by SCIAG »
22 Jan 2020 14:33
Snowflake Royal Ranty McRantface At the moment I wouldn't really blame any of our youngsters wanting to drop down a tier or 2 to develop. Especially if they are 20 or under. Nolan has probably seen what's happened/happening to Barrett, Loader, Olise, McIntyre, Southwood, Osho, East, Frost, Howe, Watson, House etc. And decided his best chance of making it as a footballer is playing at a lower level at a very young age. He is likely to learn a lot more playing at Walsall in League Two than playing U23 football and having the odd training session with the first team.
There's also the fact that Bowen will favour more experienced players in the league games as he focuses on experience to get us in the play offs. He's been alluding to that quite often when asked by the press and fans about our younger players.
I would not be surprised to see more youngsters move on in Jan as they are going to find development opportunities in the first team extremely limited here.
Er, I mean
Barrett 6 (7)
Loader 12 (21)
Olise 5 (5)
McIntyre 7 (2)
Osho 2 (1)
East 1
Howe 4 (1)
Watson 4 (3)
Plus of course the ones you ignored like
Richards 40 (8)
Obita 155 (20)
Rinomhota 48 (10)
And of course the ones that broke through here and then moved on elsewhere, which are almost too numerous to mention.
The idea young players don't get a chance here.
I'd love it to be a bit more, but we're really not bad in handing out debuts and giving a progression route.
I think it's fair to say that we were pretty bad between about the time that McCarthy made his debut and about the time that Kelly made his debut. That was a long time where the only players who came through were Obita, Hector, Tshibola and Cooper, and that wasn't due to a lack of supply.
Since then things have got a bit better but I don't think East, Osho, Howe or Watson are great examples of the opportunities available. Even Barrett is someone who we clearly didn't get the best of except when Gomes was at the club. Not entirely our fault mind.
Loader and Olise are the big marks in our favour, and I think Nolan was probably in the same talent bracket as them, but so were a lot of players who weren't given much chance here. IMO if he decided he wanted first team football then he probably looked at people like Jack Stacey and decided that was his best bet. Good luck to him. Given his injury record and that we don't always use wingers, I don't think we can kick ourselves too hard.