According to his interview in The Star

They're joining youth systems so early they get the best coaching early and reach the peak.

Micheal Owen said on a podcast he hit peak at something like 18. Micah Richards said something similar.

 

It would be interesting to know what Thomas, Schmidt, Kane, Halme, Oulare and Iseka have cost the club in wages and fees, I'd much rather see a quality over quantity approach supplemented with a few loan players and maybe the odd accedemy player.

 

Everyone wants to see ‘better’, the issue here is that we’re shopping in Lidl, and it’s impossible to know whether we’ve picked up a superstar bargain croissant or a can of fake brewdog that tastes more like Carling.

It’s simple if you’re a top 5 premier league side and you can Chuck money at superstars till they agree to shine.

Lower down though, it’s always a gamble, if you’re signing a quality 28 yr old; are they just there to enjoy a slide into retirement on their last big contract, or do they have a burning desire to become a club legend.

Most critics of the youth approach talk like no club has ever signed an older player who completely failed to live up to their promise.

 

What does everyone think to our manager of the week?

 

Lidl thing was boring years ago !!
We've wasted millions of pounds on a scattergun approach trying to find gems that clearly hasn't worked over the last few years which ultimately gives us a bloated squad that ends up with players being played and dropped constantly creating no continuity or development. I'd much rather go with a smaller more focused squad.

 

Again; we’d all love that.
But it’s totally naïve to believe that it’s actually possible to only buy players that we know will perform brilliantly and work well together. No matter what the budget.

The only word of yours I’d disagree with is ‘scattergun’. That might be what the results of our purchases look like to many, but I reckon an awful lot of time and effort goes into trying to make the approach as focussed as it’s possible to be (within the constraints of our budget).

And again; the only two recent transfer windows which were disastrous were overseen by an incompetent acting CEO.

 

Totally agree that not every signing will work out but I think that on a limited budget we could target signings for specific needs in the team and give them more than a few months to prove themselves before we write them off. The club invested a lot of money on 3 strikers last summer that have barely had a run of games between them which makes the signings seem a bit scattergun especially when 2 of the front 3 were already at the club.

 

No, because there is no 'spreadsheet'.

 

On Football Heaven last night some of the discussion was around the high number of injuries to key players at Wednesday - probably no coincidence that most of them are to players over the age of 25. Plus that awful pitch.

 

Felt sorry for us and decided he needed a boost for finally getting a win?

 

Maybe our best u23s would be integrated sooner and given more opportunities.

 

The signing so many players thing and getting the quality/balance of the whole team right is what I'd like to see us do better. Last summer we signed 3 first team strikers that have barely been given a run of games and we loan Schmidt out without giving him the chance to show why we invested in him in the first place, maybe being more focused on our immediate needs with the limited budget would have brought in a quality midfielder to help Palmer and Wolfe's development.
Frustrating thing is considering what a crap season it's been I've always fealt that we're a couple of quality players off having a good team, hopefully Bassi and Quina are the missing link.

 

System then !

 

But the system doesn’t ‘pick’ anything. People use data from the system to influence their decisions. There’s a massive difference.

 

I'm not sure what's been mentioned here but compared to 10 years ago the problem isn't getting players from u23s into the first team. It's getting players that are good enough out of the u18's especially local players.

10 years ago the youth system produced good players and we couldn’t get the minutes in the first team or out on loan.

I watched the u18’s and u23 two games in pre-season and was looking around thinking, these players aren’t anywhere near good enough.

Put those teams up against teams of 10 years ago and they would have been demolished.

 

Hemsworth-Tyke used to hold a similar view. Very similar.

 

Very similar way of writing too. Quite a coincidence.