Just using my own eyes rather than laying faith in some really mediocre managers who made /make mistakes and poor judgements every 5 minutes. I’m sure like you and many on here we’ve been watching Saints for decades and generally spot the wheat from the chaff
Martin making poor judgement there I think. I can't lay any blame Juric at all; SAA has been training on his own for a while now, so presumably Juric/the club knew a move like this was possible (rejected new contract, maybe, who knows) and kept him out the picture like we did with Meghoma last summer
Yeah absolutely. I get that. But there haven’t been many we’ve lost recently who have gone on to look like mistakes. I don’t see players like Ballard etc being anything other than decent L1/Championship level, and I imagine it’ll be similar with SAA once it plays out.
There are some kids who look the business pretty much from the first time you see them - the likes of Dibling and Bale - but I didn't see anything near that level from SAA. That's not to say he won't come good - I really don't know. But I'm not fussed about selling him.
I thought SR hired the managers and could give the mandate, please develop our young talent, letting them play the journey men has just been dandy. So yes I think we can apportion blame to SR
At the end of the day very few players make it through academies to play at the highest level. Will SAA? Too early to tell - but the early signs aren't very promising. Clubs use academies as a cash cow, making pure profit from players sold. Look at how many players City have sold from theirs. SAA and Meghoma didn't come from our academy, but we're making a good profit on both players. The ones that sting are those who don't sign professional contracts and leave for pennies - like Morgan and Doyle.
Amo is too good for the U21 league and, for me, he has looked promising when coming on as a substitute to run at tired defenders. That he hasn’t been given that opportunity very often, this season, has been a disappointment for me, especially when those ahead of him have often been very ineffective. His build has possibly been against him (I think RM used to comment about it when talking about Dibling progressing and Amo not) but that’s not to say that he won’t come good. Plenty of good little’uns in top class football.
Yes. I agree with most people’s viewpoints on here in what is a decent debate. We’ve obviously had some special talents that we’ve brought through and some did stand out more or less straight away - Bale, Dibling, Walcott, Ox, Shaw etc. SAA had a bit of the same for me from the first proper action I saw first hand at that crazy end of season Liverpool game. Criminally underused after that. Maybe I’m wrong on this one but doesn’t mean I’m not miffed.
Lot of spleen being vented by the armchair manager keyboard warriors. Get it off your chests you'll feel better for it. There's big problems that need addressing no doubt and whether the kids are ready is debatable, reproducing a cameo performance game after game and having the stamina to do so at PL level is another thing.
The reality is that we need players who we think are going to get us promoted (which is a tough ask for seasoned pros let alone kids) or keep us up (which is a tough ask for seasoned pros let alone kids). I don’t buy the narrative that we are deliberately playing worse players than the youngsters because we bought them and need them to come good. Much more likely we bought them because we didn’t think the youngsters were good enough yet. You can’t say “SR just sell anyone and want to make money” when if we had a bunch of really good youngsters here they would play and be sold to make SR loads of money, rather than spending millions on players to play ahead of them. If you want Saints to be a breeding ground for young talent and we play them if they look promising, even if they aren’t that great now, then fine. Don’t expect any of them who play well consistently to stay for long though, a 17/18 year old performing well at a club like ours will always attract the attention of bigger clubs. We’ve seen it regularly down the years. Would SAA have been another Dibling if he played all the time last year ahead of the likes of Fraser or Brooks? Who knows, maybe, maybe not. Would we have got promoted? Who knows, maybe, maybe not. If he had turned into a Dibling level talent then would he sign a new deal? Almost certainly no. Were the club deliberately picking players over him because they thought they were better than him? Almost certainly yes He’s moving to Strasbourg who are stacked with young talent Chelsea are signing now their squad is full, be interesting to see how much he plays there. It’s a weaker league and I think they are pretty secure in mid table sort of area so can afford to play youngsters more often than we can.
Just out of interest to those in the pro-SR camp (not just you Tom) is there anything that they can be criticised for? Fans moan about buying a load of ****e = At least they're spending money/they're not Gao. Fans moaning about selling half decent talent= they're not good enough anyway/our manager(s) don't rate them Fans moaning about incompetent managers= they're making changes/trying Fans concerned about them selling absolutely anything and anyone= well that's 7m we'll be able to spend in the Championship (completely ignoring that 95% of our scouting is appalling) Just as there's loads of us who are sick of their rank incompetence, there seem Just as many who will not only forgive them all **** ups but will try and blag that they're actually decent owners. I just don't get it. They're responsible for 2/3 of our Premier league relegations!
I feel like some people have weirdly skewed visions of what makes a good young player. Dibling is a bit of a freak. Man’s physique and great talent at 18. That doesn’t mean good players will all be ready at 18. Sam Amo is 18. 18. Not 21. This kid has exceptional dribbling, game awareness and an incredible eye for a pass. I watched him play against Chelsea U21 the other day and he looked the best player on the pitch. And he is not 21. And after the game Chelsea have decided to get him for their feeder club. So anyone saying, meh, doesn’t have a clue.
Well first of all, the gap between the Championship and PL is as big as its ever been and PSR just makes it worse. In hindsight it would have been better to overspend and take the points deduction but I get why we didn't go down this route. Trying to buy PL talent at 15mill or less per player is ridiculously challenging these days. It's not that our scouting is ****, it's that our budget is limited. SR have made a **** ton of mistakes, no one is denying that but IMO they need a chance to try and fix the **** ups. We're getting a DoF in (work permit permitting) and Solak has fired the people responsible. I'm not pro-SR by any means, just don't see any benefit to forcing them out of the club. Selling a football club takes ages and under Solak we are stable financially. Not once has he or SR put the club's future at risk through irresponsible spending. What they have sold is a long term project, I say give them time.
