“You never win anything playing with kids”.

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Charlieblade

Charlieblade

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A well known quote from Alan Hansen, which he later admitted he got it wrong. The group he was talking about contained the Neville brothers, Butt, Scholes and eventually, Beckham.

My point is that in our current season, and not blessed with loads of cash, and a rebuild of the squad only half finished, we could have a similar problem.
Carry on as we are, maybe add a loan or two in January, and I still think we could end up mid table.

All youngster deserve a second look. They will have off days but that is a normal part of academy development, as is being loaned out to experience ‘man’s football’.

Blaster has already stepped up, and although he went off injured, I think he dealt well with being a marked man. All youngster develop differently, and we have witnessed that difference in Peck, Brooks, One and others. If they are good enough, they are ready now. Brooks and Marsh have different issues. Brooks is already a fully formed adult, and Marsh is not. Brooks needs to develop his game and Marsh needs to add some bulk.

Not everyone is ready now. Peck seems to have it all. A super skill set and great self confidence. Brooks and Marsh need time, but for different reasons. One is a puzzle. Will he get better the more he plays, and has he finished growing yet?

Ronaldo and Rooney were both ready when the clubs gave them their head at very young ages. Are Arblaster and Peck ready now? Is it ok if they play first team football as part of their development, and are we comfortable with inconsistent performances?

The big question is, can we afford not to? We will find out in January?
 

But we are not playing with kids. Our spine is Cooper, Souttar, Souza and Moore. Blaster/Peck and Rak Saki/Brooks are other important players as part of the team framework. Add to that the fact that the rest of our first 15 or so are generally well on the young side, it means all being well we have a very solid base for the future. Of course market forces may well mean one or two will be sold, but thats part of the evolution process of replacement and team/squad building.

We all knew that last summers rebuild would be a critical factor on where we went as a club post premier league disaster season. I am delighted with the way Wilder has reshaped and redefined the team.
 
Our biggest issue going into the Premier League last time around was the age of the squad. We had the oldest squad in 21/22 (27.5 yrs on average) and the fifth oldest team in 22/23 (26.8 yrs). We then sold not only our two best but also two of the youngest players in Berge (24) and Ndiaye (23).

This season we have the second youngest squad (behind Sunderland) at 24.0 years. We have brought through some outstanding younger players but we also have experience dotted throughout the team.

Snake said:
But we are not playing with kids. Our spine is Cooper, Souttar, Souza and Moore. Blaster/Peck and Rak Saki/Brooks are other important players as part of the team framework. Add to that the
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Of those you name only Moore at 32 is over 30. The others are mid twenties: Souttar is 26 while Cooper and Souza are 25. Cooper and Souttar have October birthdays so have only just reached those ages. That is not an old spine in the way that it was in 22/23 when we had Foderingham (31), Egan (30), Basham (34), Norwood (31), Fleck (31) and Sharp (37).
 
Not all academy players will make it at SUFC. IMHO there are only 2 who could make the first team.
I can’t se any problem using Brooks, One and even Marsh on a one off basis.

That is why the squad has so many youngsters in it. Use them, sell them or send them on loan. Otherwise they for part of the squad to fill gaps in an incomplete rebuild.

Arblaster and Peck are ready now, if fans can deal with the occasional inconsistency?
 
I think the main issue (if you can call it that) with Brooks is that out of all of the academy players this season (Arblaster, Brooks, Oné, Seriki and Peck), Brooks is the only one of them having to learn a completely new position.

Last season when he got into the team, Brooks was playing in midfield every time we played him, this season he's being told to play RW and he's having to learn that position in tough championship games, hence the reason why he has been inconsistent this season.

Like Arblaster and Peck, Brooks will have been coached to play in midfield by our academy as we were using 3-5-2 at the time.

How well Brooks plays for us as a RW will depend on how quickly he can adjust to being a RW as opposed to a midfielder.

Even though his performances could be inconsistent last season, I enjoyed watching him in midfield as I felt he had the skills to be a good midfielder in our team. Personally I would like to see him maybe play as CAM because I think it would suit his strengths.
 
The football league trophy shows its not easy for kids. Of the 16 cat 1 under 21 sides only 1 qualified in groups full of league one and two sides.

I'd wager there's quite a few players involved for the 21s that will go on to have better careers then the players beating them right now.
 
loyalblade95 said:
I think the main issue (if you can call it that) with Brooks is that out of all of the academy players this season (Arblaster, Brooks, Oné, Seriki and Peck), Brooks is the only one of them having to learn a completely new position.

Last season when he got into the team, Brooks was playing in midfield every time we played him, this season he's being told to play RW and he's having to learn that position in tough championship games, hence the reason why he has been inconsistent this season.

Like Arblaster and Peck, Brooks will have been coached to play in midfield by our academy as we were using 3-5-2 at the time.

How well Brooks plays for us as a RW will depend on how quickly he can adjust to being a RW as opposed to a midfielder.

Even though his performances could be inconsistent last season, I enjoyed watching him in midfield as I felt he had the skills to be a good midfielder in our team. Personally I would like to see him maybe play as CAM because I think it would suit his strengths.
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It's interesting thats not played this season as a LCM or CAM, when as you say he spent half of last season playing those roles. You'd have thought at one point he'd get the chance if for no other reason than to give O'Hare a breather.

May be wide of the mark, but I get the feeling Wilder doesnt rate him as much as the other 'kids'...
 
As others have said. It's all about balance. Balance between youth and experience...between defence and attack..it's not really rocket science is it???
 

IdLiketoRogerMoore said:
It's interesting thats not played this season as a LCM or CAM, when as you say he spent half of last season playing those roles. You'd have thought at one point he'd get the chance if for no other reason than to give O'Hare a breather.

May be wide of the mark, but I get the feeling Wilder doesnt rate him as much as the other 'kids'...
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I don't think it's a case of Wilder doesn't rate him as much as the others (I might be wrong) as he does play Brooks often enough (in his Bristol City post match interview he talked about trying to play Marsh at some point as well, yet he hasn't dropped Brooks for Marsh.

In regards to the Pigs game, how we took JRS off and brought McCallum on rather than Brooks (Brooks is our usual change for JRS), i think that was more tactical as we needed bodies in defence at the time rather than a winger.

Same thing happened with RND, he was just about to come on before CW changed his mind and put Robbo on instead.
 
PeterNdlovu081 said:
Hansen was right, you can't win anything with kids.

But you can win something if you filter them into a team alongside Peter Schmeichel, Dennis Irwin, Steve Bruce, Gary Pallister, Lee Sharpe, Eric Cantona, Roy Keane, Brian McClair and Andy Cole.
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A great post.

Hansen is quoted completely out of context. The 'kids' had superb PL winning players all around them and most already had EFL experience.

We have some great lads, but we are worlds away from the Manyoo early 90s position.
 
IdLiketoRogerMoore said:
'kids' is such a generic term. Peck is 20 and Brooks is 21. They're not kids. Physically they're grown men who have been full time athletes in a sporting programme for the past 5 years. Inexperienced - yes, but certainly not kids...
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A league one loan will ready them for first team football
 
The biggest point that stuck out from the original post was that he thinks we could still finish mid table!

Really? We’d need to have relegation form from now on for that to happen!
 
YES Blade said:
The biggest point that stuck out from the original post was that he thinks we could still finish mid table!

Really? We’d need to have relegation form from now on for that to happen!
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It’s easy done. Look at Norwich for example. Compare their current form with WBA?
 
SwissBlade said:
A league one loan will ready them for first team football
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As will a place in the first team squad. It’s happening already because the club cannot afford to buy players. They are using Blaster, Peck and Seriki to fill gaps in the first team squad.
 
This does bring up an interesting question:

Which team achieved a league title with the youngest average age, say in the past 20 years (or longer).

I have no idea but one for any avid stattos out there. Bonus points for data from top foreign leagues (la Liga, Bundesliga, serie a, ligue 1 etc)
 
SwissBlade said:
A league one loan will ready them for first team football
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Still makes me chuckle when i think back to the pre-season and the podcast-erati and a large section of people round this parish were all saying how shit we were going to be and how these young players needed a loan...

Fast forward three months and they're spitting out content which is so revisionist it's actually hilarious. They've gone from saying player X needs a league one loan and if young player X starts more than 10 games we'll be at risk being relegated - to player x is going to be playing in the PL next season....
 
Charlieblade said:
It’s easy done. Look at Norwich for example. Compare their current form with WBA?
Click to expand...

We’re currently on 31 points with 31 games left so to finish mid table we’re looking at average 1-1.2 points per game.

Unless we sell a load of players in January or have a load of injuries, I really can’t see how we’re going to drop from our current 2.2 points per game by around 1 point per game. We’ve played a third of the season already, it’s clearly not a fluke.
 
I think if we are all being honest we are performing a minor miracle at the moment.

Our squad is so young and so inexperienced. I for one though was impressed that we handled the Derby game well.

But we are bringing on youth team players every game sometimes multiple. Other teams are bringing on championship hardened players. You’ll see Coventrys bench and it will be incredibly strong with some great players on there.

We are over performing at the moment and thank the lord Wilder has fixed Heckys injury issues otherwise the table would look totally different.
 
Bladezz said:
I think if we are all being honest we are performing a minor miracle at the moment.

Our squad is so young and so inexperienced. I for one though was impressed that we handled the Derby game well.

But we are bringing on youth team players every game sometimes multiple. Other teams are bringing on championship hardened players. You’ll see Coventrys bench and it will be incredibly strong with some great players on there.

We are over performing at the moment and thank the lord Wilder has fixed Heckys injury issues otherwise the table would look totally different.
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But in 2024 are "championship hardened players" the way forward? Or is youth, energy, athleticism in a well coached system a better way of getting results?
 
This isn't something we saw alot of in Wilders first stint. He had his 11 and opportunity was rare. I think he has been excellent when choosing to play/rest the inexperienced players this season. I know it's partly through having no choice but the young players are being kept on their toes this year as an opportunity may come.
 
YES Blade said:
We’re currently on 31 points with 31 games left so to finish mid table we’re looking at average 1-1.2 points per game.

Unless we sell a load of players in January or have a load of injuries, I really can’t see how we’re going to drop from our current 2.2 points per game by around 1 point per game. We’ve played a third of the season already, it’s clearly not a fluke.
Click to expand...
The club and the manager are doing stuff with a half finished rebuild and doing it well. It relies on a handful of young players, starting, or complimenting the squad. I approve of that and so far it’s paid dividends.
With no real back up for senior players, it could all fall down because we have no support for key players.
When Anel was missing due to suspension, this place was awash with doom and gloom. I worry about it too. How can we rest Souttar or Sousa? What about injury to Cooper? Moore is quality but susceptible to injury! Hamer is irreplaceable.
Seriki was a master stroke replacing Gilchrist, but without Gilchrist in the side, it weakens our defence.
We have good players but no back ups, and filling gaps with youngsters is invigorating but dangerous.
I’m loving it but worry what we could do if we lose any key players. This tactic of replacing key men with youth leaves up wide open, especially if the youngsters hit a wall.
We still have some seriously good teams to face, and the return fixtures against Leeds and Boro will not be easy.

Going great so far, but we need to remember how good SUFC is at screwing things up.
 

YES Blade said:
The biggest point that stuck out from the original post was that he thinks we could still finish mid table!

Really? We’d need to have relegation form from now on for that to happen!
Click to expand...
Hardly - in 1995 (ish) Millwall were top of Div 1 and travelled to Sunderland at the end of November for a top of the table clash.

They Lost.

The following May they were relegated.
 
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