I'm very bored at the moment and have too much time on my hands so bare with me. Just looking at some of our new signings being 'the last pieces of the puzzle' etc made me wonder - How long will the puzzle be more or less complete. As we know, teams have transition periods where they drop off slightly and need an overhaul (we're seeing it with Man Utd this year, Newcastle's collapse a few years back...) Unless of course they have **** tones of money to throw about rebuilding it can take a long while and this has put a lot of pressure on managers to buy young and look to the future. Anyway, my point is, how long will it be before our team becomes unrecognizable from the one we have by the end of the season? Especially since I think this squad is now good enough for premier league stability. At the moment our full squad consists of - 30 or over - 4 players, 2 being goalkeepers 25 - 29 - 11 players 24 or under - 8 players God this is longer than i expected it to be, sorry. Anyway, if you put this in term of what might be our matchday squad Big Mac - 31 Rosey - 29 Chester - 24 Davies- 28 Figgy - 30 Elmo - 26 THudd - 27 JL - 24 Sone - 24 Long - 26 Jelavic - 28 subs Harper - 38 Bruce - 29 Macca - 28 Meyler - 24 Brady - 22 Boyd - 28 Sagbo - 25 So a feasible matchday squad has 30 or over - 2 (goalkeepers) 25 - 29 - 10 players 24 or under - 5 players To me this signals that this squad is good enough with hardly any investment for 3/4 years of prem football. Maybe an extra player a year to thicken the squad. Adding a younger addition could make this last even longer before we have to start thinking about investing heavily again as long as we keep hold of our stars. Anyway what i'm trying to say is, praise to Bruce for taking a promising team and filling it with players to create the complete package without sacrificing longevity for instant success. And fair play to Allam for giving him the opportunity. Well, thats 10 minutes of time taken up. Back to monotonous boredom.
I think Bruce has built a very good young squad and represents ages at were players are at their peak e.g keepers who are 30+. It's good to see that some of our best players (Hudd, Chester, Davies, Livermore, Brady and Aluko) are all under 28. Very promising.
I would be very happy to see us become an Aston Villa style team, buy young talent and give them game time so they realise their potential. This will make us a more attractive team to come to for young players, unfortunately some will still chase the money and ruin their careers but hopefully some will see sense and/or want to play football, even if we are a stepping stone to bigger things for some players it can only benefit the club. I would look for a LB another CB and an attacking midfielder (and another GK if Harper leaves/retires) in the summer to build on what we have, assuming we keep what we currently hold and our new strikers work out. This would be enough to progress next season.
Age doesn't really matter these days. A lot gets said of players over 30, as if they suddenly become ****. They don't. The only reason people bang on about player ages is because of the potential resale value of the player, which is often irrelevant anyway. I'd rather have a 36 year old Messi than a 21 year old wonderkid.
Now compare this squad to that of the one Browny assembled when we first went upand you will more than likely find that most of that group were near or beyond 30
exactly, went in for instant impact rather than building a team. And it all went downhill very quickly.
Maybe one aspect of the Master Plan is to blood young players through NFU* and then via our squad to the 'cattle-market' of transfers? That way lies a possible revenue stream.... * - which is/isn't 'owned' by the Good Doctor.
When we first went up our defence was our strongest point, now it's our weakest area. Shows how well Bruce's done with his recruitment.
