You not got owt better to do, than sit on the Internet slating our young lads? **** me.. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
You must be some talent spotter to be able to write a player off after 10 professional games. Particularly a player who has played England representative games and is having his progress monitored by Premier League clubs. I've always thought it an odd mentality for supporters to be far more critical of their own home grown young players than equivalent senior pro's on five times as big salaries and with five times as many first team games under their belt. I don't know if this is a common theme amongst fans of all clubs but it's certainly prevalent at Oakwell. Firstly, academy graduates are rarely given the opportunity to improve by a succession of managers and those who have are afforded little patience by a pretty vocal minority of supporters. Presumably, they expect all the young lads to be instantly the finished article like John Stones. I've not unrealistic, Digby has plenty to learn. His mobility needs to improve as well as decision making on the ball. But these are things that will improve with the more first team experience he gets. You can't develop a player to be a 6 foot odd beast with excellent technique, luckily he's got that already...hopefully he'll turn into the fully rounded footballer we're all hoping for.
Disagree. Our fans are just as harsh on players we have drafted in. The difference is that as soon as someone criticises one of our home grown players it is jumped on Cameron Stewart was written off and slated by almost everyone last year. mike phenix has been slated by a hell of a lot of people too. Bree, holgate, stones, smith. None have received a great deal of criticism.
look , he's not a world beating superstar so all the idiots will enjoy slagging him off all day. he's one of our own and they like nothing better than that. strange strange set of fans
Agree with that. Any criticism of Smith is jumped on in a shot by some on this forum. Yet is was perfectly fine to slag off Declan John.
It's great to see home grown talent go on to do well, I take some pride in that. However home grown vs brought in shouldn't offer any advantage and in my mind I say what I see. It doesn't matter who. I don't slag players off unnecessarily and try to make comments on what I observe. I hope Diggers does well, but I'm not convinced he will climb his way in front of the midfield pack we currently have. Today's performance he didn't look a first team L1 player.
Tired old debate, this! How does he get that 'first team experience'? Can you seriously imagine him being selected in front of Scowan, Pearson, Crowley, Hourihane or Williams? Ain't gonna happen. In desperation recently it's been suggested he might magically become a central defender. So let's drop Mawson, Nyatanga, Roberts, Holgate, Cowgill? It would be great if he came good, being an Academy product. But it's four years since he first appeared for the first team. None of our (many) managers has been sufficiently convinced since then to give him a run (acknowledging he has been injured for part of that time). Nobody wishes the lad ill, but let's just face facts - it isn't going to happen for him at Barnsley. He needs to move on.
What's it matter how many games he's played ?, what's reason he's only played 10 games ? Because last 5 managers have all thought the same he's not good enough.
I agree Bree, Holgate and Smith haven't had a hard time of it. However, all three are pretty much first year pro's and are younger than Digby who has been a bit part for about three seasons now. Perhaps that's a contributory factor, he's not fulfilled potential quick enough. I think the difference is patience. I never boo players but why should I be patient with a loanee? Particularly, in the example of Cameron Stewart, a player with 100 games under his belt and at the peak age for a footballer. Loan players by their very definition should be a player who can have an immediate impact, otherwise what's the point in them? But that's a different debate..... Personally, I think we've had far less talented midfielders on our books over the last three or four seasons than Digby and they didn't receive half the criticism.
Yet none of those five managers have decided to release him. Quite the opposite in fact, he's signed contract extensions in that time. He's a way to go before he becomes a regular starter but I've seen enough good stuff (amongst some admittedly average stuff) to think he'll come good in a season or two given games.
Perhaps you're right and I guess we'll see this season because if he doesn't feature regularly, I suspect we wont see him the following season. I just have a feeling that like with Jon Parkin, we'll ultimately rue the decision to move him on. All the raw ingredients are there, surely given enough games he can improve significantly to be a real talent at this level.
