Think football is slowly moving to an era where having 15-16 year olds in squad will be a norm.
Atleast in lesser leagues like in Norway/Poland/Sweden etc.
Basically create a hype & hopefully one of them gets them 10-15m for what would be effectively 4,5 years of football education expense. See Odegaard.
What has happened to Oliver Torres?
Porto bought him in August. Atleti have never trusted in him.
16-years old making their professional debut is not that scarce though. Wijnaldum, Seedorf, Wilshere, Fabregas, Walcott, Fer, Rooney, Coman (?), Alli etc. I think small clubs have to do something to keep talents btw otherwise they will be poached away by bigger clubs with big money offers. One solution could be providing them with a taste of first team football earlier.
Spainās rejects always end up in Portugal :wilshere:
I thought he was loaned out again, but with an option to buy for a fixed price.
First half hat-trick for Andre Silva against the mighty Faroe Islands.
Piling up young talent is just a part of the process and it is completely useless if then teams donāt give chances for these young prospects to prove their abilities.
ManCity or Chelsea have proved being great at recruiting talent and have proved being shit at actually giving this talent a chance. Guardiola may change it, but so far, no player appart from Iheanacho has been given regular first team playing time.
In the other hand, Arsenal under Wenger has always given PT to the young prospects. Most of them have been just not good enough (Djourou, Denilson, Miquel, Meridaā¦) but some other have become regular first team players (Bellerin, Coquelin, Iwobi, Ramsey, Gibbs, Wilshere, Cesc, Songā¦).
So, it is not just about collecting names but actually making them play and take the risk of lining up unexperienced players. Most managers donāt take that risk unless the talent is extremely obvious.
No doubt, but your point only reinforces mine, really, those who havenāt been good enough (Denilson, Djourou, Miquel) left huge voids, that persisted for years, in central defence and centre midfieldā¦similar to the void that those who lately havenāt been good enoughāie Hayden, Kris Olsson, Akpom, Sanogo, Afobe, and at CB I canāt even name anyone because we havenāt had a CB prospect of note in the years between Miquel and lately Chambers and, now, a seemingly better one in Holdingāhave left at ST, CM, and CB. So if you have a manager who, we agree, is good at giving youth a chance and giving them a chance to make their breakthrough (which makes the Gnabry situation especially frustrating, but I shanāt say more lest el weoncete that is @TheSpecialCnut lives up to his name ;)), all the more important to supply him, or that he supplies himself (as itās more a case of the latter given our club set-up) with the talent with which to give that chance/breakthrough. Which like I said, simply reinforces my point about how weāve been a bit negligent with this in recent years, and why itās important we not continue to do so, especially at the striker position which is the hardest to acquire on the market, as for all our ability to now fix holes we couldnāt on the market before as we have with Mustafi, Alexis, Ćzil, etc., it really doesnāt matter at the striker position where if you donāt produce a top striker yourself you either have to hope one breaks out with you (which hasnāt happened so far in the case of Giroud, Welbeck, or Lucas), or pay an exorbitant fee if youāre lucky (Juve and HiguaĆn).
Chelseaās Tammy Abraham scored on his England u21 debut today. Got his first ever loan move this season to Bristol City in the Championship and has 8 goals in 11 games (top scorer, 11 in all comps).
Iāve question for you: Iām the only one to rate him as useful player for us?
He represents the most average midfield era in Wengerās management.
We suffered till the arrival of Cazorla.
The most average midfield in Wengerās era was Arteta, Song and Ramsey in 11/12. Luckily we had Rosicky who could add something in the latter stages of that season.
Denilson was made too importantly to quickly in a midfield that was disjointed with a lack of creative players. He was a 5th choice players who had too step up in 08/09 because Wenger thought we didnāt need another midfielder that summer. Untill we needed to break bank for Arshavin.
https://twitter.com/FourFourTwo/status/786166776392482817
Pretty good list but Koziello, Lemar & Ounas (http://statsbomb.com/2016/09/scouting-ligue-1-bordeauxs-adam-ounas/) are major omissions.
His two goals earlier today
Iād say Locatelli at this point. A kid playing like a veteran.
