all, they're all in our starting XI. We've loaned Brady and King from Man United this season and we might well try and sign Brady at the end of this season(we haven't seen enough of King yet) We loaned Gulacsi from Liverpool and you saw at your place, he isn't good enough and he'll go back at the end of the season. As he wasn't good enough, we loaned Mannone from Arsenal in Jan and again we expect to try and sign him permanently in the summer. We just use loanees as a 'try before you buy' and it's working out very well for us.
Flip the coin the other way. Take Kyle Naughton for example, we probaly could of brought him last season when we loaned him. When we had him he was top class and the best right back in the league by a country mile and when the loan expired he did so well Tottenham put a massive price tag on his head and the interest from other clubs grew. And in the end he went Norwich. Loans are only good if you include an agreed fee in their if you want to buy them
When will opposition fans realise that singing "you're not famous any more" is basically their way of saying we're still famous? Who sings that at Wolves or Bolton?
It's called irony. Anyway, at Wolves and Bolton everyone's preoccupied with signing 'going down, going down, going down.....'
