KaKa

A Brazilian reporter has said that a scout of ours has been at Sao Paulo games and that we are targeting Pablo Maia, who has drawn comparisons to Cassemiro. A £13 million fee is reportedly what Sau Paulo are looking for.

Looks like a tenacious DM with a great shot and a nice passing range.

14 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

That's true. Someone will get it right. Man Utd under SAF didn't always have the most talented youngsters but they put them in to fight and run hard and many of them did a good job for some time. Your Welbeck's, Evans, O'Shea.. not world beaters but good players, hard working. That seems to have disappeared. Obviously, Wenger loved a youth product. He sold Sylvinho to create a pathway for Cole. That rarely happens these days.

 

Thinking about it. Fergie and Wenger didn't miss a beat with youth products. If anything they would give youth products too many chances. Fergie even gave Tom Cleverley decent minutes man. Different era I guess, different culture.

 

FFP encourages clubs to sell youth products as well which isn't good.

 

 

 

Really good point on Fergie. Always respected how much of a chance he gave a lot of those guys.

1 hour ago, The College Dropout said:

Only 1 of these is a first-team regular. And he's not in the first team right now.

 

I've never even seen Charles play.

 

Longstaff probably has more minutes than them all combined - including Foden.

How's that worked for City in terms of getting youngsters meaningful minutes?

 

 

It's more about the club culture than anything and investment. Arsenal only started playing youngsters in the league when the club fell out of the top 4 and they kept buying duds. They brought in Willian & Pepe for serious money to play in Martinelli and Saka's current positions. They will likely sell Balogun (scored the most goals of any player 21 & Under in a top 5 European league) & Nketiah this season to fund another striker purchase. That's just how it is at the top of the game.

 

Liverpool have only given minutes to young midfielders due to a lack of investment according to their fans. It might end up paying off with Jones & the Spanish lad. But they didn't intend for there to be this pathway and it probably cost them a CL place.

 

Clubs like Villa are perfectly placed to take advantage of a top academy and young signings. ATM at least. 

 

It is what it is.

Yeah, it's interesting. Going to be fascinating to see how it plays out.

No one's really quite got it right with youngsters really coming through at a high level like you say.

But there's always a first for everything. If we manage it somehow it would be pretty impressive.

1 hour ago, The College Dropout said:

Yeh it is. But it's not so much fun as a fan.

 

Aye. If all goes to plan, we'll end up more Chelsea/City than Brighton. Young prospects just becoming an FFP vehicle. Loads of loans.

 

It's just a new reality as a fan. I follow Real Madrid. A lot of youngsters have been given chances and kicked on in recent years. But you understand a good amount of wonderkid-type signings will barely play for Real. Even borderline or undoubtedly world-class players like Odegaard or Hakimi. Hakimi in particular I didn't understand, he's Madrid born and raised, joined Real at 8.

 

As the club grows, it will lose that bit of personal connection. Probably suits our fanbase, our academy and young signings love to celebrate against us anyway and the fans are mean to them too.

 

 

 

It's really all about the type of manager you have really, and how committed they are to bringing young players through.

Arteta's turn around at Arsenal really picked up when he turned to the youngsters more.

It's definitely doable. Just need the right man in charge. Can see Eddie taking it seriously and pulling it off.

2 hours ago, sushimonster85 said:

 

Yep. It's all well and good talking about trying to emulate Brighton, but you imagine the path to our first team compared to theirs is going to be blocked by higher level players. 

We're going to be signing higher rated young prospects too don't forget, and I'm pretty certain, there will be a great emphasis on creating a pathway for them to come through. A lot of clubs are just lazy about this.

Eljif Elmas is apparently on our list. Pretty versatile attacking midfielder/central midfielder from Napoli. 

Seen Romano talk about him with his agent, in relation to both Liverpool and ourselves.

31 minutes ago, Dokko said:

 

The answer is yes...but you can't loan him out. You'll need a full 3 years so at 18 he needs to stay put. Same for kuol...we won't be able to loan him out again if we want him as HG.

Don't think that's how it works. Loaning them out doesn't negate HG status I don't think.

1 hour ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

Hard to get too excited about people who are jut coming in to go out on loan, but it is exciting to know we're working on a plan for the future and actually looking to bring promising young players in. 

Pretty exciting when you look across at Brighton and see the types of youngsters coming through.

Lamela and Gil picking up this trophy after Spurs got swindled for both by Sevilla is pretty funny.

4 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

That was terrible but I'm looking forward to blawwin babboos in the Vanarama final next week. Always like to see a Serie A victor but it would be canny if Moyesy got his hands on a pot.

That Fiorentina team has a number of really dangerous players. Can't see West Ham pulling it off.

The two Roma players that missed were both centre halves right?

Would always send all my better players first, unless maybe they are both supposed to be good penalty takers perhaps.

17 minutes ago, ponsaelius said:

You can see why Abraham has 8 league goals and Belotti 0. I'm amazed any striker even gets chances to score for Roma.

Watched them a fair few times. Would never go anywhere near his club as a striker. Absolutely Terrible football. Despite having a number of good players that should produce better.

Just now, SUPERTOON said:

And your post now ?

Nope. I'm talking about the people that are talking about him! 

1 minute ago, ElDiablo said:

 

This is what I need to be reading upon entering this thread. Not the potential merits of McTominay.

The only people that ever post stuff about McTominay and talk about McTominay are the people that apparently can't stand the idea of signing him.

Make it make sense?

1 hour ago, ponsaelius said:

 

He absolutely screams Brentford with Toney's injury.

Not a bad shout actually. Would be a great pick up for them while Toney is out.

8 minutes ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

Selling a third choice role to a new signing is tricky, unless they’re really young or old. 

Yeah, this is true. Would be great if he was up for it though. His 24 goals and 13 assists across all comps this season was very impressive.

22 minutes ago, SUPERTOON said:

I’d imagine any striker we sign this summer would be one that can play across the front 3, not sure if Gyokeres fits that mould ?

Think we need another legit striker option, because just Isak and Wilson could get tricky, due to Wilson's propensity to miss games through injury.

Our current wide options are ASM, Gordon, Almiron, Murphy and Isak can feature in those positions too if needed. Think we just need another higher end right side option to compete with Miggy.

Gyokeres has been the focal point for Coventry and so have only seen him play up top, but reading some scout reports, he can apparently do a job wide left too.

1 minute ago, Dr Jinx said:

Why is my newsnow feed filled with stories about the dippers being in talks for Bruno.. i mean i know it's bullshit, but is it just a campaign to try and unsettle him? Or agent hijinks to get a better contract?

 

It's contract time and so I think his agent is putting his name out there to apply pressure.

9 minutes ago, SUPERTOON said:

Think Cucerella is expected to be sold this summer 

Wow! They're going to take a heck of a loss on him if so. Imagine his wages would be high too. 

Just seen an article that says we had one of our scouts Mick Tait at the Coventry vs Luton game to scout Viktor Gyokeres.

What's really interesting, that I didn't realise, is that he was actually brought to the UK by Brighton under Ashworth at 18 years old, and they were the ones that sold him to Coventry.

Last twist is that he featured internationally for Sweden last year and played alongside Isak, who spoke well of him after the game and enjoyed playing with him.

Maybe one to keep an eye on, as a fairly priced third striker option with some upside to eventually take Wilson's place longer term, that will be happy to be part of the rotation in the meantime, as Wilson's fitness is unreliable.

2 minutes ago, McCormick said:

Not just in England as well but around the world there’s this idea that England produces overrated players. I disagree; I watch a lot of world football and England are top 3/4 imo for producing talent in numbers.

If Chelsea never get that transfer ban, we probably never see the likes of Fikayo Tomori, Reece James and Mason Mount come through like they did, or even Tammy Abraham who had a really good season that year too.

Watching their last few games, I think they have another gem on their hands in Lewis Hall at left back, but he's already got Cucurella and Chilwell ahead of him. I'd 100% be looking to snatch him up.

1 minute ago, Geogaddi said:

We shouldn't be buying players like Gallagher and McTominay that aren't good enough for Chelsea and Man United, if they aren't good enough for them then they aren't good enough for us.

I'm not necessarily saying we should be buying these players, but I think we give these clubs way too much credit sometimes. I don't think a lot of them manage their players very well, and so a lot of talent slips through the cracks.

Just now, The College Dropout said:

Most people here under-rated Nick Pope too. A lot of "he's no better than Dubs" when he's streaks ahead.

Yes indeed. He was another one.

I also noticed whenever we get linked with these players, there'll usually be someone mentioning Howe's Brexit Mags or something similarly strange.

1 minute ago, KaKa said:

 

 Just very quickly off the top of my head ... Gallagher, Mount, Rice, Grealish, Ramsdale, Pickford have all typically got a hard time on here.

 

I mean these are all at the very least somewhere between solid to really good players. I just don't get it.

Ward Prowse too!

3 minutes ago, McCormick said:

Not sure it’s about nationality; I’ve seen posters dismiss very good non-British players that play in the PL as well.

 

Imo it’s got a lot to do with people scouting foreign-league players on YouTube, where their best hits are being shown on a highlight reel- whereas they’ve seen PL players playing all the time, warts and all, so their familiarity and knowledge of their weaknesses make them less appealing. People want shiny new things.

 

If we didn’t already have him and he was still in Ligue 1 offering similar performances as he is here, people would probably be absolutely frothing over the idea of signing Saint Maximin. Yet many are very happy to sell him (rightly or wrongly).

 

 

 

Yeah, fair point. Maybe it's just a Premier League familiarity thing.