Was letting Matete go out on loan a mistake...?

I think so....


MATETE
Despite making his debut for Plymouth on January 7, Jay Matete has settled in nicely. He's become a quick fan favourite due to his energy and willingness to get stuck in. Upon receiving the club's award, he said: "I've enjoyed my first month here, it's been really good. We've picked up some great results on the way. I'm delighted to have won the award. I just want to kick on now - it would be nice to win some more Player of the Month awards, but most important hopefully we keep winning games."





Not only do we hardlys have any experience anywhere around the pitch, we only have Neil in CM who has any real experience playing first team football, and this is only his first full season with us.

Injurys to Evans and Stewart was unforeseen and just sheer bad luck, but i cant help put think we've done ourselves no favours at all by allowing Matete to leave, who has experienced a full season in English football with Fleetwood prior to coming to us.

Replacing Evans was just as important as replacing Stewart in my opinion. With his injury record, and him only being able to play 1 game a week it seems strange that wed weaken ourselves by allowing Matete to leave on loan?
Evans was always going to be in and out the team anyway, even before he got ruled out for the season.

 

I thought it was odd when it happened. He's looked decent imo. Still, regular first team action for the kid is always a good thing. We definitely could take guarantee that to him here at the time, even after Evans' injury he'd still only be a rotation player.

It might be for the best in the long run.

 

Strange one imo. the timing of it so early in the window was puzzling to say the least..

 

Yeah giving it a few more weeks would have been the best thing to do really especially when we had the Shrewsbury game coming up which would have been an ideal opportunity to give him a start and then we could have reassessed at the end of Jan and then realised he needed to stay when Evans got injured.

 

I would have kept him, even coming off the bench he was always a good option especially when seeing a game out and we needed a player to do the dirty work in front of the defence.

 

At the time we loaned him out we had Evans and Neil as first choice with Michut and Ba as backup, so there were limited opportunities for Matete. Guess the club thought 20 mins here and there wasn't helping him progress and playing every week for 20 games would benefit him more. We then brought in Ekwah and lost Evans, so the pecking order is similar.

Also, by the time we loaned him out, we couldn't recall him due to the 28 day recall clause so nowt we could do when Evans got injured

 

Wouldn't disagree with that, although waiting until end of Jan meant he missed 3 or 4 games that he could have played and Plymouth may have moved on to other targets, leaving less attractive options for him/us.

Who knows really, I don't feel like we are short in central midfield

now, if young Jay could play up front......THAT would be a different conversation

 

He’s started off very well at Plymouth and the loan will do him and hopefully us the world of good. I rate him, he’s 22 next week which is still young and I think he’ll come back a better player ready for next season. I don’t think it was a mistake allowing a loan at this stage, we may regret it if we pick up more midfield injuries, though.

 

Ekwah has never played a single game of first team football before moving to us though mate. Im expecting good things from him from what ive heard, but Ba, Michut and him have come to us with barely any first team experience between them. We are now without Evans so our whole central midfield is built up with young lads, zero experience and Neil being the senior one out of the lot of them and he only broke into the team fully in August. Its abit concerning really that this is how we stand now till May.

Matete would have had alot of teams willing to take him on, so even if Plymouth did pull out which im sure they wouldnt hed have got another move somewhere.
He could have played the Shrewsbury game and then we could have given it another week or 2 to decide.
Even without Evans injury ive always said id like to see him involved more, im a big fan of his and hes never let us down when given an opportunity, infact alot of the time hes stood out, like when he came on against Sheff Utd, instantly won the ball and set Gooch up for his goal.

 

If wed have bought another senior midfielder in before the window closed id have agreed with that mate.
However we didnt and Matete has experienced 3pm Saturday afternoon football more than any of the other 3 have combined.

 

Still think Diamond has it in him , politics aside.

 

No. He'd have been a bit part player, and he's getting games and experience on loan. He'll come back all the better for it, and with a bit of momentum behind him given his start there.

 

I hope your right mate because god forbid any of these young kids pick up an injury.
Unfortunately i dont think were in the position to be loaning our players out whilst bringing 3 young inexperienced players in to finish the season off with.
Evans has always missed as many games as he plays, so id have been leaving it as late as possible before deciding on if Matete should leave, not the first week in Jan.

 

We have O'Nien who could play in CM if absolutely necessary and I think I see Hume playing a CDM role in years to come - obviously scraping the barrel a bit here, but (inexperience aside) we have 2 players for every position apart from striker. I'm not overly concerned about centre midfield

 

You’re better than that…

 

Ha ha I know

 

It's a tough one because for some reason we don't seem to fancy giving him a run in the first team and it's great for his development to be playing. Always looked good to me like.

We're probably one injury away from having a problem in CM so it's a bit risky but on the other hand as it stands we've got a few class midfielders like O'Nien, Neil and Michut and it should be enough with the new lad stepping in too.

Doesn't seem like there's any desperation from the club to push for promotion which is fair enough if that's how they see it for now.

 

We did the right thing 100%. Matete needs to be playing games and he wasn't doing that for us. He wouldn't be doing that even if we still had him at the club now. Mowbray prefers Michut and Ba. It's not as critical to Ekwah's development of he sits on the bench getting 15 minutes here and there, in fact it benefits him. With Matete, the opposite is true.

 

Its a great question mate.

My feeling is Matete hasnt had a decent crack at it here, but when I watch him I really like what I see. I would have kept him here this season personally. That is largely based on me thinking Evans was losing a bit of form before his injury. Neil had become the main man of the 2 anyway. Michut looks like he was born to play that role too and in Neil and Michut we have a pair that are a joy to watch together. Beneath that though Matete would have been my next in line. Perhaps he was pushing the option though, I bet he is one that hates sitting on the bench.

I am a bit torn on the experience bit. In most cases I would want a bit of it, but I have a feeling in our case we might benefit from all this youth. They play like it is a kick about in the park at times, knocking it about and attacking from everywhere. It is so refreshing and I get the sense they just laugh about football and almost dare each other to try things. The other thing I would say is bringing in lads from the French academy setup is important and their development will have been superb. They will have a lot of maturity about the way they play. It is fabulous to watch. Baath brings that calmness at the back, without being a ranter. Pritchard will definitely play a part when fit and he is fantastic tactically and brings loads of streetwise know how. Neil plays like someone 2 years his senior. Clarke and Roberts have both been around and played at big clubs and Gooch and ONien will carry loads of responsibility for the lads. I just have a feeling we might have a perfect blend and in Mowbray and his coaches we have all the experience in the world. We are in a great place and I am loving it.

 

Very good post mate.