The "reward youth" debate

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Re: The "reward youth" debate

by From Despair To Where? » 07 Nov 2017 06:50

It's easy to forget, Stam inherited a piss awful squad in piss awful form. That's absolutely not the circumstances to be using academy players. His dealings last summer were all about getting bodies into the squad and by and large he did ok (Weiser being the only wtf signing). I think Meite was a punt too good to pass by and IIRC, the club had been scouting him for a considerable time anyway.

This summer, despite the failure to sign striker, there has been more method to the deals. I just find it bizarre people are criticising Stam for not playing youth when actually, for the first time since the start of Brian's first spell, we're starting to get the balance right.

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Re: The "reward youth" debate

by Hound » 07 Nov 2017 08:23

yeah Id say the balance is spot on at the moment.

Its allowing youth players to come in and not look out of place, so something is clearly working

Regarding Meite - his career here isn't necessarily over, and he wasn't awful anyway. Obvs not quite up to what we expected, but he did contribute

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Re: The "reward youth" debate

by Vision » 07 Nov 2017 08:44

I think what's interesting with Stam is that coming from outside of English football he didn't buy into any hype surrounding our academy players. Literally everyone started with a clean slate.

At the end of 15/16 if you'd have asked the average fan which 3 academy players were likely to break through the following season, it's unlikely Liam Kelly (then on loan at Bath) or even Tennai Watson would have been on many people's lists.

Likewise at the end of last season if the same question was asked would Smith and Richards have been on many lists?

Going back to the Gylfi, Pearce HRK days through to the likes of Obita, Kuhl even Hector to a lesser degree its was generally clear about who was likely to break through and who wasn't.

Of course luck and circumstances play a part in gaining opportunities but even allowing for that, Stam's choices appear slightly different. When Stam arrived Hyam was hyped up as the next centre half yet in one pre-season Dickie had leapfrogged him..

One final point to make with regard to the plethora of wingers we signed under Stam which blocked the pathway of Fosu/Stacey/Tanner. It's a brutal truth that none of those remotely managed to establish themselves as wingers/wide forwards at considerably lower levels. In fact Stacey established himself at Exeter as a right back whilst Fosu-Henry is now finding success as a No10.

Of course with time and development perhaps they could have found those positions with us (ala Obita) but I think both needed regular 1st team football at the time. In that sense it wasn't the signings of Harriott/Meite/Popa/Beerens (especially as only one of them has ever played regularly) that blocked them as much as actually they hadn't found their natural positions.

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Re: The "reward youth" debate

by Hound » 07 Nov 2017 08:57

Wasn't Stam working with the Ajax Academy before he came here? Considering thats one of the most revered in the world, would think he would know what he is doing in terms of handling the academy and the qualities being looked for

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Re: The "reward youth" debate

by Snowflake Royal » 07 Nov 2017 12:37

From Despair To Where? It's easy to forget, Stam inherited a piss awful squad in piss awful form. That's absolutely not the circumstances to be using academy players. His dealings last summer were all about getting bodies into the squad and by and large he did ok (Weiser being the only wtf signing). I think Meite was a punt too good to pass by and IIRC, the club had been scouting him for a considerable time anyway.

This summer, despite the failure to sign striker, there has been more method to the deals. I just find it bizarre people are criticising Stam for not playing youth when actually, for the first time since the start of Brian's first spell, we're starting to get the balance right.

As I said, I'm not particularly criticising Stam.

I'd disagree on only Wieser. What about Mendes?


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Re: The "reward youth" debate

by Hound » 07 Nov 2017 12:45

Mendes has looked reasonably useful when fit. End of last season he was a good option. He could have been pretty good this year I think, but think its time to consign him to RFC history

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Re: The "reward youth" debate

by From Despair To Where? » 07 Nov 2017 13:00

Mendes only started 2 league games last season. Guess what he did in both of them.

His issue would appear to be staying fit rather than a lack of ability.

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Re: The "reward youth" debate

by Snowflake Royal » 07 Nov 2017 18:04

Sorry, you can't say on the one hand that Meite looked a good prospect at the time we signed him, despite achieving the square root of fuk all in actual fact, and that Mendes wasn't a WTF signing because when he eventually played a couple of games he did surprisingly well. He was definitely a WTF signing when he was made.

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Re: The "reward youth" debate

by Hound » 07 Nov 2017 20:29

Not sure what point you’re tying to make there

Mendes was definitely au unknown and overall hasn’t worked out. But he was a relatively cheap gamble and I think if he’d not been so constantly injured may have been an ok signing


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Re: The "reward youth" debate

by From Despair To Where? » 07 Nov 2017 22:17

We may not have heard of Mendes but he wasn't a WTF signing because we needed a forward at the time we signed him. Kermorgant certainly didn't look like a 17 goal a season striker at the start of last season and our other options were Rakels and Samuel. Mendes offered the promise of strength and pace and was different to what we had.

His time is probably up, he's been unlucky with injury and we have moved on in his absence but that doesn't make him a pointless signing or a bad one at the time. Kermogant was a "shit " signing for the first 6 months.

Weiser on the other hand was a wtf signing because it was completely un-necessary. We were stacked in central midfield already and he offered neither an improvement on or anything different to what we had.

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Re: The "reward youth" debate

by WAZZOCK » 08 Nov 2017 07:43

Meite has all the raw attributes to be a superb player, I just think his footballing brain is holding him back currently. I see similarities with him and Kebe 08-10, but with a bit of guidance I could see him become a tidy player - hopefully that will be with us.

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Re: The "reward youth" debate

by Sutekh » 08 Nov 2017 08:32

WAZZOCK Meite has all the raw attributes to be a superb player, I just think his footballing brain is holding him back currently. I see similarities with him and Kebe 08-10, but with a bit of guidance I could see him become a tidy player - hopefully that will be with us.


Anyone know how Meite's loan is going?

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Re: The "reward youth" debate

by Stranded » 08 Nov 2017 08:53

Sutekh
WAZZOCK Meite has all the raw attributes to be a superb player, I just think his footballing brain is holding him back currently. I see similarities with him and Kebe 08-10, but with a bit of guidance I could see him become a tidy player - hopefully that will be with us.


Anyone know how Meite's loan is going?


Average - only started 5 games, 4 apps off the bench. 1 goal in 503 mins of play and that was a penalty.

According to Transfermarkt though, he has been playing in midfield most games.


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Re: The "reward youth" debate

by Hound » 08 Nov 2017 09:35

Sutekh
WAZZOCK Meite has all the raw attributes to be a superb player, I just think his footballing brain is holding him back currently. I see similarities with him and Kebe 08-10, but with a bit of guidance I could see him become a tidy player - hopefully that will be with us.


Anyone know how Meite's loan is going?


this is an ok breakdown, put up yesterday

http://www.getreading.co.uk/sport/footb ... s-13863963

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Re: The "reward youth" debate

by Sutekh » 08 Nov 2017 14:02

Hound
Sutekh
WAZZOCK Meite has all the raw attributes to be a superb player, I just think his footballing brain is holding him back currently. I see similarities with him and Kebe 08-10, but with a bit of guidance I could see him become a tidy player - hopefully that will be with us.


Anyone know how Meite's loan is going?


this is an ok breakdown, put up yesterday

http://www.getreading.co.uk/sport/footb ... s-13863963


Thanks for the link.

Looks really good for Novakovich and Dickie while Bond's not doing too badly at Peterborough

Shame the others appear to be struggling at their various levels one way or another.

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Re: The "reward youth" debate

by Hound » 08 Nov 2017 14:09

Bond's a strange one. They rated him last season as well from what I could gather. I'd have thought he'd been a good backup for Mannone tbh, but Stam doesnt seem to particularly like him at all

Obvs he didn't do brilliantly for us, but thought he had potential. Would be a little sad to see him just disappear at the end of his contract as seems likely

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Re: The "reward youth" debate

by Sutekh » 08 Nov 2017 16:46

Hound Bond's a strange one. They rated him last season as well from what I could gather. I'd have thought he'd been a good backup for Mannone tbh, but Stam doesnt seem to particularly like him at all

Obvs he didn't do brilliantly for us, but thought he had potential. Would be a little sad to see him just disappear at the end of his contract as seems likely


Difficult one, I know it's probably impractical but I'd like any number 2 keeper to be out on loan getting experience rather than just sat on the bench gathering dust every week. It must be awful to be in that role and never playing aside from the odd Academy or cup game.

Agree Bond has potential and would like to see him get a new deal at Reading but given Mannone is more experienced, pretty decent and still only 29 I can't see any changes in the no.1 department for a few years barring serious injury, a catastrophic loss of form or getting and holding onto a place in the PL. Therefore expect Bond to be off for nowt in the summer (and isn't Jaakkola's deal also up?)

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Re: The "reward youth" debate

by SCIAG » 08 Nov 2017 16:54

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SCIAG The young wingers should have been getting the minutes we've given to the likes of Hurtado, John, Harriott and Popa. Stacey could also have played wing-back when we were improvising with the likes of McCleary and Williams there. Tanner could potentially have got some of Grabban's minutes too. That's quite a sizeable amount of game time really, and would quite probably have been better for them than farming them out to play in a completely different style and a different position with a bunch of strangers and a manager who barely knows them.


Are you really arguing that players who struggled to get game time in League 2 should recalled and been selected ahead of an established international (Popa) and an established Championship striker (Grabban) in a team challenging for promotion to the Premiership?

No, I was against them being sent out on loan in the first place!

I think if you went back over the last 15 years and compared the success rate of talented youngsters vs first-team signings, things would look significantly better for the young players. Even lots of "sure-thing" signings don't work out. Grabban, Sharp, Cox - all established Championship strikers who were no better than an ordinary striker like Samuel. Akpan ahead of Tshibola? Old Gorkss ahead of Hector? Matejovsky ahead of Gylfi?

We're playing Sam Smith. We've been playing Andy Rinomhota. We've been playing Axel Andresson. They're not particularly good players, but they've been getting plenty of praise or at least "not looking out of place" and the consensus seems to be that Stam is right to play them. Why is there so much certainty that better players couldn't have managed that?

The truth is that players' performances vary massively depending on how they're used, how comfortable they are, how well they suit the system, and so forth. We're probably going to get better performances out of players who have spent 5-15 years training to play for us than they manage at a League 2 club in a strange town with strange players in a strange system that doesn't have a position for them.

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Re: The "reward youth" debate

by From Despair To Where? » 08 Nov 2017 17:51

We'll have to agree to disagree then. Personally I think there is value in getting regular football outside of age group competition and the likes of Pearce, Karacan, HRK and Hector have shown that loans can be a springboard to the first team.
Last edited by From Despair To Where? on 08 Nov 2017 17:54, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The "reward youth" debate

by KC Royal » 08 Nov 2017 17:53

Hound All of those players on paper should have delivered much more than they did. Nobody would have been happy at the time if we hadn’t signed Grabban/Vydra and played a youth player instead

Basically some signings work and some don’t. Swift for example has ‘worked’ as at the moment have the likes of Bacuna and Barrow. We nearly all called Meite a fantastic signing at the time

Stam and co obvs didn’t think Stacey etc had the required quality (unlike possibly Kelly, Smith and Richards who he has given chances to) and so let them go - fair enough imo


BIB - I thought Fosu and maybe Stacey as well were offered contracts to stay (as SCIAG suggested earlier) and they turned them down?

Going back to other points raised. Wieser is for me the most pointless signing we've made in recent years. Still can't understand why we got him. And it took a while for him to find a club this summer too when it was clear he was available. Mendes may have shown quality and been unlucky with injuries (may have had a decent chance of playing a number of games this season if fit) but when Stam picked him last season I remember him saying how much he'd improved. Which suggests that he wasn't ready to play when he was signed.

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