by Saaaaaaaammmmmm »
18 Aug 2016 20:20
So the news of Tanner heading out on loan again today really frustrated me, all this talk of bringing through our own homegrown players and I feel they're once again being frozen out.
I'm thinking back to last pre-season when Fosu was the standout player both in Thailand and back at home, yet since playing 45 minutes against Espanyol over a year ago he hasn't even made the first team bench. Liam Kelly was the player we were all getting excited about this time round after impressing in friendlies and all of a sudden he's now probably 7th choice midfielder (I'm thinking he's behind Swift, Williams, Evans, Quinn, Van Den Berg, and now Wieser) and he's not even played a minute this season.
Tanner definitely changed the game when he came on against Bournemouth, didn't get a chance in the cup, not featured even on the bench in the league and all of a sudden he hasn't progressed beyond where he was last season, on loan in the bottom tier.
Players like Tshibola and Obita (or going as far back to the likes of Sigurdsson, Karacan, Pearce, McCarthy and Robson-Kanu), who have been Academy success stories, have had success because they were given the chance to play Championship football. Would Tshibola have been sold for £5.5 Million if he had spent last season back out on loan at Hartlepool before he was given a chance to impress? Look at Marcus Rashford, he scored goals because he was given a chance, people are very quick to forget that after his Premier League debut against Arsenal he went five games without a goal of which Utd just won one, yet Van Gaal stuck with him and he grabbed the winner against City and a few weeks later was playing at the Euros. When was the last time we bought a teenager in to start 5 straight matches?
I wonder how people like Josh Barrett are feeling, breaking into the first team (in the matchday squad for the last 5 games of last season) and now suddenly nowhere near. Same applies to Rob Dickie, debuting on the final day and now watching on as a makeshift centre-half fumbles around in his position conceding 6 goals in 2 games. As for Aaron Kuhl, Jack Stacey, Niall Keown, Andrija Novakovich, these players were making their debuts in early 2014/15, two years later and they've gone effectively backwards and barely get a mention these days as potential first teamers.
After all the celebration against Preston around Eamonn Dolan's legacy, it seemed a shame that we only ever had one of his players on the pitch. In fact with Pierce Sweeney and Jake Taylor starting for Exeter on opening day there were more Reading Academy graduates playing for Exeter City than Reading during the season openers.
I get that we have to accept Stam sees them in training and makes a decision, but given we take so much pride in our Academy, I'm worried that it'll become irrelevant if there's no pathway from U23 to First Team. Players will not develop to their full potential if they are not given the chance to reach it by playing for Reading. Our youngsters will improve if we give them a chance to realise they can perform at Championship level, not if they watch on from the sidelines as players like Williams, Gunter, Kermorgant and the outgoing Cox, Robson-Kanu and Loan Players continue to under-perform but feature week-in week-out because they have 'experience'. I'd say it's more like experience of consistently losing over the last three years (Kermorgant could be excused but is he adding anything to a team that pre-injury Samuel wouldn't have?).
I was hopeful when Stam and Tevreden spoke about their determination to keep up the Cat 1 Academy and bring through our own players, but I'd rather see them deliver on the pitch, and the first few matchday squads have done nothing to excite me. I'm not sure if anyone else shares my frustrations?