Dodgyknees Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 (edited) Just noticing that Luke Moore is on the bench (Cup Final), meaning he will join Gardner, Ridgewell and Cahill as our former youth prospects, who have moved on and have gone on to win trophies elsewhere. Even Whittingham will most likely be playing in the division above us next season. Where-as we are stuck with the Albrighton's and Bannan's who add nothing to our team (in my eyes). So did we get rid of the wrong set of youngsters? Edited February 24, 2013 by dodgyknees Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeyp102 Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 Different time different circumstances... When those players were coming through we had a good competitive first team. The players couldn't make the break through into the starting line up or werent good enough at the time when we were moving forward and were sold... It's easy with hindsight to say they should've been kept, but outside of Cahill I'm pretty sure the majority weren't too disheartened with them being sold Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CI Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 In a word, yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimzk5 Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 (edited) The only regret was cahill, **** mental decision to sell him in favour of Zat bloody knight. Craig gardner - excellent shot. Bugger all else to his game Whittingham - pissed off when we sold him, he was always solid but never spectacular, championship is his level. Luke Moore - had so many chances to cement a spot here and hasnt done much elsewhere. Ridgewell - relegated 2 times and was a liability for us. Edited February 24, 2013 by Jimzk5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodytom Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 Nope, we didnt get rid of the wrong lot. Neither the lot we got rid of nor the lot we kept are good enough. I would say only Cahill, Gabby and Weimann are anywhere near good enough from the whole lot of them. Maybe Baker, maybe. The academy isnt that great. We are supposed to have been rated as the best. That will be based on numbers coming through to the first team. And the reason behind that is our first team players also tend to be nowhere near good enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markavfc40 Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 (edited) In all fairness Cahill, Gardner, Moore and Whttingham came through 3-5 years before Bannan, Albrighton, Baker, Clark and Weimann. Apart from Cahill then yes we were right to let them go. Craig was frustrated at being a bit part player trying to get a regular centre mid start in a squad containing Barry, Petrov, Milner, Reo Coker and Sidwell. Luke Moore had plenty of chances and wasn't good enough. He has been nothing more than a bit part player at West Brom and Swansea. Whittingham has not played top flight football for years so who knows how he will now get on in the top flight but I feel he has found his level. Much of the current crop of youngsters are also not good enough to play regularly in the top flight and if we stay up I'd think many of them will be sold on in the summer. Edited February 24, 2013 by markavfc40 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 Haven't got a problem with any of them going to be honest it's not like we let Ronaldo or Rooney go is it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briny_ear Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 Surprised you didn't throw in Wayne Routledge who was on the pitch for Swansea today and has played a rip-roaring part in their season so far. Yet it was a good decision to sell him from Villa, as it was with all those other names at the time. Sometimes players need to move on to help them improve and that's what happened with all the players you mention. There's no guarantee that improvement would have happened if they'd stayed. When I saw the thread title I thought you were going to name Barry, Young, Milner and Downing. The answer to that would be a definite "yes". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sir_gary_cahill Posted February 24, 2013 Share Posted February 24, 2013 Nope, we didnt get rid of the wrong lot. Neither the lot we got rid of nor the lot we kept are good enough. I would say only Cahill, Gabby and Weimann are anywhere near good enough from the whole lot of them. Maybe Baker, maybe. The academy isnt that great. We are supposed to have been rated as the best. That will be based on numbers coming through to the first team. And the reason behind that is our first team players also tend to be nowhere near good enough. Agree with this, especially the last paragraph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyBM Posted February 25, 2013 Share Posted February 25, 2013 i agree with the different time comment although we were stupid to let cahill go, although he has made some blunders already this season, and ridgewell, well he was bad, but not as bad as clark, not saying id want him back though cahill and baker could of been a good partnership, and probably reduced our goal defecit this season :/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted February 25, 2013 VT Supporter Share Posted February 25, 2013 Easy enough to say now. But when they were sold it was MOSTLY (some exceptions) the right decision. A lot of the players we have now shouldn't be regulars in the first team. It's just that we've sold everybody else. If, god forbid, we're in league 1 in a few seasons you could say the same thign about Alan Hutton, Warnock etc It's all relative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CI Posted February 25, 2013 Share Posted February 25, 2013 The following would walk into our squad now : Cahill Cuellar Davies Ridgewell Maloney Gardner Whittingham Routledge Moore As posted earlier the ones we should have let go Albrighton Bannan Lichaj Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pez1974 Posted February 25, 2013 Share Posted February 25, 2013 For me, it was all about game time for our youngsters. Under MON, they barely ever played so had no real opportunity to show what they could do - and that was the perfect time for some of them, and they would have come into a decent team, preferably around the Feb/Mar slumps in form. Since then, too many have played at once becuase they have had to. I just think we don't use our youngsters correctly. We were buying expensive prospects in Curtis Davies, and paying huge wages to average players like Knight and Collins, and yet let Cahill, and even Ridgewell go relatively cheaply. We have also let the other James Collins (Bannan's drinking buddy) go, and signed Bowery. Not a problem with Bowery, but Collins is banging them in and we let him go for nothing. We let Forrester leave for nothing, and there has been (unsubstantiated) rumours of us looking to sign him back. Spurs on the other hand send their players out on loan for a year or two, and when they return, they are England internationals! I just don't believe that all our youngsters are shit; I think what we do with them is! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zatman Posted February 25, 2013 Share Posted February 25, 2013 Ridgewell, Cahill, Gardner, Davis are all playing Premier League every week and would walk into our team at the moment while Whittingham will more than likely be playing regular Premier LEague next season, If we had a manager willing to utilise a squad a few seasons ago these players would probably never have left and we would have a stronger base Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briny_ear Posted February 25, 2013 Share Posted February 25, 2013 I posted this in another thread but it seems relevant to this one too. It's taken them all years of work to become competent premier league players (or nearly so in Whittingham's case) - even Cahill had a long spell of being really quite flaky in the Bolton defence where it didn't matter because all his colleagues were worse - and a manager charged with getting us into the top 4 within 3 or 4 seasons didn't really have the luxury of letting these kids develop at their own pace. If Lerner's remit had been to take the youth squad and build them gradually - say within 6 or 7 seasons - into a competent premier league side capable of holding a mid-table position, things might have been a lot different but that wasn't the remit as we all know. MON was trying to buy guaranteed experience and rapid success and as we all now know you can't do that on the money Lerner had available, 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CI Posted February 25, 2013 Share Posted February 25, 2013 Don't want to single anyone out but Bannan has played what 58 PL games for us now. How many Of those games have we won ?? Can't be many. 58 games and 1 goal . Time to ship him out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVFCforever1991 Posted February 25, 2013 Share Posted February 25, 2013 Different batch of youth players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wainy316 Posted February 25, 2013 Share Posted February 25, 2013 Yep, especially Ethan.... Is that a bit old yet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeyp102 Posted February 25, 2013 Share Posted February 25, 2013 Don't want to single anyone out but Bannan has played what 58 PL games for us now. How many Of those games have we won ?? Can't be many. 58 games and 1 goal . Time to ship him out Yet you are singling someone out.. without him we've won how many? The whole time he's been a starter the team has been awful. He's not a great player or even that good but on the flip side isn't the worst we have, now or to ever come through.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CI Posted February 25, 2013 Share Posted February 25, 2013 I'd agree he's not the worst. KEA and Holman are both worse midfielders. Delph has improved and I think he can get better still. Albrighton has faded badly, probably due to misuse by the club. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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