Squad Ages

[Snowball]

Recent discussion of the age/maturity of Evans/Kelly/Swift got me
to look at the ages of our first-team squad.

It strikes me that with so many youngsters, perhaps Stam is not really
going all-out for promotion this season (maybe not next!) but is trying to
grow a team, getting it to gel and then mature together.

Should we not go up this year, we could easily lose Kermie, Quinn,
McCleary, VDB and maybe McShane in the summer of 2018


17.0 Loader 16.11 (d:o:b 28-Aug 2000)
18.1 Frost
19.0 East
19.2 Barrett
19.5 Smith
19.6 Richards
19.7 Andresson
20.4 Rinomhota
20.5 Watson

"First 11"

21.3 Clement
21.9 Kelly
22.2 Swift
22.8 Evans

23.4 Blackett
23.5 Harriott
23.8 Obita

24.6 Moore
24.6 Ilori
25.0 Barrow 24.11
25.3 Bodvarsson

26.5 Mendes
28.1 Gunter
29.1 Popa
29.5 Mannone
29.8 Beerens

30.3 McCleary
31.4 Quinn
31.6 VDB
31.7 McShane
35.9 Kermogant

[Hound]

Yeah there is definitely something in that. Buying up young players and giving them long contracts

Nice to see we are not looking short term

[icelandboy]

Loader is not 19 he recently turned 17 on the Holland tour

[Sanguine]

Good to see. With Obita back, we could feel 7 of our back 8 being under 25.

[Snowball]

Loader is not 19 he recently turned 17 on the Holland tour

My error, but, He is 17 on August 28th according to the club

https://www.readingfc.co.uk/teams/first ... ny-loader/

[maffff]

Loader is not 19 he recently turned 17 on the Holland tour

My error, but, He is 17 on August 28th according to the club

https://www.readingfc.co.uk/teams/first ... ny-loader/

Correct. He's 16 for another 13 days.

[Snowflake Royal]

With the general job term expectancy of a manager competing with that of the life expectancy of an urban fox (14 months) I doubt Stam is doing anything other than going all out for promotion withing the resources he has. Tevreden and the board will hopefully managing those resources and ensuring any short term plan from Stam is also future proofed to have some continuity into his inevitable replacement's tenure.