United fans talk youth, Chelsea readers not happy with Kovacic and Liverpool need to make some signings- all in Your Says of the Day.
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United fans pick out Spanish kid they missed out on
Junior Firpo looks good going forward but will need to work on his defending. Definitely an exciting prospect who’s likely to join Real Madrid in the near future. Watching Spain’s U21’s, I’ve been very impressed with Fabián Ruiz who only signed for Napoli last summer. A tall & classy box-to-box midfielder who never stops running and is always looking to get involved. He’s got a good shot, makes excellent runs into the box and is always motivating those around him.
roygbiv
Yep, Ruiz looked good roy, as did Ceballos, as did Fornals, as did Dani Olmo and so on and so forth. Great bunch of talent!
jm1502
jm, Yeah, West Ham did well to sign Fornals while Ceballos will probably be allowed to leave on loan this summer. Ceballos really took the crucial qualifier against Poland by the scruff of the neck as Spain destroyed their opponents but Fabian is the one player who has really caught my eye and would be an interesting replacement for Pogba.
roygbiv
Youth Development up for discussion
Everybody here is playing armchair scout suggesting players based on Youtube or internationals. Really the players we should be getting are the ones nobody has heard of.
The scouts should be identifying the cream of young talent at schools and junior leagues well before they become well known and high priced.
I have no idea how the clubs youth system works but its clear going from what it has produced that it is far from being a conveyor belt of talent. Who have we had in the 20 years since the class of 94. How many players have passed through the academy in that time.
We can take young players from any country in the world, we can pay their parents “inducements” which are not peanuts. We have scouts everywhere and they all have a small army of contacts. We have the global brand awareness such that any talented youngster should leap at the chance. We are the Oxford Cambridge of football.
I dont know how many youngsters are in the academy, in a “class” but can’t we simply increase the number of schoolboys to increase the probability of finding stars. Can’t we open up academies in other nations, United Academy Africa, United Academy South America.
Given the cost of signing young semi-developed talent like AWB you’d think it would be worthwhile trying to get these youngsters before they make a name at other clubs.
MacGuffin
I may be incorrect but I believe United have provided the most British talent to the Premier League over a very long period of time (about 20 years or so now). We have a number of players at other clubs who came through our youth team and have flourished when given a chance: Michael Keane, Evans, Joshua King, Heaton, Robbie Brady and Cathcart I believe are all ex-United youth team players and I’m sure you’ll find a couple more. I’d argue that having Michael Keane in our squad wouldn’t be too bad at the moment (anyone seems better than Rojo and Jones at this stage) whilst I think that some of the others might have had a decent career (squad players if not first team players) had they been given a proper chance.
We hear a lot of hype about Angel Gomes, Garner, Tuanzebe, Traore, Henderson, Chong, Greenwood, etc. but how many will be given a chance to stake a claim? Under Moyes and Mourinho especially they wouldn’t have been given more than 10 minutes or so in one or two games each season before they’re sold on or released and will ply their trade somewhere else with their best years for development (18 to 23) totally void of first team experience. Hopefully Ole will remedy that and it was nice that he gave Gomes, CHong and Greenwood chances so far already.
With that said, I do very much like the approach that Butt is taking with recommending that we sign 15 to 17 year olds for cheap and then develop them here – lots of articles pop up that we are winning races to sign talented youth (Hoogewerf from Ajax, that kid from Real Zaragoza though they’ve since denied it’s done, there was a French youth we were close to signing, etc.). Like Fosu Mensah before, it’s a good strategy because to sign 10 of these players would probably cost less than your average first team player and even if they don’t make it into your first team you can still probably make a profit overall.
Personally I think United’s scouting is failing more at identifying players for the first team – whoever thought Fred was a first team player should be shot on sight. Though then you go into the debate about whether Woodward just listens to agents…
Cheers
Sympathy for the Devils
Sympathy – not sure if it’s most British players from the academy but certainly we have produced the most players from our academy playing top flight football in Europe.
Depending on what criteria you use we are always top of near top of minutes played by academy products in the PL too.
Our issue, which a lot of other PL clubs also face, is how to integrate prospects into the first team. They are not better than establish PL players but they do deserve a chance. Managing that transition is problematic.
There’s also a pay off between producing young, local, talents and success these days. No one has really managed it for a while. Would we complain if we won a trophy and didn’t play any youth players all season, or would we prefer to give youth more of a chance and maybe miss out on a trophy.
For example, two years ago City became the first team to win a top European league without youth academy players playing 90 mins over a season combined. Do their fans care? No. Would ours? Maybe, maybe not. Was not playing youth the reason they won the league that year?
Ole has mentioned youth too often for him not to play any next season. Whether that proves to be good or bad is something we will have to wait and see.
Alfie07
I’m going from the basis that the primary role of the academy is to be a feeder of talent for the first team. And on that basis what talent have we had since the class of 94. Yes there’s Rashford and Lingard (jury out still) but its 20 years since the class of 94. The academy may well be a feeder for championship clubs but that’s another matter.
MacGuffin
Fans not happy with Chelsea’s decision to bring Kovacic back
Just because Kovacic is the only signing we can make does not mean we should have signed him. His going to block not only young players but better older players like Barkley, Bakayoko, even Drinkwater would be a better option. Terrible decision but still hope he proves the vast majority of us wrong.
Blaze
Which ever way you look and which ever angle to take. this Kovacic transfer doesn’t add value to the team. even Kante of all people had been scoring goals when he was given that license. but this guy never even attempted once. i can’t remember even one time that he rushed in the box to finish a move. you can assume that Sarri was the one who was restricting him here at Chelsea. but you had to remember it was Sarri that had fancied him. at Real Madrid he was a bench warmer. and what is worse is that we have paid €45m for a player whose club was desperate to take off from their books. Zidane has publicly said that he doesn’t fancy him. i don’t know if our club reads the news. but it seems strange to retain a player who has only 3 assists in an entire season whilst playing as the furthest midfielder of our 3. even when Azpiliqueta has even scored. and there are those that are trying to discredit my concerns? insane!
The Issue isn’t even how much we have paid. the issue was do we even need him? because we have all agreed that he is not a goal scoring midfielder. which means he is likely to be a workhorse. and i was reading Bakayoko and Mount will return. instead of focusing on what Mount could do once he is given his chance which was long overdue. here we have paid €45m for a below average attacking midfielder. because we can’t buy someone else? and what is more baffling is that Real Madrid has taken our best whom we were desperate to keep with €100m and sold us to a player they never wanted and were desperate to get rid with €45m which means we have only received a net amount of €55m for Hazard( the best player in the PL), that is insane! time for us to redraw our transfer strategy, if we feel Kovecic is worth €45m and Hazard was worth €55m.
Wise-fan
Im not overwhelmed by the permanent signing of kovacic either, and lets face it if ruben hadnt got injured and the transfer ban wasnt in place (making kovacic the only mid we could possibly sign) we most likely would not have taken up our option to purchase. Although I am not sure it was absolutely necessary to keep him given mount is going to be with us now.
I do hope lamps can get more from him, but truth be told its ruben, mount and barkley I want to see develop and kovacic for me did more harm than good being here last year as it simply reduced the appearances and experience that should have gone to barkley and ruben.
Personally I suspect (hope) this move is actually to allow for the sale of jorginho, if its not then I am actually quite disappointed in this.
Luckydestiny
Paying so much for a terrible below average player like Kovacic is insanity. The regular Chelsea excusees on here and every other other forum will say his not too bad or Lampard will improve his game or someone in the club sees something in him, but it’s not going to happen his already 25 years old and we seen his obvious limitations. Maybe he could do a job for some team in the Championship. Not sure whose responsible for this decision but whoever it was it casts new and very worrying doubts on their vision for the team, a real bad bad start for the new regime. And yes it’s a big worry re future decisions.
Moos
I always find it funny when a player is signed or let go the the posters on here approve or disaaprocve of then suddenly the board are deemed useless. no consideration taken for the current situation we find ourselves in or the fact that Frank has approved to deal
RLC is going to be out for a long time so we have to ensure we have cover. Drinkwater is still an option for us, as is Bakayoko, but in the end Frank has to decide on his formation then who he expects to fill the roles
Don’t get me wrong, I have not been a massive fan of Kovacic but over the season he has improved and while we do not see goals he can cover for Jorginho and is a decent experienced international. Is 40m too much, probably but with the inflated prices going round then maybe he could turn out to be a decent bargain for us. Frank seems to think so and in the end it is his decision plus I see no reason with his background of supporting the younger players why people like Mount for example should feel threatened, I am quite sure that he along with others will be included in the first team squad and I simply do not see all of Kovacic, Bakayoko and Drinkwater all being included either. KTBFFH
CFC1905
Quiet window a mistake for Liverpool
I for one have full faith in the management. Patience is the key. Remember when we failed to get VVD summer 2017 and signed him Jan 2018. That same summer, we announced Keita but had to wait 1 year. Robertson signed that summer but we had to wait awhile for him to showcase his talent. These guys know what they are doing so trust them.
kopite
I’m confident we’ll buy another attacking player and a left back at least.
gingerlfc
As for the reports that we may not sign anyone, I’m not too concerned as I might have been if we had to say Brendan Rodgers in charge. Klopp is the ultimate coach if he believes he has enough players and youth that can step up when you got to trust the man. He’s definitely a brilliant man manager-coach who is great developing young talent and average players, but still no matter how good Klopp is we were in situations where we had to play Hendo and Fabinho in defence, definitely not ideal situations no matter how good your coach is. So as I said I’m not too concerned, but I do have some minor concerns just in case we get into freak situations with injuries.
Priority areas for me:
Front three cover: Origi is good but he’s more of a plan B, he doesn’t slot in and continues the style of the front three. Brewster will get games but hes been fashioned as a striker rather than someone who can play along the lines.
Attacking mid: This is what we lacked I felt in those 7 games we drew last year, someone to break the lines and run/dribble with the ball from deep. Keita isn’t long term solution to that. Ox and Lannana are back but are they up to the standard of what we need or do we need to look at the likes of Fekir/Bruno Fernandes?
Defence: We good in defence apart from cover for Robertson. I would have gone for his Scottish team-mate Tierney (although who wants to sign for Liverpool as left back knowing you’ve got to displace Robertson?). If needed Milner/Lewis will deputize admirably im sure I just hope its not too much of a drop-off.
Not bothered about GK: We good here got some good youth goalkeepers from what I hear and Migs is still here.
mwake
Looking more likely that we gonna have a quiet window this time. This is a mistake.
redsforever
The post Solskjaer urged to focus on one thing; Liverpool cannot afford quiet window appeared first on teamtalk.com.
