Would the likes of Downing and Krancjar be the right age to bridge the gap between the young players emerging on the fringes of the 1st team squad to becoming 1st team regulars a few years down the road?
I'm not advocating buying Downing or Krancjar here but just an honest question. I don't think the attacking youth/reserve players are ready to step up into the 1st team as of yet (Pacheco excepted). In a year or 2's time, maybe they will.
nobody can predict never mind assume/ bank on/ plan for our young players coming through
we have to have sufficient adaptability to be able to bring them through properly at the appropriate time
part of flanaghan's appearance the other night gives an indication of how than can be done, even if it was forced on us at the time
he was put at right back; our defence sat deep and retreated to the 18 yard line when city had the ball; our midfield were like terriers and did a hell of lot more closing down than the defence actually did; lucas and to a lesser extent kuyt had clearly been told to keep an eye on the lad; all in all he had a comfortable game; did what was required of him when it was required, but if truth be told there wasn't that much required during the 90 minutes
that's the one way to bring in a youngster for a debut
the other way is to be 3-0 up and bring him on at 60minutes
either way you either (i) need a good core of senior players around him to bring him through it or (ii) need a team good enough to be 3-0 up with some regularity
in other words you're going to have difficulty bringing through youngsters or giving them any real starts if you don't have a good squad of 16 professionals there to make conditions right to try them out in the first place
youngsters can be thrown in at the deep end, and some will swim very well, but the risk of sinking is always there
so to bring in these youngsters we need a sufficiently good 'senior' squad to do it on our terms, otherwise the pressure will be such that a manager will be unwilling to take a chance on them ever - see rafael benitez (c) 2005-2010
to bring in these youngsters you need a good quality and adaptable first 16 i'd say
buying players in their late 20's because 'they're the right age to bridge the gap' allowign your younger players to progress is madness - it assumes that no matter what the youngsters will progress
i think the moneyball approach is fine - it appears to equate to me to buying players 25 and younger - if they're good players that allows a good squad and 4/5 years developmnet of that team and then allows you, as you choose to flog them off when they're 29/30 for decent fees and if the youngsters have progressed to a level where they can replace them well and good
but we can't assume the youngsters will do that and can't have an immediate transfer policy that assumes they will
once you ship out the jovanovics, poulsens etc. I reckon there's a core of 11 maybe 12 players who are (i) regular first team (ii) regularly fit (iii) trusted by the staff (iv) likely to be here next season - by that reckoning we need another 4/5 players who fit that bill, whether they be 'first eleven' or on the fringes of it won't matter that much but obviously you'd prefer at least 3 of them coming to be 'first eleven' types and the rest to be solid squad players
get those players into the squad then you have proper base on which youngsters can be given a chance on terms of the club's own choosing
