I really cant figure where I stand with Josh McEachran! When he was in the junior ranks , he looked as if he was destined to become a first team regular! That as we all know hasn't happened. Now he's off to Middlesborough for the rest of the season! Will he ever become a 1st team Blue or is he destined for another club?
He's not been given a chance. You can't possibly judge someone on one Premier League start in two years and his loan to Swansea last season was pointless with their midfield so settled he was never going to break into it. The question to ask is why do all of our young players seem to stall on the verge on the first team? The answer is simple - too much chopping and changing at managerial level, too much pressure to deliver silverware every season (even Fergie has his barren years FFS), no long term vision for the club. Even with RDM now it feels like we're in limbo until Roman gets the next manager that he "really wants" (like Carlo!) and all our young players have to start all over again from scratch.
Perfect summation ,accurate to a T. Until our top end chill out and concede that long term success requires stability, patience, constant never ending hard work, and building on solid foundations, we will never do anything but spend huge sums, and stagger from one crisis to another. Meantime our youngsters will be playing for our competitors.
It's been 15 years since we won the Fa Cup in 97. We've been winning trophies regularly since. I think it's longterm now. If Sinclair goes to City he'll be the only one I can think of who will be playing for our competitors.
Liam Bridcutt already showed his quality against us this season, a lovely foul at one point straight out of Makelele's book.
Apparently little Josh set the place on fire last night! He's about to become a Middlesborogh legend!
We've been consistently successful during that period, but I don't think anyone can argue that we've had a coherent long term strategy during that time. In fact, I think you could argue that we've underperformed during the Abramovich era, given the massive financial dominance we've enjoyed for most of that time. I don't think many of us would have anticipated winning just 1 league title in 6 years after retaining the PL is 2006. We've spent £66m this summer and that figure could easily top £100m if we get Cavani/Hulk, Moses, and Cesar. We shouldn't have to be spending that sort of money in one transfer window 10 years into Roman's reign and the fact that we have had to spend it shows how poorly we've been run since Claudio and Jose's initial outlay back in 2003-05. Basically, we've allowed Jose's team to age without really building on it and now we've had to clear the decks, buy a whole new attacking line-up and start again. Will we be repeating the process again in 2021 or will we have learnt by then? The fact that Roman's massive investment into our academy has so far not produced a single 1st team regular is a disgrace. Bertrand is the closest we've come and so far he has just 15 league games under his belt. In 10 years, we should at least have a couple of ex-academy players bedded down into the senior squad - even if they don't start every game - but we haven't. We should have been adding 1 or 2 quality, long term signings to our squad each year, so that it's an evolution and not a revolution, but we haven't. The reason for both these failings is clear - too much change at the top and therefore no long term planning. Let's not kid ourselves - we got lucky last season. Winning the CL was fantastic and fully deserved, but it saved us from having to face up to what was a shockingly bad season and we clung in by our fingertips at times during that run. If Messi hadn't missed his penalty, we'd have been out in the semis and finished 6th in the league with no CL football this season. We got out of jail thanks to RDM's hard work and some good fortune (which you need in a cup knockout competition), and we need to make sure that we learn from that near disaster and don't allow the same mistakes to be repeated again.
Brilliant points, well made. However I would say with the youth thing, that is increasingly harder to accomodate youth products into a side that wants to win things too. Arsenal have brought in youth well but haven't won anything for years. Even United (who won a title with 'Kids' in the 90's) has a team full of players they have bought in order to compete with the likes of us and City now. When was the last top player to come out of the Liverpool or United academies? City likewise aren't promoting youth the way they were 5 years ago even. What probably needs to happen is a rule that means you have to have say 3 homegrown players in your matchday squad.
19 year olds that can play EPL football as regular starters are few and far between. The youth system is fine. Josh isn't ready, nor is Hutchinson. Piazon and Bertran have stayed because they are closer to being ready. Youth shouldn't get the nod over better players that are older if you want to compete.
Cheers mate. Well, City have been working from the position we were in back when Roman took over and it does take an enormous injection of funds to leap from mid-table to champions (a much bigger leap than we had to make). As for United, they actually prove my point. In the current squad, ignoring Giggs and Scholes, they have Cleverley, Wellbeck, Evans, and Fletcher all of whom came through their academy. None of them world beaters, but all have been more than capable of holding down a 1st team place on a regular basis (albeit Evans as cover for Ferdinand/Vidic, but still he's amassed 77 league apps for United). The fact that our academy has produced not one player capable of doing a similar role in 10 years suggests it's a huge waste of money. The major difference is that Fergie was ready to throw in the likes of Wellbeck, Evans, Fletcher etc and give them a chance when they were still teenagers, and as result they have grown in stature. In contrast, for example, Josh has hardly played any meaningful football in the last 2 years, so it's hardly surprising that his development has stalled. A manager who can have one eye on the future, confident in the knowledge that he's unlikely to face the sack for one trophyless season, is far more likely to take a chance on a young player every now and then than a manager who is under constant pressure to deliver results. Let's face it, for most of his 2nd season in charge Carlo knew full well that he was a dead man walking, so where was the incentive for him to give the young players a chance? He was never going to see the benefit of them. It also goes hand in hand with my other point about making 1 or 2 decent signings per season to develop the team. That hasn't really happened with us because we've had so many different managers - many of whom haven't even had a say in transfer dealings - and we ended up with a bit of a mishmash. Scolari wanted Deco, but he was gone inside 6 months and Deco soon followed. AVB never really wanted Lukaku, but he was signed anyway and who knows if he'll ever come back and repay some of the £19m we spunked on him? The squad building has been so haphazard (buying Torres when we weren't ever set up to get the best out of him - and then trying to buy an entire team to fit around him!) that we came within inches of disaster last year. Fortunately, the Champions League money has given us the opportunity to spend big this summer and put some of these mistakes right, but we can't afford to get into this position again. Like it or not, without CL football and with FFP restritions, we couldn't have done the sort of business we have this summer. If we allow things to slip as badly again, it could be a heck of lot longer route back to the top.
