Brown's getting a lot of praise at the minute, but as a fanbase we write youngsters off so quickly. Brown's still going to need a lot of time and patience. I hope he gets good minutes in the remaining pre season games against domestic opposition. Under Acun, we've been incredibly poor at developing our young players and we've consistently blocked their pathways. Maybe the embargo will stop us doing it due to the lack of options we'll be able to sign.
Just watched for free on YouTube. From that 60 minutes in it was very promising. Brown fantastic but also I was really impressed by Shelvey. Some great vision and Hoddle-esque passing. Sellars-Fleming took the goal really nicely. l didn’t think we were too bad up to the 60 minute mark either, with Nathan Tisdale getting stuck in well, Giles up for it, and Drameh and the new guy from West Brom excellent. Kamara had an off day.
I thought Stan Ashbee looked a bit nervous today when he came on. Physically, he looks the most mature of all the academy lads training with the first team this pre-season as he’s a big, strong lad but he lacked the confidence a lot of the others have shown. With McLoughlin gone and Jones surely following him, our centre-half options are at different extremes in terms of age. Hughes is 21-years-old, Egan is 32-years-old and Ajayi is 31-years-old then Ashbee and McCarthy are both 18-years-old. Jones has a lot of games under his belt but still has a lot of years left in him. If the free agent we’re looking to sign is Kortney Hause then I worry because he hasn’t played a single game in two years, Ajayi is injury-prone and is Egan capable of playing 40+ games this season? Macca and Jones were almost always available and that is something you can’t really put a price on.
One of the most sensible posts you’ve written for a while in my limited opinion, very balanced and spot on…. Keep up the good work….
