- Mar 7, 2005
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When we talk about our youth players; how many have we seen up against top class PL opposition? Say against a team of top four type players?
When Poch and the team assess whether a player is ready they get them to train with the first team squad, in that way they get to see how they perform against much better players, and importantly teams, than they face week in, week out in the youth leagues. On the basis of how they do in this environment they either get promoted to the first team squad or not.
When a player like Lesniak doesn't get promoted we can choose to believe it is because he's just been ignored because the coaches are blind to his qualities or stuck in a conservative rut, or we can choose to believe it's because the coaches assess that he's not ready having seen him up close.
If we think the former, as I did with Redknapp, we have to consider the coach's track record of promoting youth, of going with the callow over the million dollar signing.
It seems to me that last season we had the youngest squad in the PL by some margin. We probably had all ten of the ten youngest matchday 11s to play last season. We saw him unafraid to leave experience on the bench in favour of the younger guy. We saw him give players a try based on what they were doing in training rather than reputation, and so we got players like Dier and Deli Alli performing in the match-day squad. Then we can look at what he did at Southampton, how many youth players he promoted to his squad, and how they did once they got in. And also his record at Espanyol. Poch is a coach who is not afraid to give youth a go if he thinks they're up to it.
If the coach didn't have such a track record then by all means tear your hair out.
What I really don't think we should be doing however is having a dogmatic opinion of youth players playing in youth teams, based on what we've seen in the odd streamed match against other youth teams. We should surely admit the limit of the conclusions we're able to draw from such scanty evidence and decide to trust the coaches.
When Poch and the team assess whether a player is ready they get them to train with the first team squad, in that way they get to see how they perform against much better players, and importantly teams, than they face week in, week out in the youth leagues. On the basis of how they do in this environment they either get promoted to the first team squad or not.
When a player like Lesniak doesn't get promoted we can choose to believe it is because he's just been ignored because the coaches are blind to his qualities or stuck in a conservative rut, or we can choose to believe it's because the coaches assess that he's not ready having seen him up close.
If we think the former, as I did with Redknapp, we have to consider the coach's track record of promoting youth, of going with the callow over the million dollar signing.
It seems to me that last season we had the youngest squad in the PL by some margin. We probably had all ten of the ten youngest matchday 11s to play last season. We saw him unafraid to leave experience on the bench in favour of the younger guy. We saw him give players a try based on what they were doing in training rather than reputation, and so we got players like Dier and Deli Alli performing in the match-day squad. Then we can look at what he did at Southampton, how many youth players he promoted to his squad, and how they did once they got in. And also his record at Espanyol. Poch is a coach who is not afraid to give youth a go if he thinks they're up to it.
If the coach didn't have such a track record then by all means tear your hair out.
What I really don't think we should be doing however is having a dogmatic opinion of youth players playing in youth teams, based on what we've seen in the odd streamed match against other youth teams. We should surely admit the limit of the conclusions we're able to draw from such scanty evidence and decide to trust the coaches.