Youth team development: Page 2 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Youth team development

Meatwad

Claudius wrote:
Make it 15. Must be worth their while to develop the player. They’re a proper well organized outfit with a good system in place.

Also remember that Brentford are one of the first teams to decide to abandon a youth academy after super clubs like Chelsea and City were allowed to suck up every decent young player within a few hours drive of their stadia. It’s horrible what the FA allowed. So Brentford has focused on their first team and u23 to great effect. They probably see an enormous payday in Balogun

15 then. he could turn into a real player and i would hate to see us miss out just because we couldn't afford to lose points developing him. let someone else do it. oh and the FA did the right thing, before that european countries could give a shit about young english players. now the germans are raiding because the quality of player development is way up.

Claudius

Meaty, you and Banduan have convinced me that there is benefit to professionalism and scale in the academies.

I think where it becomes problematic is in the senior squads, where these rich teams are still hoarding players and holding onto 100 man squads. Maybe there should be a limit there. It's another tool for continued wealth disparity because they hoard assets at senior level.

banduan

the "loan army" is definitely a problem that needs fixing, but I'm not sure what the fix could be. I'm pretty sure just banning clubs from having too many players on their books will be sidestepped just the way FFP is.

Meatwad

only allow a max of one loan season for young players before you have to transfer them to another club (for a fee, sell-on clauses, buyback clauses, whatever).

Claudius

The future is now, ladies and gentlemen

Sicario

Why are they training today or is that an old pic

Klaus

HomeSteak wrote:

Arsenal are demanding at least £8m for Brentford target Folarin Balogun.

The Gunners' price is considered high for a 19-year-old striker who has never played a first-team game and can leave for free next summer. [@SkySportsNews]

I wonder what's up with Balogun. If he was as good as his highlight reel suggests he would surely have gotten a few first team appearances by now, or at least been included on the bench.

Not that it's conclusive proof of anything (and there are obvious counterexamples like Bennacer and Malen) but Chris Willock, Bielik and Xavier Amaechi were similarly sold without playing for the first team, fans were raging based on nothing but their reputation, and none of them have done much of note since then.

goon

I had the same suspicions, I’ve never heard a huge amount of hype around him either outside the fan base.

Aside from that you just have to accept that these kids will have agents in their ears telling them all the places they could go on bigger deals with more first team chances than they’d get here and not all will decide that they’re best served by staying. I just hope we can keep the very best.

HomeSteak

Matt Smith will also go out on loan. Intereseting to see, pre-season starts on August 14 for some players. But a lot of them were still in training this week as we saw in pics and clips posted by the club. No break then? Or will the large majority of the squad come back later?

Klaus

I think the first teamers who saw out the season were given two weeks off after the cup, but the covid break accounts for most of the rest players will get this year until the winter break arrives. Next season starts in just five weeks.

speedy

Klaus wrote:
I think the first teamers who saw out the season were given two weeks off after the cup, but the covid break accounts for most of the rest players will get this year until the winter break arrives. Next season starts in just five weeks.

the Covid break was far longer than they ussually get but we've hammered them since but so has every club. We've fattened the team with mari and Cedric, and hopefully we sell douzi for someone we can play and torreira for someone more useful and we've a pretty decent squad size then. Europa league means we can keep players like ESR here and give them regular games.

goon

Glad to see ESR is staying. I think another loan at this stage wouldn't have reflected well on what Arteta things of him.

MistaT

I think without Europa a loan would have made sense. He needs to play, and will hopefully get some minutes in Europa and our FA/Carling Cup games.

Still think he's special, I'm really excited to see what he can add to our midfield.

Klaus

goon wrote:
I had the same suspicions, I’ve never heard a huge amount of hype around him either outside the fan base.

Missed this earlier, but yeah, same. Looking back I also think it was telling that when Emery asked Freddie about a young forward to bring with him in preseason Freddie picked John-Jules and not Balogun.

Maybe John-Jules was just further ahead in his development, but I have a suspicion that he will prove to be a bigger talent than Balogun in the long run. He seems more technical and flexible, equally at ease through the midle or on a flank.

Jed

Good to see ESR is in an Arteta's plans. Sad to know that Willian will be taking all his minutes.

speedy

Jed wrote:
Good to see ESR is in an Arteta's plans. Sad to know that Willian will be taking all his minutes.

Willian can't take everyone's minutes. He's just one player and theirs a lot of comps.

Claudius

Lol at Willian taking ESR’s minutes. Are they even playing the same position? Is Willian going to play in the frontline and midfield at the same time just to spite our kids?

goon

I hope the plan isn't for ESR to play wide, he's a CAM if I've ever seen one. Both he and Willock should be the competition/cover for a three man midfield.

Doc

Is his future really as a CAM? from what I have seen (admittedly not a huge amount) he can dribble.. Nothing else really stands out.

goon

He's good in tight spaces. That's about 70% of what playing higher up in midfield is about.

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