Could Scunthorpe be the third relegated team he's played for? Can't see the lad making it even at L2 level.
Mad to think how many Chelsea fans were hyping him up as been better than Abraham. Makes you wonder how many actually watched him play rather than just word of mouth & a few goal clips
How has he been playing though - I havent been following him but its quite possible to be a decent player in a relegated side. He was out of his depth for us last season but I haven't seen him at all at Scunny.
Ugbo was a poor.mans devante cole awful. Hammill could be playing in league 2 next season also. Hope they stay up though just for his sake.
His goalscoring record is woeful. Brown is a similar sort of player & has developed much better. I hope young kids take note that signing for a big club may not be the best thing for their career. Foden at City is one of very few who break into the first team from a youth academy. Surely it's better to sign to a smaller club & have a chance of getting a start, rather than waiting to inevitably be sent out on loan anyway.
Always found it odd that we didn't try and keep Devante Cole! Looked really promising when we had him on loan
Im not sure about this from a developmental perspective. If you look at a number of the England team, most have started in lower leagues whilst on loan and have gone onto good things. I think the cream will always rise, but maybe needs nurturing in decent academy setups initially. I think many youngsters who don't properly apply themselves and get caught up in the riches end up ultimately falling by the wayside. Saying that, I don't like how clubs lower down the tiers have effectively become B teams. Id much rather there be youngsters coming through at the top, but thats sadly the impatience of footy these days.
I thought devane cole was okay when we had him he was only 19 back then though. He signed for Wigan last Jan from fleetwood but has been on loan at Burton this season only getting 2 goals in 18 games.
Certainly I have no empirical evidence. I think we've taken players on loan & made them top flight. I'm glad we're developing our own players now, as you just get them recalled if they are great anyway, like what happened with Barnes. I think the biggest credit you can give to Stendel is that he has brought a few of our own youngsters into the team this season. (NB, please do not read from this that I'm a Brexiteer).
Definitely agree with Stendel, he's done a good job with the youngsters for sure. Not sure i follow with the brexit joke
Let me explain my thinking a little better. If you are a young lad at Chelsea / Man City, etc, you have no power of negotiation. Go out on loan, or whatever, they will either sell you on for a fee or just drop you. One in less than 500 will make the first team. You will have no powers of negotiation. Go to a good lower division club & if you do well, the big boys are taking an interest & you can run your contract down & take your pick of offers, or take a big fee signing, with sell on.
I think sadly they are too influenced by agents and chase the money. I admire the likes of Sancho going overseas to get football. Im sure hes on a decent wage but at least he has the right priorities by the looks of it.
It could be that Ike Ugbo simply isn't good enough... however I always think that the development of a young player can continually go either way so many times, it's never an exact science. I think it is so vital for young players that they get game time at a club that suits them. Wasted development years sat in reserve sides or benches can curtail promising careers. However, even one short good goal scoring run that breeds confidence can unlock a million doors. Look at Jacob Brown, say we had an extra forward/winger this year, a fit Isgrove for example, it is likely that young Brown would have continued to be seen as a fringe striker, or perhaps even back up to Cavare as a wing back. Instead of now being one of the more exciting and promising young attackers at this level, he could easily have been left out every week and looking at another loan spell at Halifax or Chesterfield. I thought Victor would be a real asset this year, but for various reasons it hasn't worked out. I also thought that George Waring would be a decent League One forward all his career having clearly showed he had the ability to score at this level, before it all went wrong. Devante Cole was for me better than Jacob Brown is now, talent wise, but it hasn't worked out at all for him. It's such a lottery for young players and the only real test of their ability and likelihood of a long career is game time. Proper game time. Going back to Ugbo, totally out of his depth last season but clearly talented enough for Chelsea to hold him in high regard... say he'd gone on loan to Luton last year, got 15 goals in League 2, then gone on loan somewhere this year... maybe it's a different story. Who knows? But I think it shows that for young players, there's a huge luck element to how they develop, with one loan move or transfer potentially making or breaking their careers. Going off on a tangent for a moment, the main problem for me is the stock-piling of young lads at big clubs. The likes of Loftus-Cheek, Izzy Brown, Chalobah, Solanke have all been 'breaking through' for about 5 years. They aren't significantly more developed now than they were at 19 and the jury is still out on whether they're good enough at the top level. They're all very rich though, which is another story of rewarding young players far too soon. Phil Foden will hopefully buck the trend and get games, otherwise he really ought to look for a move like Jadon Sancho did. Rhian Brewster is one to watch at Liverpool but there's no guarantee he'll get games, which in the next couple of years he really needs for development. The same with Reiss Nelson at Arsenal and Marcus Edwards at Spurs, they NEED games, not holding back for ever. Would Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney have become the players they were had they not played regularly until 21? So many young players sign for big clubs and get sucked into the black hole of big wages, distant dreams of glory but very little actual football. You hear of a young starlet from say, Sheffield Utd or Forest signing for Chelsea or Man City at 16 then never hear of them again. Back with Barnsley, one good thing about being in League One is that it gives us the opportunity to properly blood the likes of Jacob Brown, Victor, Callum Styles and Ben Williams etc. I really hope that this remains possible should we get promoted, but time will tell. I do think we may see more Ugbo type loans in the Championship, unless we can upgrade our recruitment model to bring in players further down the development road who can cope with Championship football. We'd need to be looking at signing the likes of Lindsay and Pinnock as they are now and developing them further rather than starting from scratch. Whether we can do that is another story.
Interesting thread this one for a change.. As a lad who played for professional clubs from the age of 7 to 18 I think the blame rest entirely of the pressures managers face. Playing for the reserves I’ve played against seasoned pros who have played in the top two leagues and not felt out of my depth at all. I feel the league should introduce a rule to all clubs where youth is given a chance, wether this is a combined amount during a season for u21 players I’m not sure. You only have to look at the likes of rashford who wasn’t even first choice at his age group but injuries and lads at same age ahead of him going out on loan gave him that chance to play and look what he did. Plus 17/18 is no age to release lads when usually the breakthrough is around 21. Impatience and fear to give youth a chance has probably lost the country many a talented player.
Sometimes it's easy for us old 'uns to forget just how daft we were when we were teenagers. I'm pretty sure that at that 16/17/18 I'd have been easily swayed by the promise of riches. That's where a good agent and hopefully some sound parental advice is key. For every young player with his feet on the ground, there's probably a hundred with their heads in the clouds or up their own backsides. They're just kids at the end of the day, they need looking after, not selling down the river.
Thing is it isn't just the big clubs that don't give youth a chance. We've been guilty in the past. Jon Parkin hardly got a chance and had to leave. Griff Jones was banging them in for the reserves as was Danny Rose. Berkovitz is a player we've never seen despite rave reviews. Bird has fell by the wayside, as has Mottley Henry. I could list loads more but can't be bothered.
Yes, Hecky didn't seem to have much faith in our young players, bringing in the likes of Ugbo & Kent, rather than giving our own a go. I appreciate it is a bigger step up in the Championship to L1 for some of these lads, but we need to be getting them game time elsewhere & if they do well give them a chance when needed. When Potts went I was disappointed to say the least, especially as he wasn't really replaced. (Green is one for the future hopefully, but not a replacement this season). Brown has really taken his chance though & has got plenty of goals & assists from out wide. It seems that Styles has impressed more that Bird recently, although when I've seen him in the first team I've thought he's done OK.
