Squad for 2020/21

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WestYorksRoyal
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Re: Squad for 2020/21

by WestYorksRoyal » 03 Aug 2020 16:44

morganb If the reason for Osho leaving was more about the playing time rather than the money - How easy is it going to be to recruit anyone who will be happy to sit on the bench knowing that they will only play as injury cover or in Cup matches? This sounds more like the aged pro rather than hungry youngsters?

You need a balance of aged pros too. That 05/06 signed Chris Makin as a dependable squad player along with Bryn. It's not like we'll have a blanket ban on signings over 25. The important thing with older pros is that they conduct themselves in a way that nurtures the youngsters and still have a desire to prove their talent and improve.

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Re: Squad for 2020/21

by linkenholtroyal » 03 Aug 2020 19:51

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Perhaps he will follow the path of Dickie, Henry, Fosu, Mackie, Kelly etc. to that club not very far away.

It is highly ironic that we seem to only have an academy these days to feed our local league 1 clubs I also wouldnt be surprised if the team who will not be named get promoted with our rejects next year. Ther maybe something in playing the academy players and giving them a chance.

WTAF.

What about Rino, Olise, McIntyre and Richards.

Plus Holsgrove seems on the cusp and maybe Southwood too.

:?:

I was just saying, Dickie, Henry, Fosu and evening Kelly would be quite useful right now. These are players we could have brought on and be on less wages than the players we brought in. You can add Stacey to that list and Barrett and Howe we could almost make a full first team of youth players we released and should have persevered with.

They would also probably beet our current team on a quarter of the wages.

I know the academy does bring players to the first team but this lot were lost without a fee and Are now better than what we have.

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Re: Squad for 2020/21

by linkenholtroyal » 03 Aug 2020 20:04

Youth players who were released or nominal fee team
Gk Hamer
LB Stacey
RB Howe
CB Osho
CB Dickie
CM Kelly
CM Barrett
LW Fosu
RW Henry
CF Samuel
CF Danny Loader

Subs
Mikel Anderson
Jordan Obita
Niall keown
Ryan east
Hal Robson Kanu

Honestly I believe this team could survive in the championship which is what we are doing some on there are worth big money and most are on a lot less wages.

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Re: Squad for 2020/21

by muirinho » 03 Aug 2020 20:31

linkenholtroyal
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linkenholtroyal It is highly ironic that we seem to only have an academy these days to feed our local league 1 clubs I also wouldnt be surprised if the team who will not be named get promoted with our rejects next year. Ther maybe something in playing the academy players and giving them a chance.

WTAF.

What about Rino, Olise, McIntyre and Richards.

Plus Holsgrove seems on the cusp and maybe Southwood too.

:?:

I was just saying, Dickie, Henry, Fosu and evening Kelly would be quite useful right now. These are players we could have brought on and be on less wages than the players we brought in. You can add Stacey to that list and Barrett and Howe we could almost make a full first team of youth players we released and should have persevered with.

They would also probably beet our current team on a quarter of the wages.

I know the academy does bring players to the first team but this lot were lost without a fee and Are now better than what we have.


Takes all sorts of course, but I think this absolutely the wrong way to go.

We let James Henry go 10 years ago. In that time we've been Championship winners, we've played in the Premier League,. we've been to the FA Cup semi-final. How long were we supposed to hang on to him? He's a decent pro, but he is certainly not better than all of the midfielders we've been playing in the meantime. And he wouldn't even be at the level he got to, without all the gametime he had, that he would not have got, if he'd stayed with us.

Dickie hasn't played in the Championship at all.
Fosu has only managed to get 2 starts this year in the Championship - a full 3 years after leaving us.

Jack Stacey needed 4 seasons in League 2 to get where he is now.

You're talking about hanging onto players that weren't good enough at the time for the Championship - and either playing them instead of Championship-level players, thereby getting us relegated - or destroying their careers by not playing them, but not allowing them go somewhere else to build a career.

Keeping that many players on the books, in case they do well, but with zero regard to the players themselves, is the kind of horrific shit that Chelsea do. How many of their ridiculous stockpile of young players would actually have decent careers by now, if they'd been let go by Chelsea, instead of being financially hand-cuffed to the club? How many years of Michael Hector's career has he wasted by signing for them?

Nah, oxf*rd that.

It's not just the morality of it - we're never going to have the prestige of a big academy. We get and keep aspiring players on the basis that we'll train them well, and we'll treat them right, and if they work hard, and stay healthy, they can be professional footballers. Treating young players like cash cows instead, is not going to win us any friends, and may not get us much cash either.

Yes, we'll occasionally lose out on good players, but the vast majority of players we release, they build respectable careers for themselves at a lower level, or work through years of that lower level just to get to the level we need - or they drop out completely.

Very few of our ex-Academy lads show us up by being way better than the players we bought instead.

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Re: Squad for 2020/21

by Hound » 03 Aug 2020 20:44

Yeah kind of agree with the gist of that. Though there’s certainly a balance we’ve got wrong in recent years where I don’t think we’ve tried hard enough with a couple of the academy lads - prob as a result of the changing managers and Gourlay’s awful spell in charge

Stacey, Cooper and Dickie are 3 who probably should have been given more of a chance/ persevered with, whilst the likes of Ward could have done just as well as Walker.

We’ve certainly missed a trick or two and it’s cost us a fair bit financially. But yes, no shame at all in a lot of the lads moving on to other league clubs and highlights the good work of the academy


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Re: Squad for 2020/21

by andrew1957 » 03 Aug 2020 20:55

Going back to my OP I now make it that we have a first team squad of 20 left as follows - with 5 possible players who might step up from the Academy next season in brackets:

G-Cabral/Walker
RB-Yaidom/Watson (Southwood)
CB-Moore/Morrison/McIntyre (Holmes)
LB- Richards
CM-Swift/Rino/Laurent/Araruna (East/Holsgrove)
Wide-Olise/Meite/Aluko (Nevers)
Attack-Jaoa/Puscas/Baldock/McNulty/Smith

I suppose there is still a chance we might get Ejaria. I am disappointed we could not keep Osho but if he could not get a guarantee of starting I can understand why he would want to go elsewhere.

We certainly look thin at the back in particular which is why I am a tad surprised we did not offer Obita another season. We will certainly need to replace any more players that are sold such as Swift or Moore and we could so with some more width - although I do have high hopes for Nevers having watched him quite a lot at Academy level.

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Re: Squad for 2020/21

by Hound » 03 Aug 2020 21:03

Southwood’s an interesting RB option

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Re: Squad for 2020/21

by NewCorkSeth » 03 Aug 2020 21:50

Would have been interesting to hear BT's thoughts on Cooper who was apparently not wanted by the club. Been a quality player.

Honestly, listening to the podcast, I got the feeling he was desperate to appear that he knew how good the academy lads were but I just had a feeling he wrote a fair few if them off.

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Re: Squad for 2020/21

by Simon's Church » 03 Aug 2020 22:21

andrew1957 Going back to my OP I now make it that we have a first team squad of 20 left as follows - with 5 possible players who might step up from the Academy next season in brackets:

G-Cabral/Walker
RB-Yaidom/Watson (Southwood)
CB-Moore/Morrison/McIntyre (Holmes)
LB- Richards
CM-Swift/Rino/Laurent/Araruna (East/Holsgrove)
Wide-Olise/Meite/Aluko (Nevers)
Attack-Jaoa/Puscas/Baldock/McNulty/Smith

I suppose there is still a chance we might get Ejaria. I am disappointed we could not keep Osho but if he could not get a guarantee of starting I can understand why he would want to go elsewhere.

We certainly look thin at the back in particular which is why I am a tad surprised we did not offer Obita another season. We will certainly need to replace any more players that are sold such as Swift or Moore and we could so with some more width - although I do have high hopes for Nevers having watched him quite a lot at Academy level.


Yeah, I'd say LB is probably the only real priority signing. We have numbers if not always quality almost everywhere else. Be interesting who the club can bring in to challenge who is cheaper than Obita. Could do with a centre back to with McIntyre's fitness a question mark and Holmes a bit of an unknown.

After that it might just be replacing any more leavers


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Re: Squad for 2020/21

by Zip » 03 Aug 2020 22:29

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andrew1957 Going back to my OP I now make it that we have a first team squad of 20 left as follows - with 5 possible players who might step up from the Academy next season in brackets:

G-Cabral/Walker
RB-Yaidom/Watson (Southwood)
CB-Moore/Morrison/McIntyre (Holmes)
LB- Richards
CM-Swift/Rino/Laurent/Araruna (East/Holsgrove)
Wide-Olise/Meite/Aluko (Nevers)
Attack-Jaoa/Puscas/Baldock/McNulty/Smith

I suppose there is still a chance we might get Ejaria. I am disappointed we could not keep Osho but if he could not get a guarantee of starting I can understand why he would want to go elsewhere.

We certainly look thin at the back in particular which is why I am a tad surprised we did not offer Obita another season. We will certainly need to replace any more players that are sold such as Swift or Moore and we could so with some more width - although I do have high hopes for Nevers having watched him quite a lot at Academy level.


Yeah, I'd say LB is probably the only real priority signing. We have numbers if not always quality almost everywhere else. Be interesting who the club can bring in to challenge who is cheaper than Obita. Could do with a centre back to with McIntyre's fitness a question mark and Holmes a bit of an unknown.

After that it might just be replacing any more leavers


Obvs you mean Southwood as third choice keeper although I would move him ahead of Walker who really needs to be sold. Araruna is ahead of Watson. We have plenty of options up front but look very weak at full back and as we all know we desperately lack wingers.

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Re: Squad for 2020/21

by muirinho » 03 Aug 2020 22:54

NewCorkSeth Would have been interesting to hear BT's thoughts on Cooper who was apparently not wanted by the club. Been a quality player.

Honestly, listening to the podcast, I got the feeling he was desperate to appear that he knew how good the academy lads were but I just had a feeling he wrote a fair few if them off.


I think he was keen on the kind of players that fitted into the Dutch philosophy, and less keen on ones, like Cooper, that didn't. It might not have helped Cooper, but I think without Gourlay, more of the academy lads would have had a better chance. Whether they would have been the right choices out of the academy is of course a different question.

I'm still in two minds about Cooper, I bet, you know, if he'd stayed, he'd have been a fairly frequent scapegoat.

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Re: Squad for 2020/21

by Zip » 03 Aug 2020 22:56

If we are looking at an £18 million salary cap then how can we justify keeping Moore whose wages will eat up about 10% of that cap? He still has three years on his contract too.

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Re: Squad for 2020/21

by URZZZZ » 04 Aug 2020 01:06

muirinho
NewCorkSeth Would have been interesting to hear BT's thoughts on Cooper who was apparently not wanted by the club. Been a quality player.

Honestly, listening to the podcast, I got the feeling he was desperate to appear that he knew how good the academy lads were but I just had a feeling he wrote a fair few if them off.


I think he was keen on the kind of players that fitted into the Dutch philosophy, and less keen on ones, like Cooper, that didn't. It might not have helped Cooper, but I think without Gourlay, more of the academy lads would have had a better chance. Whether they would have been the right choices out of the academy is of course a different question.

I'm still in two minds about Cooper, I bet, you know, if he'd stayed, he'd have been a fairly frequent scapegoat.


He’d just come off the back of a poor finish to the season (2015/16) where he was making mistake after mistake, costing us plenty of goals and the chance to get to the FA Cup Semi final by giving away a penalty and getting sent off

So I agree that if he’d stayed into the next season, he would have come into it under pressure to perform and a likely scapegoat. It’s why I rarely understand the “we shouldn’t have sold him, look how he’s doing now” argument because the majority of the time, they wouldn’t have developed at the same rate here


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Re: Squad for 2020/21

by SouthDownsRoyal » 04 Aug 2020 09:15

muirinho
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What about Rino, Olise, McIntyre and Richards.

Plus Holsgrove seems on the cusp and maybe Southwood too.

:?:

I was just saying, Dickie, Henry, Fosu and evening Kelly would be quite useful right now. These are players we could have brought on and be on less wages than the players we brought in. You can add Stacey to that list and Barrett and Howe we could almost make a full first team of youth players we released and should have persevered with.

They would also probably beet our current team on a quarter of the wages.

I know the academy does bring players to the first team but this lot were lost without a fee and Are now better than what we have.


Takes all sorts of course, but I think this absolutely the wrong way to go.

We let James Henry go 10 years ago. In that time we've been Championship winners, we've played in the Premier League,. we've been to the FA Cup semi-final. How long were we supposed to hang on to him? He's a decent pro, but he is certainly not better than all of the midfielders we've been playing in the meantime. And he wouldn't even be at the level he got to, without all the gametime he had, that he would not have got, if he'd stayed with us.

Dickie hasn't played in the Championship at all.
Fosu has only managed to get 2 starts this year in the Championship - a full 3 years after leaving us.

Jack Stacey needed 4 seasons in League 2 to get where he is now.

You're talking about hanging onto players that weren't good enough at the time for the Championship - and either playing them instead of Championship-level players, thereby getting us relegated - or destroying their careers by not playing them, but not allowing them go somewhere else to build a career.

Keeping that many players on the books, in case they do well, but with zero regard to the players themselves, is the kind of horrific shit that Chelsea do. How many of their ridiculous stockpile of young players would actually have decent careers by now, if they'd been let go by Chelsea, instead of being financially hand-cuffed to the club? How many years of Michael Hector's career has he wasted by signing for them?

Nah, oxf*rd that.

It's not just the morality of it - we're never going to have the prestige of a big academy. We get and keep aspiring players on the basis that we'll train them well, and we'll treat them right, and if they work hard, and stay healthy, they can be professional footballers. Treating young players like cash cows instead, is not going to win us any friends, and may not get us much cash either.

Yes, we'll occasionally lose out on good players, but the vast majority of players we release, they build respectable careers for themselves at a lower level, or work through years of that lower level just to get to the level we need - or they drop out completely.

Very few of our ex-Academy lads show us up by being way better than the players we bought instead.


True. It’s would be great to live in a world where we bring through plenty of talent they become first team regulars and that’s the basis of our team but we don’t, how long do you stick with an academy player just in case they become good? Or as you say keep them on the books, hardly play them and hinder their development and future.

There comes a time where the club has to decide whether they are going to give a player that first team regular football or release the player, as hard as it is.

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Re: Squad for 2020/21

by Hound » 04 Aug 2020 09:34

URZZZZ
muirinho
NewCorkSeth Would have been interesting to hear BT's thoughts on Cooper who was apparently not wanted by the club. Been a quality player.

Honestly, listening to the podcast, I got the feeling he was desperate to appear that he knew how good the academy lads were but I just had a feeling he wrote a fair few if them off.


I think he was keen on the kind of players that fitted into the Dutch philosophy, and less keen on ones, like Cooper, that didn't. It might not have helped Cooper, but I think without Gourlay, more of the academy lads would have had a better chance. Whether they would have been the right choices out of the academy is of course a different question.

I'm still in two minds about Cooper, I bet, you know, if he'd stayed, he'd have been a fairly frequent scapegoat.


He’d just come off the back of a poor finish to the season (2015/16) where he was making mistake after mistake, costing us plenty of goals and the chance to get to the FA Cup Semi final by giving away a penalty and getting sent off

So I agree that if he’d stayed into the next season, he would have come into it under pressure to perform and a likely scapegoat. It’s why I rarely understand the “we shouldn’t have sold him, look how he’s doing now” argument because the majority of the time, they wouldn’t have developed at the same rate here


Cooper was clearly a good player though. You'd expect the mistakes to improve over time with the correct coaching and guidance. Definitely one who I thought we should have invested more time and effort in

Trying to remember the timelines, but I think we loaned him to Millwall, where he did well and then they picked him up on the relative cheap when they went up. We really should have had a better look at him after that loan

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Re: Squad for 2020/21

by NewCorkSeth » 04 Aug 2020 10:37

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I think he was keen on the kind of players that fitted into the Dutch philosophy, and less keen on ones, like Cooper, that didn't. It might not have helped Cooper, but I think without Gourlay, more of the academy lads would have had a better chance. Whether they would have been the right choices out of the academy is of course a different question.

I'm still in two minds about Cooper, I bet, you know, if he'd stayed, he'd have been a fairly frequent scapegoat.


He’d just come off the back of a poor finish to the season (2015/16) where he was making mistake after mistake, costing us plenty of goals and the chance to get to the FA Cup Semi final by giving away a penalty and getting sent off

So I agree that if he’d stayed into the next season, he would have come into it under pressure to perform and a likely scapegoat. It’s why I rarely understand the “we shouldn’t have sold him, look how he’s doing now” argument because the majority of the time, they wouldn’t have developed at the same rate here


Cooper was clearly a good player though. You'd expect the mistakes to improve over time with the correct coaching and guidance. Definitely one who I thought we should have invested more time and effort in

Trying to remember the timelines, but I think we loaned him to Millwall, where he did well and then they picked him up on the relative cheap when they went up. We really should have had a better look at him after that loan

He made some mistakes but people on here act like he dropped a clanger every game. He made mistakes with the same frequency as most young centre backs.

Someone will arrive shortly to say he looked out of control of his body and slow. He didnt. He looked fine. And as you say, mistakes get ironed out.

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Re: Squad for 2020/21

by NewCorkSeth » 04 Aug 2020 10:38

muirinho
NewCorkSeth Would have been interesting to hear BT's thoughts on Cooper who was apparently not wanted by the club. Been a quality player.

Honestly, listening to the podcast, I got the feeling he was desperate to appear that he knew how good the academy lads were but I just had a feeling he wrote a fair few if them off.


I think he was keen on the kind of players that fitted into the Dutch philosophy, and less keen on ones, like Cooper, that didn't. It might not have helped Cooper, but I think without Gourlay, more of the academy lads would have had a better chance. Whether they would have been the right choices out of the academy is of course a different question.

I'm still in two minds about Cooper, I bet, you know, if he'd stayed, he'd have been a fairly frequent scapegoat.

thats a fair point. The philosophy was more important to them. I just wonder if managers ever look at players they wrote off who are doing well and think "shit, how didn't I see that?"

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Re: Squad for 2020/21

by Snowflake Royal » 04 Aug 2020 10:59

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He’d just come off the back of a poor finish to the season (2015/16) where he was making mistake after mistake, costing us plenty of goals and the chance to get to the FA Cup Semi final by giving away a penalty and getting sent off

So I agree that if he’d stayed into the next season, he would have come into it under pressure to perform and a likely scapegoat. It’s why I rarely understand the “we shouldn’t have sold him, look how he’s doing now” argument because the majority of the time, they wouldn’t have developed at the same rate here


Cooper was clearly a good player though. You'd expect the mistakes to improve over time with the correct coaching and guidance. Definitely one who I thought we should have invested more time and effort in

Trying to remember the timelines, but I think we loaned him to Millwall, where he did well and then they picked him up on the relative cheap when they went up. We really should have had a better look at him after that loan

He made some mistakes but people on here act like he dropped a clanger every game. He made mistakes with the same frequency as most young centre backs.

Someone will arrive shortly to say he looked out of control of his body and slow. He didnt. He looked fine. And as you say, mistakes get ironed out.

Compare him to McIntyre, he certainly made more, over a longer period playing, with more experience.

Think he was worth keeping as back up, but that's all he'd have been and it would have harmed his progression and career.

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Re: Squad for 2020/21

by NewCorkSeth » 04 Aug 2020 11:02

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Cooper was clearly a good player though. You'd expect the mistakes to improve over time with the correct coaching and guidance. Definitely one who I thought we should have invested more time and effort in

Trying to remember the timelines, but I think we loaned him to Millwall, where he did well and then they picked him up on the relative cheap when they went up. We really should have had a better look at him after that loan

He made some mistakes but people on here act like he dropped a clanger every game. He made mistakes with the same frequency as most young centre backs.

Someone will arrive shortly to say he looked out of control of his body and slow. He didnt. He looked fine. And as you say, mistakes get ironed out.

Compare him to McIntyre, he certainly made more, over a longer period playing, with more experience.

Think he was worth keeping as back up, but that's all he'd have been and it would have harmed his progression and career.

Not overly fair considering Cooper played over 800 minutes in his first season and McIntyre has only played that amount in 2.

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Re: Squad for 2020/21

by Simon's Church » 04 Aug 2020 11:24

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NewCorkSeth He made some mistakes but people on here act like he dropped a clanger every game. He made mistakes with the same frequency as most young centre backs.

Someone will arrive shortly to say he looked out of control of his body and slow. He didnt. He looked fine. And as you say, mistakes get ironed out.

Compare him to McIntyre, he certainly made more, over a longer period playing, with more experience.

Think he was worth keeping as back up, but that's all he'd have been and it would have harmed his progression and career.

Not overly fair considering Cooper played over 800 minutes in his first season and McIntyre has only played that amount in 2.

Pretty sure Cooper was already out on loan at Millwall by the time he was Mcintyre's age. His issue was probably coming into the team too young, so by the time he was 21 people had already made up their minds he was error prone.

Mcintyre has only had 2 very short runs in the team and finished them both with fairly poor performances, he's probably at a similar level right now to where Cooper was.

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