useless Posted December 30, 2022 Share Posted December 30, 2022 Iroegbunam looks one of the best midfielders in the Championship, somehow he looks just as good at that level if not better than he did for our U21s, I think he's more than ready to be part of our first team squad. He's actually been playing as a eight this season, and that's a postion where we're short when you consider that our only options there at the moment are Ramsey and McGinn, and Ramsey might not be used as a eight so much and some say McGinn not good enough, so I think there's scope for Iroegbunam to come back and for us to sign another midfielder. Kamara, Luiz, Iroegbunam, Dendoncker, Ramsey and new player would be good options, although I think 'new player' would probably have to be more of a eight type than another 'six, we've already got plenty of those, probably still room for McGinn as well 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted December 30, 2022 Share Posted December 30, 2022 Would really like our academy to bring in more foreign players moving forward. As long as they are taken care of and helped to settle it should be a positive to have players from different footballing backgrounds and schools. Big world out there, we shouldn't settle for just having local guys (and gals) if we aim to have competition in the academy. Full disclosure I don't have any real insight into the academy work apart from what's found on this site. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nick76 Posted December 30, 2022 Share Posted December 30, 2022 25 minutes ago, useless said: Our academy has never been as it is now, as we've never invested so much money into it or made so much of a concerted effort to hoover up as many of the top youngsters from across the country as possible. So comparing the current academy to as it was in the past is pointless, would be like comparing the current team to what that particularly struggled, the one that got relegated for example, doesn't make sense, as it's two completely different things. Disagree on parts and agree on other parts. We’ve invested more on this academy but we’ve had in the past high expectations of some youngsters that never achieved what we thought they would. We have high expectations on some of these players like we had high expectations of some of the players in the past. So it is a fair comparison. I remember going to youth and reserve games for decades and seeing these kids that we thought were going to be special and never did, so yes we invest more now but it’s still as hard, if not harder to make it in the PL these days. Even though we have high expectations of many of these kids, very few will play regular football for us. So getting in more, continuing to mop up kids and adding 19 and 20 year olds that may have some overseas experience will create a better chance of more coming through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post sne Posted December 30, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted December 30, 2022 Or we could just go down the route of snapping up the players PSG discard from their academy every year. Probably finish top-5 if we did 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted December 30, 2022 Share Posted December 30, 2022 No it's not a fair comparsion it's a stupid comparison, as that's not comparing the academies but rather the fans expectations of the academy, fans overrating academy players in the past has no bearing on whats going on now, because the academy is completey different now, it's now in a much better position to produce first team players than it was. This isn't like the past when we'd overrate the likes of the Moore brothers and so on, the highly rated players in our academy now are ones that we've paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for, sometimes millions, and have signed them ahead of competition from other top clubs, there's no guarantee that they will eventually make it at first team level in the Premier League, but our academy is full of players rated amongst the best in their age group in the country, we've a better chance of producing our own players than at any other point in the past, and it's not just about spending big on sixteen year olds, a lot going on in the lower age groups in terms of recruitment, which is starting to pay off, as below U18 level we've won three or four major tournaments since the end of last season and we've had ten plus international call abelow at U15 and U16 level since start of last season. If we've got an highly rated young player on the verge of first team squad, then we're not then going to spend milions signing another youngster, in that position to come in and block the pathway of the young we already have. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nick76 Posted December 30, 2022 Share Posted December 30, 2022 16 minutes ago, useless said: Iroegbunam looks one of the best midfielders in the Championship, somehow he looks just as good at that level if not better than he did for our U21s, I think he's more than ready to be part of our first team squad. He's actually been playing as a eight this season, and that's a postion where we're short when you consider that our only options there at the moment are Ramsey and McGinn, and Ramsey might not be used as a eight so much and some say McGinn not good enough, so I think there's scope for Iroegbunam to come back and for us to sign another midfielder. Kamara, Luiz, Iroegbunam, Dendoncker, Ramsey and new player would be good options, although I think 'new player' would probably have to be more of a eight type than another 'six, we've already got plenty of those, probably still room for McGinn as well But then Tim sits on our bench with no regular competitive football. Another season out on loan to somewhere else, maybe even better standard to really hone his skills and then come back to break into the first XI. Sitting on the bench with 5 minutes here and there is no comparison to regular competitive football. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted December 30, 2022 Share Posted December 30, 2022 Iroegbunam wouldn't just sit on our bench, he'd get plenty of game time, I think some don't realize how good he is, don't be surprised if 'bigger' clubs try and take him off us. I actually wouldn't rule him out coming back here and becoming a regular next season. He's got the fact that he's versatile on his side as well, can play as a eight, a six, en un doble pivote, and has even played as an attacking midfielder this season as well and played well doing so. If we didn't want him for our first team squad next season, I think there's a good chance that we'd might offers from other Premier League sides to take him on loan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nick76 Posted December 30, 2022 Share Posted December 30, 2022 4 minutes ago, useless said: No it's not a fair comparsion it's a stupid comparison, as that's not comparing the academies but rather the fans expectations of the academy, fans overrating academy players in the past has no bearing on whats going on now, because the academy is completey different now, it's now in a much better position to produce first team players than it was. Why don’t you quote seeing as we are having a discussion? Arent you doing the same by having an overrating of the current ability of the current academy? Aren’t you accusing me of the same thing you are doing? Yes the academy is in a much better place to develop players but we still need the players…we are playing elite football now ie hardest league in the world against some of the best teams in the world, very few can play at that level even if they look great at a slightly lower level. 8 minutes ago, useless said: This isn't like the past when we'd overrate the likes of the Moore brothers and so on, the highly rated players in our academy now are ones that we've paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for, sometimes millions, and have signed them ahead of competition from other top clubs, there's no guarantee that they will eventually make it at first team level in the Premier League, but our academy is full of players rated amongst the best in their age group in the country, we've a better chance of producing our own players than at any other point in the past, and it's not just about spending big on sixteen year olds, a lot going on in the lower age groups in terms of recruitment, which is starting to pay off, as below U18 level we've won three or four major tournaments since the end of last season and we've had ten plus international call abelow at U15 and U16 level since start of last season. So paying millions means success? I think that is a no. Again as I point out above, the step up to the next level is huge, very few will ever make it. How many clubs ever have loads of their academy come into their first team? The Man U kids of the 90’s was a freak collection, most clubs who have even better academies than us still only have a few come through. I think it’s cloud cuckoo thinking we’ll have a raft come through over the coming years, it just doesn’t happen. 12 minutes ago, useless said: If we've got an highly rated young player on the verge of first team squad, then we're not then going to spend milions signing another youngster, in that position to come in and block the pathway of the young we already have. Depends if the player we are going to buy is better. You know it happens all the time so I don’t know why you expect anything else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted December 30, 2022 Share Posted December 30, 2022 31 minutes ago, useless said: Iroegbunam looks one of the best midfielders in the Championship, somehow he looks just as good at that level if not better than he did for our U21s, I think he's more than ready to be part of our first team squad. He's actually been playing as a eight this season, and that's a postion where we're short when you consider that our only options there at the moment are Ramsey and McGinn, and Ramsey might not be used as a eight so much and some say McGinn not good enough, so I think there's scope for Iroegbunam to come back and for us to sign another midfielder. Kamara, Luiz, Iroegbunam, Dendoncker, Ramsey and new player would be good options, although I think 'new player' would probably have to be more of a eight type than another 'six, we've already got plenty of those, probably still room for McGinn as well I think the 4 2 2 2 is the perfect formation for JJ, McGinn and Watkins. I think I'd like Bailey in LM instead of a second forward. But we'd have a JJ/McGinn on other side to balance out. Bailey off the right with Cash who's a very good defender behind him feels good to me. JJ off the left with Digne behind also feels good. I'd try Coutinho up front with Watkins so he can drop off to link up. So we're almost 4 2 3 1 in attack 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nick76 Posted December 30, 2022 Share Posted December 30, 2022 (edited) 6 minutes ago, useless said: I think some don't realize how good he is I know how good he is but he’s not going to get in ahead of the likes of Kamara, Luiz, Ramsey and likely additions Emery makes. 6 minutes ago, useless said: If we didn't want him for our first team squad next season, I think there's a good chance that we'd might offers from other Premier League sides to take him on loan. I think that is the perfect plan for him. PL experience on somebody else’s dime and then we can see how he does and if well enough can come back to us like Conor Gallagher re the Chelsea/Palace situation. We can continue recruiting talent, buying players that can go straight into the first XI now and focus on our first team and keep an eye of him at his loan PL club. It shouldn’t stop us buying quality players now. Edited December 30, 2022 by nick76 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reivax_Villa Posted December 30, 2022 Share Posted December 30, 2022 19 minutes ago, useless said: If we didn't want him for our first team squad next season, I think there's a good chance that we'd might offers from other Premier League sides to take him on loan. I don't think that we are good enough to be loaning our brightest talent to a rival premier league club. If he is good enough to be loaned to a Premier League club then he is good enough to be in our squad imo. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted December 30, 2022 Share Posted December 30, 2022 I don't think us loaning him to say a newly promoted team would be any threat to us, but by the same token I think he's good enough for our first team squad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nick76 Posted December 30, 2022 Share Posted December 30, 2022 27 minutes ago, Reivax_Villa said: I don't think that we are good enough to be loaning our brightest talent to a rival premier league club. If he is good enough to be loaned to a Premier League club then he is good enough to be in our squad imo. Depends on how much game time he’d get, if he isn’t getting much with us because we have the likes of Dougie, Kamara, Ramsey and maybe newbies whereas a newly promoted team doesn’t have that strength and he gets starts there then I don’t agree with you. We shouldn’t be worried about relegation, our ambitions are higher so it’s not a threat to us and he gets significant game time in our league and we can see how he does. It’s a massive step up from the Championship to the PL, getting our youngsters game time at our level can only benefit us in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reivax_Villa Posted December 30, 2022 Share Posted December 30, 2022 I do disagree with the above.. Any team that gets promoted is considered a rival, imagine if we had loaned Jacob Ramsey to Brentford or Fulham? We are not far off from those teams in terms of quality and consistency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nick76 Posted December 30, 2022 Share Posted December 30, 2022 28 minutes ago, useless said: I don't think us loaning him to say a newly promoted team would be any threat to us, but by the same token I think he's good enough for our first team squad. Great but as I said he wouldn’t get much game time with the competition he has in midfield. More competitive minutes elsewhere is surely better for him and us than sitting on our bench for 90% of the time at least. Anyway we are going more off topic because it’s gone from buying 19 year olds to solely about Tim’s next year loan/bring into the squad. In my opinion if there is quality 19 year olds out there we’d be foolish not to be in the market for them, whether that is January or the summer window. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam-AVFC Posted December 30, 2022 Share Posted December 30, 2022 1 hour ago, sne said: Would really like our academy to bring in more foreign players moving forward. As long as they are taken care of and helped to settle it should be a positive to have players from different footballing backgrounds and schools. Big world out there, we shouldn't settle for just having local guys (and gals) if we aim to have competition in the academy. Full disclosure I don't have any real insight into the academy work apart from what's found on this site. I'm not sure how easy this would he for us now. The single market gave us a good way around those pesky child labour laws. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nick76 Posted December 30, 2022 Share Posted December 30, 2022 Just now, Reivax_Villa said: I do disagree with the above.. Any team that gets promoted is considered a rival, imagine if we had loaned Jacob Ramsey to Brentford or Fulham? We are not far off from those teams in terms of quality and consistency. Ok but we brought in Emery to move to the next level. We either back ourselves or we don’t. If one kid is going to break us then what are we doing? We have bigger problems if loaning Tim to a newly promoted team is going to hurt us so bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sne Posted December 30, 2022 Share Posted December 30, 2022 7 minutes ago, Sam-AVFC said: I'm not sure how easy this would he for us now. The single market gave us a good way around those pesky child labour laws. True. It's made it almost impossible to get players from some countries but maybe easier from some others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MWARLEY2 Posted December 30, 2022 Share Posted December 30, 2022 1 hour ago, useless said: No it's not a fair comparsion it's a stupid comparison, as that's not comparing the academies but rather the fans expectations of the academy, fans overrating academy players in the past has no bearing on whats going on now, because the academy is completey different now, it's now in a much better position to produce first team players than it was. This isn't like the past when we'd overrate the likes of the Moore brothers and so on, the highly rated players in our academy now are ones that we've paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for, sometimes millions, and have signed them ahead of competition from other top clubs, there's no guarantee that they will eventually make it at first team level in the Premier League, but our academy is full of players rated amongst the best in their age group in the country, we've a better chance of producing our own players than at any other point in the past, and it's not just about spending big on sixteen year olds, a lot going on in the lower age groups in terms of recruitment, which is starting to pay off, as below U18 level we've won three or four major tournaments since the end of last season and we've had ten plus international call abelow at U15 and U16 level since start of last season. If we've got an highly rated young player on the verge of first team squad, then we're not then going to spend milions signing another youngster, in that position to come in and block the pathway of the young we already have. It seems that we are looking to replicate what Chelsea do . And i think it would be good to look at what they actually do. These are the players they have brought through their academy in the last few years Reece James Armando Broja Conor Gallagher Mason Mount Chabaloah Mark Guehi F Tomori Christiansen Levi Colwill Tino Livramento Tariq Lamptey You wouldnt get much change from half a billion from them lot . Chelsea have a cottage industry of selling players with first refusal on buying them back as they recognise what high quality players they are. No, we are nowhere near Chelsea yet in terms of youth development, but also the days of our youth coming to nothing are also long gone. I think it will be somewhere in the middle for a good few years . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RicRic Posted December 30, 2022 Share Posted December 30, 2022 (edited) 2 hours ago, useless said: Iroegbunam looks one of the best midfielders in the Championship, somehow he looks just as good at that level if not better than he did for our U21s, I think he's more than ready to be part of our first team squad. He's actually been playing as a eight this season, and that's a postion where we're short when you consider that our only options there at the moment are Ramsey and McGinn, and Ramsey might not be used as a eight so much and some say McGinn not good enough, so I think there's scope for Iroegbunam to come back and for us to sign another midfielder. Kamara, Luiz, Iroegbunam, Dendoncker, Ramsey and new player would be good options, although I think 'new player' would probably have to be more of a eight type than another 'six, we've already got plenty of those, probably still room for McGinn as well I agree and i feel we dont need any new additions in this area of the pitch, Iroegbunam was good enough for us when he left and looks to be even better prepared were he to return and extremely tidy young talent. Luiz/Kamara pairing is up there with the best in the league imho. Little further forward is our weak area where ramsey/mcginn are positioned, depending on formation we would play buendia in that AMC zone, buendia,ramsey and mcginn should be our bench players if we want to push for top six.. but i feel at least this is required after January window. A new winger would be a pretty bonus but that centre forward/ deadly striker is extremely crucial for us to advance and feel confident taking games New CF Watkins Bailey Buendia/ New CM Kamara Luiz Digne Pau Torres Konsa Cash Martinez All Required By End Of Summer Window CF (Required by Jan) CB (Required by Jan) LW Back Up GK CM RB Edited December 30, 2022 by RicRic Spelling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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