02-12-2017, 13:35
Just thought I'd add - currently we invest money in developing talent. We're all apparently in favour of that. I just want us to maximise our return on that investment. Okay if Joe Rowley is eventually sold for £1 million +, then just getting one through from our current crop doesn't matter. But what if Joe is one of those blooms that flowers early but by the time he's 24 isn't much improved .......? We'll have trained one first teamer for ourselves and the rest of our youngsters will be forgotten - new Jacob Hazel's topping Frickley's scoring charts?
Long-term we can't continue discarding so much talent after either a few minutes with the first team, or even none. Equally we are a small club so we realistically can't let youngsters reach 22 before they hit our first team. We have to have a policy of getting them in and around the first team when they are showing the promise at 17. It doesn't have to be sink or swim, but it does have to involve them actually getting in the pool.
It is a huge shock at 17 or 18 to come up against a Lenny Carter and a Micky Savile, but you have to be able to cope.
One of my biggest objections to GC was when at the end of March he introduced Joe Rowley to a first team, which was already safely on course for the bottom of the league, that he progressed the careers of Charlie Wakefield and Ricky German backwards, still had Maguire out on loan and had packed his losing team with the development players of other clubs.
(I'm still strongly of the opinion that the sole function of loanees is to win you games you would otherwise lose. If you regularly lose with a team full of loanees you should simply ditch them and give your own youngsters a chance to experience the football they've been training towards - even if they lose too.)
Long-term we can't continue discarding so much talent after either a few minutes with the first team, or even none. Equally we are a small club so we realistically can't let youngsters reach 22 before they hit our first team. We have to have a policy of getting them in and around the first team when they are showing the promise at 17. It doesn't have to be sink or swim, but it does have to involve them actually getting in the pool.
It is a huge shock at 17 or 18 to come up against a Lenny Carter and a Micky Savile, but you have to be able to cope.
One of my biggest objections to GC was when at the end of March he introduced Joe Rowley to a first team, which was already safely on course for the bottom of the league, that he progressed the careers of Charlie Wakefield and Ricky German backwards, still had Maguire out on loan and had packed his losing team with the development players of other clubs.
(I'm still strongly of the opinion that the sole function of loanees is to win you games you would otherwise lose. If you regularly lose with a team full of loanees you should simply ditch them and give your own youngsters a chance to experience the football they've been training towards - even if they lose too.)