Mitchell Clark

[theboyangel]

Harvey Knibbs released too.

Edited May 3, 2019 by theboyangel

[rodders0223]

Damn, we are really not messing about anymore.

 

 

" I could never of imagined."

[eddiemunster]

Just seen this on Instagram; 

theavfcfaithful

I would like to address my sincere condolences to the following players, Harry McKirdy, Jordan Cox, Kelsey Mooney, Harvey Knibbs, Mitch Clark, Jordan Lyden, Corey Blackett-Taylor, Alex Prosser
I've been waiting to post this for a while, but waited in respect to the players themselves, it finally got confirmed today that their journeys at Aston Villa have come to an end

I wish you lads all the best, great crop of youngsters who are bound to come back and haunt us one day at VP, like we've seen in the past and I'm sure a few of these will be mistakes.. Good luck on your careers and onwards and upwards
#AVFC #UTV

[mikeyp102]

He looked half decent fullback, but I’d guess with our aim of premier league football, he wasn’t going to be good enough for that level. Based at what he’s done at Vale, he’ll have a decent league one, lower championship career.

[villan-scott]

Considering we’re meant to be having more focus on our own youth and promoting them, seems strange to release a big batch of them like that. Odd. 

In the case of Clark it seems his agent wants him to get first team football, and we could only offer under 23. 

[Daweii]

I also wonder how much of this has to do with a change of philosophy at the club. A lot of these players signed when Villa had no sense of direction or purpose, but now we do and those in charge may be making broad changes for the future which will mean cutting players loose. I fully expect Villa to be recruiting plenty of youth talent in the coming months that better fit the style of football we want to be playing.  

[Junxs]

1 hour ago, eddiemunster said:

Just seen this on Instagram; 

theavfcfaithful

I would like to address my sincere condolences to the following players, Harry McKirdy, Jordan Cox, Kelsey Mooney, Harvey Knibbs, Mitch Clark, Jordan Lyden, Corey Blackett-Taylor, Alex Prosser
I've been waiting to post this for a while, but waited in respect to the players themselves, it finally got confirmed today that their journeys at Aston Villa have come to an end

I wish you lads all the best, great crop of youngsters who are bound to come back and haunt us one day at VP, like we've seen in the past and I'm sure a few of these will be mistakes.. Good luck on your careers and onwards and upwards
#AVFC #UTV

Oh wow, I really rated some of those. Harry McKirdy especially!

[sir_gary_cahill]

9 minutes ago, Junxs said:

Oh wow, I really rated some of those. Harry McKirdy especially!

And me

[MessiWillSignForVilla]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6

1 hour ago, eddiemunster said:

Just seen this on Instagram; 

theavfcfaithful

I would like to address my sincere condolences to the following players, Harry McKirdy, Jordan Cox, Kelsey Mooney, Harvey Knibbs, Mitch Clark, Jordan Lyden, Corey Blackett-Taylor, Alex Prosser
I've been waiting to post this for a while, but waited in respect to the players themselves, it finally got confirmed today that their journeys at Aston Villa have come to an end

I wish you lads all the best, great crop of youngsters who are bound to come back and haunt us one day at VP, like we've seen in the past and I'm sure a few of these will be mistakes.. Good luck on your careers and onwards and upwards
#AVFC #UTV

(This isn't aimed at you eddiemunster, just had to get something off my chest about these types of social media posts I've seen loads of today.)

Realistically, how many players have actually done this to us? And how many players have we released that we should have realistically held on to? The only players I can think of that we let go in the last 15 years that we maybe shouldn't have are Cahill and Albrighton.

All the others that get brought up are players we released or allowed to leave whilst a Premier League team, it would've been planning for failure to keep hold of the likes of Bannan, Stevens, Robinson, et al., just because they might get in our team now. They weren't good enough for us then and they're not good enough for where we were, now.

Clark seems to be the only one out of that lot to have actually done anything with a good spell at Port Vale (except Lyden, but he seems permanently injured and is 23, only a couple months younger than Grealish for example), and I'm sure he'll have a good career on the boundary between Championship/League 1 level like many of the other players we've released, but I don't see why we should be keeping hold of him if we are aiming to go back to the Premier League, it's planning for failure if he's never going to realistically be at that level. Maybe some of these players will make me eat my words, but I just don't see it, it's much more likely they join the likes of Kinsella, Donacien, Burke, Williams, Lichaj etc.

It's not that I wish these guys bad luck or anything, quite the opposite, but I just don't get why we get these yearly threads about how we're so stupid for letting go youth players x, y and z, and then everyone forgets about them about a year or two later as they go on to play at much worse levels than us.

[sne]

[VillaChris]

Odd decision to let him go imo.

I fully expected him to be integrated into the first team squad for next season so pretty surprised by this.

When you look at our options we have AEM who is fine but is in his 30s and contract up next season, Hutton served us well and the Holte will be demanding he gets another year but ultimately he's 34 now.

Taylor has been better under DS but still has his weaknesses so I wouldn't say our full back options is stocked with great quality, just more they do a job.

Will also have to see how the French guy settles in.

Even if we remain at this level next season more work needs to be done.

Can only think the way the agent is talking he didn't want to come back and just sit on the bench and get the odd cup game so fair play he is wasting no time in his career and I wish him luck. Can see him playing for Wales in next 2-3 years.

[VillaChris]

@MessiWillSignForVilla I often think it depends on the player's position.

Everyone knew selling Cahill was a clanger, even more so when he was effectively replaced by Knight and Curtis Davies. We then sold Knight a year after Cahill left and Davies barely played much after May 2009 so a very bad call by the manager at the time.

It's always going to be difficult for O'Hare to get a regular game here as Grealish is simply number one player at this level in attacking midfield position.

Hepburn Murphy also going to struggle as we have finances to get a good quality loan striker in as we've done with Tammy Abraham.

With Clark however our full back options are AEM, Hutton and Taylor (guess Hause can be classed aswell but he's slotted in very nicely at CB so I'd have him back there for next season as doubt we'll have Axel and Mings still on our books). 3 full backs all over 30. Mostly solid (although Taylor still gets heaps of abuse even in games when he actually plays well) but wouldn't shock me if none of them were still on our books at start of 20-21 season which is only just over a year away now.

So there is scope for young player to break through in that area. Much harder for a young player to break through in the attacking third as we have some of the best at this level playing for us.

[mjmooney]

Oh no, Kelsey Mooney's gone! 

 

[MessiWillSignForVilla]

4 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

@MessiWillSignForVilla I often think it depends on the player's position.

Everyone knew selling Cahill was a clanger, even more so when he was effectively replaced by Knight and Curtis Davies. We then sold Knight a year after Cahill left and Davies barely played much after May 2009 so a very bad call by the manager at the time.

It's always going to be difficult for O'Hare to get a regular game here as Grealish is simply number one player at this level in attacking midfield position.

Hepburn Murphy also going to struggle as we have finances to get a good quality loan striker in as we've done with Tammy Abraham.

With Clark however our full back options are AEM, Hutton and Taylor (guess Hause can be classed aswell but he's slotted in very nicely at CB so I'd have him back there for next season as doubt we'll have Axel and Mings still on our books). 3 full backs all over 30. Mostly solid (although Taylor still gets heaps of abuse even in games when he actually plays well) but wouldn't shock me if none of them were still on our books at start of 20-21 season which is only just over a year away now.

So there is scope for young player to break through in that area. Much harder for a young player to break through in the attacking third as we have some of the best at this level playing for us.

I absolutely agree it does depend on the player and the situation, and I can see why it might be prudent to hold on to Clark given our current lack of options at full back, but I can't see him being anything more than a 3rd/4th choice backup.I'd rather us focus on trying to upgrade on Taylor or Elmo and just have them as backups if we want to improve that area, and I don't think we'd need to break the bank to do so, which makes keeping him as a cheap option less of a big deal. If it was a season ago, I would absolutely be questioning letting him go when on the verge of a financial meltdown.

It's not that I don't want these players to break through or get the opportunities here, it's just I don't get why there's always these questions of why don't we hold on to x, y or z player when it's not like they have obvious star potential, like for example Grealish.

 

[SirSteveUK]

Interesting from @OutByEaster in the U23 thread.

Quote

It's interesting - we've had a big strip out of the 21-22 year olds, got rid of Kimberley and moved to a younger group. You can see it in this game where I think Southampton look better and more developed on the evidence I've seen so far - but for us, it might indicate a future that's different - this year we've stopped investing in our 20-22 year olds and moved to our 18-19 year olds and I have a feeling that the interests of the club are in age groups younger than that. The focus us certainly changing. Tonight will be good experience for this group.

 

Edited May 3, 2019 by SirSteveUK

[villadodo]

4 hours ago, MessiWillSignForVilla said:

(This isn't aimed at you eddiemunster, just had to get something off my chest about these types of social media posts I've seen loads of today.)

Realistically, how many players have actually done this to us? And how many players have we released that we should have realistically held on to? The only players I can think of that we let go in the last 15 years that we maybe shouldn't have are Cahill and Albrighton.

All the others that get brought up are players we released or allowed to leave whilst a Premier League team, it would've been planning for failure to keep hold of the likes of Bannan, Stevens, Robinson, et al., just because they might get in our team now. They weren't good enough for us then and they're not good enough for where we were, now.

Clark seems to be the only one out of that lot to have actually done anything with a good spell at Port Vale (except Lyden, but he seems permanently injured and is 23, only a couple months younger than Grealish for example), and I'm sure he'll have a good career on the boundary between Championship/League 1 level like many of the other players we've released, but I don't see why we should be keeping hold of him if we are aiming to go back to the Premier League, it's planning for failure if he's never going to realistically be at that level. Maybe some of these players will make me eat my words, but I just don't see it, it's much more likely they join the likes of Kinsella, Donacien, Burke, Williams, Lichaj etc.

It's not that I wish these guys bad luck or anything, quite the opposite, but I just don't get why we get these yearly threads about how we're so stupid for letting go youth players x, y and z, and then everyone forgets about them about a year or two later as they go on to play at much worse levels than us.

Completely 100% agree.

I think Smith, Suso and Purslow have decided we've got too many youngsters who are never going to make it hanging around the youth team until 22-23 years old blocking spaces that could be taken by younger more talented players and they have decided to have a clear out. The youngsters worth their salt should be playing u23 football when they are 17/18, on loan to league one or two when they are 19/20 and around the first team squad by latest 22. Yes technically its the u23 league but how many top players are still playing at that level at that age? Its the same thing with Suliman captaining the England u19s. How many top drawer 19 year olds even play at that level? The answer is they don't they are already playing u21 or even full England squad. Lyden should have been released years ago. It reminds me of when we kept Chris Herd until he was 25 despite hardly playing a first team game. We finally let him go and now he plays in India after unsuccessful spells in Australia and Thailand!

The only slight surprise for me would be Mitch Clark. We are short of left backs, he is only 20 and he has managed to hold down a first team place at Port Vale. However that doesn't mean he can make the step up to the Championship or fit into our style of play. His loan spell had a couple of decent reports in the Birmingham Mail which I'm presuming is why some people are disappointed to see him released. However I'm pretty sure Smith, Suso and the scouting network have had a good look at him and decided he just doesn't fit into our long term plans.

Edited May 3, 2019 by villadodo

[Davkaus]

Whenever I read about all of these amazing youth players we have who can never get a game, I remember how confident some fans were that Luke Moore was better than Rooney.  

[AntrimBlack]

It is quite a cull.

I suspect that we intend to buy for the first team squad and look at developing the younger players. To me, it is a sign that we are now aiming higher with these new owners.

It appears that we are going to be more brutal in the future, and our young players will be discarded if they do not match up to higher standards than hitherto.

[sne]

I'm all for reshaping and rebuilding the academy from top to bottom, recruitment included. Not that it's been poor, but I think we need to still.

But still a bit surprised we let him go considering the state of the defense when this season ends.

We have (an injured ?) Chester, Taylor, Elmo and Guilbert.

That's it.

Not only will we have to sign starters, we will have to sign back up players as well. A guy who can fill in all across the back 4 might have been useful.

With that said I've not seen him play senior football so he might be miles away from ever being up to it...

Edit: And Bree

Edited May 4, 2019 by sne

[rodders0223]

We still have Bree tbf, but no idea what his future holds now.