Young players

Watching MOTD and FLS over the weekend I really noticed how many 17 and 18 year olds were starting games for other clubs. Loads.
If it had just been PL clubs who have the luxury of buying the best young talent, I wouldn't have thought any more about it, but clubs at all levels seem to be giving their youngsters a break - and they seem to be doing a great job.
Whilst we have some 17 and 18 year olds who have promise, they haven't had a shot as yet. More worrying are the 19 and 20 year olds who still haven't played for the first team.
The club needs to decide what they are there for. If the club isn't prepared to give them a shot by the time they're 20, shouldn't we be getting rid and going after youngsters who will get a shot? If they're good enough, they're old enough so am I right in thinking that the club doesn't think our kids are good enough? If so, why don't we get rid?

It's something that has always puzzled me for a long time. If we don't give the youngsters a proper chance how will we know if they are good enough?

I still can't believe that there isn't a youngster in Chelsea's reserves, that won't improve our squad.

We are still owed a loan by Chelsea.

Culcheth_White wrote:I still can't believe that there isn't a youngster in Chelsea's reserves, that won't improve our squad.

We are still owed a loan by Chelsea.

I thought we were looking at the youngster Jeremie Boga from Chelsea?

I think it's the simple fact that the pressure is on for the club to be competing at the top of the table and they've, wrongly it seems, assumed that the best way to do that is to go with senior pro's.

It's not a new thing though is it? Other the last 20 years the list I can think of:

Hasnay Aljofree
Gregg Strong
Stuart Whittaker
Wayne Burnett 
Pal Olaf Snorranson
Johnathon Walters
Ricardo Vaz Te
Scott Taylor
Micheal Kaprillon
Gaetano Giallanza
Jeff Smith
David Norris
Liam Richardson
Ricky Shakes
Cleveland Taylor
Joey O'brien
James SInclair
Nathan Wolffe 
Johan Smith
Scott Jamieson
Tope Obadeyi
Chris Basham
Danny Ward 
Josh Vela
Tom Eaves
Zoltan Haranysi
Dzemali
Micheal O'hallaran
Adam Blakeman

Well that list does sum up to an extent why we're not playing them.

For all the talk freedman has done about our youth academy it comes down to the fact he hasn't got the balls to upset a few of the big earners in the team and replace them with young lads who will most probably give more effort than the likes of mills, ngog and chungy.

If we started against derby with Eaves, Odelusi, White and a few others i'm convinced 9 out of 10 of the fans in the stands would give freedman much more respect and time to turn it around.

I got into an argument with a bloke on Saturday about this. I forget the exact figures, but the Academy costs BWFC about £3m a year to run - what is the fucking point? Have we produced a youth player in the last few years that we sold for £3m or more? That's around £30m we've pissed away on a pointless exercise over the last decade.

Surely it's more cost effective to do away with the Academy and all youth teams and save ourselves a bundle. That £3m saving could pay for a new 5 year contract for Zat Knight.

aaron_bwfc wrote:For all the talk freedman has done about our youth academy it comes down to the fact he hasn't got the balls to upset a few of the big earners in the team and replace them with young lads who will most probably give more effort than the likes of mills, ngog and chungy.

If we started against derby with Eaves, Odelusi, White and a few others i'm convinced 9 out of 10 of the fans in the stands would give freedman much more respect and time to turn it around.

It's actually a no brainer. Could anyone play worse than Ngog did on Saturday? Of course not. It would also be difficult to play worse than Lee, Mills & Baptiste.

The simple fact is we have nothing to lose by blooding a few youngsters. Unfortunately Freedman probably sees youth as a bit old fashioned.

aaron_bwfc wrote:For all the talk freedman has done about our youth academy it comes down to the fact he hasn't got the balls to upset a few of the big earners in the team and replace them with young lads who will most probably give more effort than the likes of mills, ngog and chungy.

If we started against derby with Eaves, Odelusi, White and a few others i'm convinced 9 out of 10 of the fans in the stands would give freedman much more respect and time to turn it around.

They might for the first few games but trust me i'd be surprised if the "good will" even extended to a "few."

the young players would be branded "shit" and probably boo'd off. A real confidence booster.

then the senior pro's who've been resigned to the scrap heap as "shit" would be banded about as "the answer." (see Matt Mills)

I even saw a tweet the yesterday that said LCY is too "classy" for the championship thats why he's not playing well.

If you look at Onefin's list it shows 3 current PL players, 1 current Serie A player and a few others who've done OK for themselves - plus Mavies who should also be on there. That's not a bad return IF we'd given them a chance and IF we'd hung on to them.
But we didn't apart from Mavies and the current squad.
You'd think lessons could have been learned.

Some of the players on that list are playing in the lower divisions or have disappeared off the radar so how do you sort the wheat from the chaff?

I'd suggest giving them a shot in the first team might do it - we certainly seem prepared to hand over that honour/opportunity to loanees from other clubs.

It's like buying a car but never driving it just in case the handling isn't very good or the seat's not comfortable. We've already bought the f***** car so we should at least drive it and if it turns out to be shit, we can trade it in for a better one. But leaving it sat in the garage, never knowing if it's any good or not makes f*** all sense to me.

aaron_bwfc wrote:For all the talk freedman has done about our youth academy it comes down to the fact he hasn't got the balls to upset a few of the big earners in the team and replace them with young lads who will most probably give more effort than the likes of mills, ngog and chungy.

If we started against derby with Eaves, Odelusi, White and a few others i'm convinced 9 out of 10 of the fans in the stands would give freedman much more respect and time to turn it around.

Do me a favour, it'd be more like 1 in 10, plenty of fans already think Eaves is shit and I'd be willing to bet a lot have never heard of White.

I agree though I would like to see them given a run, he's tried nearly everybody else.