No way would we ever have been able to buy Barkley, even if we had £20m to spend. Even if Everton accepted a bid, why on earth would he join a Championship team? He's in the England squad now and playing regularly in the Premiership.
Seems he's doing well at Forest as well. Tbh his career must have stalled, surprised Villa haven't kept him. Pacey and composed, I thought he had Premier League written all over him.
He played almost every game last season under Lambert but weirdly he still decided to get rid of him, I still think he has prem written all over him. And in regards to this less space stuff in the champ, I hate to keep banging on about it but it is because of the formation we are playing and also the worse teams try to play tighter to limit the creative sides from doing too much damage, its the way it has always happened. When we had Gradel and Snoddy in the team, everyone found that not only did they have more space but the likes of Howson and Kilkenny did as well because of the wide expansive play that we used. If you pack the midfield like we are doing then of course its going to be tighter in there and you won't see the best of the creative players because they simply don't get the time to do anything.
I don't think the formation we play is the problem, it's the general lack of pace throughout the side, coupled with a poor first touch from the majority of our players that makes us mediocre.
well think about what added pace would do though, where would you add pace to the team without changing formation? Striker would be the only sensible pace but then we have Poleon who is ridiculously quick upfront and Varney who is pretty quick as well. The pace wouldn't give us more time and space on the ball. The only way we get more time and space is by drawing defenders into defending a wider amount of the pitch, the only possible way that can happen is by changing the formation, if we had a front 3 of quick footed, skillful, balanced and roaming players (ie. david silva) then I would understand wanting keep the formation. It does feel as though I'm really going on about this and probably a little too much but I really do believe that 70% of our problems in the games this season could be fixed with a simple formation change without bringing any other players into the club.
Great point ... Lichaj made a difference but now we have Byram Barkley could have been got for under a million at the time ... he was out of favour under Moyes, a good loan spell at Leeds and chances are he would have come. All that's happened (and good luck) is that Martinez has given him a chance and he's taken it. Opportunity missed.
Barkley has never been out of favour, he was 18 and still had played games for Everton. In fact the game that he returned for Everton (a few days after we sent him back ) he started against Arsenal and got man of the match. Even then he would've cost around 20 mil, never a chance of us ever getting him. He has always been rated very highly by everyone that has seen him.
So if we dabble into the loan market, would we be better off with an old head who's out of favour or a young kid like we've had. Everyone agrees that Eric Lij was the best we had, even though we had players who are now internationals a few months later. A winger has to be a priority though and that seems to always be a problem area for us in the loan market. Thomas, Townsend, Livermore etc, etc, etc. Even the young kids we bought for a song or took on trial never seem to work.
Definitely younger players, but McDermott's said he'd only be interested in loans when we have an option to buy - given the choice between Burke (a proven Championship winger who would be available to sign) and a young Premiership winger from the top 4 (a la Sanchez Watt), it's a no brainer really.
I don't care how the overpaid prat was treated, why do we keep harking back to the players that it didn't work out for anyway and how well they are doing now. feck them all...
It depends what age you had them at (for experience and all that). Livermore is now with us and, along with Huddlestone, transformed our midfield into a perfectly suitable midfield for the Premier League. They're just of different class.
If you have a manager that tells the kids - go out there ansd turn it on, try to take people on, be exciting and creative, and do your best, both going forward and in covering back, and don't worry about making mistakes - those kids would have been brilliant for us. Unfortunately, the managers were Warnock and Grayson. I am hoping that McD may be more of an O'Leary type - if you are gonna give kids a chance, let them shine, don't shackle them.
In that case Sheldon BMD needs to give Mowatt and dawson some seriuos game time, but will he dare? Yoiu have to remember that these kids can burn out really fast in this situation, whereas the best will thrive but they all develop at different stages. We don't want to ruin any of them, but at the same time want to give them their head. All those screaming for young Dom to start every game are wrong as he needs to grow into it
Agree Doc - to a point. I was iniitally referring to those that had been playing at higher levels previously and were coming to us on loan - Livermore, Bannan, Townsend, Barkley - and a manager who was keen to go for it would have used those players well. We now have a young squad and they need to know they have the authority to go and take players on, with a huge smile on their faces. Unfortunately, we don't have a Kewell, Snoddy or Gradel to do it, but they need a manager who will tell them that he will not go against them for trying their best and he should big them up through the fans so we don't get on their backs. Play with a smile on your face. Never been too convinced with burnout argument of youngsters. They play football daily, and can play 3 games a week physically. The bigger issue for me is the mental one - getting too big for their boots.
I was screaming for Poleon to be given a start and more time, one game was enough for me to see he is not quite ready yet. If you trust the manager and coaches you have to trust their judgement of when a player will be ready to take the centre stage.
