Youth team development: Page 20 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Youth team development

goon

He looked good for most of it to be fair. I didn’t see the sending off so can’t comment.

Not sure how much I want to see Cottrel in the first team after this game, kid was barely moving and then playing passes back to the defence when he did get the ball. Disappointing.

lorddulaarsenal

Yeah him and Patino are meh

lorddulaarsenal

Smith looks decent mind

Claudius

The kids with the talent to do it (injuries aside)

Saka
Martinelli
ESR
Azeez

(Balogun)
The rest can either be sold or be useful utility players. Obviously, Saliba report card is incomplete. At some point we need to start making tough choices to clear a path for some of these guys. We ducked up by having Bellerin/Cedric/AMN. We can’t block other high potential kids like that

HomeSteak

Arteta on Balogun: "He said to me he wants to stay at the club so hopefully we can reach an agreement and extend his contract."

Ray

Arteta using the same tactic he used on Auba. Publicly stating he wants to stay.

goon

Claudius wrote:
The kids with the talent to do it (injuries aside)

Saka
Martinelli
ESR
Azeez

(Balogun)
The rest can either be sold or be useful utility players. Obviously, Saliba report card is incomplete. At some point we need to start making tough choices to clear a path for some of these guys. We ducked up by having Bellerin/Cedric/AMN. We can’t block other high potential kids like that

I don't think the players here pose much of an obstacle for these guys. The likes of Auba, Willian and Laca will be gone within 2.5 years if not sooner. Similar story in midfield.

The bigger issue will be signings. If you think Balogun is the real deal do you sign another young striker? How many No.10s/AM and or wingers can you afford sign without significantly impacting Saka, Martinelli, ESR mins? That's not even counting Nelson and Willock.

Personally I'd sign a top CM to partner Partey (can Aouar play deeper in a 2?) and a CAM by the end of next summer, but that's it for the top half of the field.

Claudius

I think the players pose a massive obstacle. We have all these senior players in the squad. They need to be played. Just the Cedric / Bellerin / AM situation is a good example. Every minute Bellerin is resting should be going to AMN.

As for signings, I would consider embargoing signings for rest of this season. Agree with you with you that we should make an exception to sign a starting partner for Partey. And for me that needs to be someone relatively young but experienced - so you're talking Castrovilli, Locatelli, Phillips. Elsewhere, we need to give these guys time so we can make some real evaluations on them at the end of the season. We need to get to the point where we can make decisions on some of the older guys like AMN, Willock, Nketiah. Important on Nketiah because it has real implications on available time for Martinelli and Balogun. And playing time should also boost values

goon

Claudius wrote:
I think the players pose a massive obstacle. We have all these senior players in the squad. They need to be played.

Auba, Laca, Willian and Pepe are literally the only players we have in the front 4 that are not babies, and Laca will probably go. That leaves 4-5 spots for the kids to compete with them for mins. In 2.5 years when 3 are gone, the likes of Saka and Martinelli will be 21. It's really not an issue, you can't have a front line consisting entirely of teenagers and if there's too many kids loan a couple out in the summer or even in Jan, Eddie and Willock if I could choose.

The full back situation is obviously retarded but if Kola left in the summer like he was supposed to it wouldn't have been an issue either. Ainsley looked perfectly at home on the left.

banduan

I'm hoping TJJ and Balogun both stay on, I like them much more than Eddie. I do like the latter's hustle tho.

mentalvortex

TJJ apparently had another great game in a win for Doncaster.

Assisted their winner and could himself have scored another couple of goals.

Coombs

Arsenal do love a player who could've scored.

Sicario

Rumours on Twitter (le grove et al) saying we haven’t agreed to extending Balogun’s contract and he’s off to Liverpool.

I would be livid if this is true.

goon

Hopefully it's just his agent playing games, trying to up the ante, he's supposed to be a tough negotiator.

Why would he go to Liverpool though? So he can be sold to Fulham for £25m in 2 years?

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

They never properly replaced Heskey.

kamikaze

We're wasting our time with Nketiah and Nelson. Nketiah just isn't good enough (though no one can fault his attitude) and Nelson has no end product.

At good teams, someone like ESR would be out on loan until he shows he's hot shit by lighting up the Bundesliga or wherever he's at. So far, he's shown nothing to suggest he could produce 10 goals and 10 assists for us in the league, which should be the expectation. Btw, we seem to have a lot of issues arranging loans that work.

Balogun we should keep and slowly integrate into the first team.

Our scouting in general is poor, compared to teams like Leicester, Dortmund, etc. Even if some of the moves are obvious, it's other teams that make them and not us.

Claudius

All of those guys not named Nketiah should be going on a good loan in January if Arteta stays. To places like Burnley and Berlin. We are throwing away their careers. I don’t think Nketiah is the best of the lot but he’s the best integrated and deserves to be given stability and the chance to finish the season and prove himself properly.

invisibleman18

goon wrote:
Hopefully it's just his agent playing games, trying to up the ante, he's supposed to be a tough negotiator.

Why would he go to Liverpool though? So he can be sold to Fulham for £25m in 2 years?

Why would he (or anyone) stay if they have the options like Liverpool available to them?

flobaba

Claudius wrote:
All of those guys not named Nketiah should be going on a good loan in January if Arteta stays. To places like Burnley and Berlin. We are throwing away their careers. I don’t think Nketiah is the best of the lot but he’s the best integrated and deserves to be given stability and the chance to finish the season and prove himself properly.

Mr Fail fast. The ONLY reason not to discard of, or send Nketiah off on loan right now is because we don’t have any other options in the cf department. Depending on how good Martinelli looks upon return, we can keep him and give him Europa starts / make him the number 4 option behind Auba, Laca, Marti. Should be struggling with Balogun for scraps that fall off the table.

Claudius

Yup. Marti is a wildcard. He's a bonus if he heals quickly enough, otherwise we need to listen to his body and not recklessly push him onto the field as we did Partey.

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