England's Future Stars - 20 to watch... but only one who really matters

[Ash]

Newcastle has a couple of outstanding young players in Michael Chopra and Richard Offiong

 

I'll see that quote and raise you...

 

"Alan Smith will be our best forward at the next World Cup."

 

 

[ElDiablo]

Taking this on a bit.....................  Who do you think won't make it who's been tipped to?

 

Micah Richards won't be anywhere near the player he's tipped to be.

 

Walcott.

[Guest Heneage]

To be fair to Chelsea though, I mean Mikel and Di Santo were nobodies when they signed, but they both are part of the first team now.

 

?

 

I and no doubt plenty of other football fans knew about Mikel months before he ever touched a ball for Chelsea because of the whole Man Utd thing.

To be honest Mikel was a known player long before Chelsea came in thus why they bought him off Man utd, he'd had number of clubs (Us included) scouting and sniffing at him but Lyn were very strict. Di Santo hmm not so much, he was on the lower levels of talent really.

[sicsfingeredmong]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/nov/13/1

 

 

Fabian Delph 18

 

Leeds United

 

Midfielder

 

Ken Bates laughed off Newcastle United's £1m bid for a dynamic talent currently not only making his mark in League One but who has just broken into Stuart Pearce's England Under-21 squad. Arsenal and Manchester United are also seriously interested, but his value has risen closer to £6m.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one struck a chord, particularly with the club's/Ashley's line of thinking that you can try and attain the pick of the up & coming talent pool for next to nothing ie. Leeds deriding our 1m offer. Bates was well within his right to laugh us off.

 

To pick up such players - and i'll rewind the clock to our purchase of a similarly hyped Jenas, a dynamic & young central midfielder.... whom we payed 5m for - the club has to speculate on their ability/attributes and their scope for development, whilst paying the going rate. No surprise to hear the player mentioned being linked with some big clubs come January, for 5m.

 

The days of picking up the likes of Anelka or their prized assets at around the 18yr old mark, from the relevant youth set-ups for minimal fees for million pounds, a few hundred K's or less are virtually over. Hence Ashley's, and formerly Mort's, viewpoint that we could operate on a Arsenal-based model - which accomplished much, & formed the framework of their success over the course of the ensuing decade & beyond - today's transfer market is an ill-conceived myth. It's just an excuse for penny-pinching on Ashley's part.

 

Arsenal's best work in the transfer market occured about a decade ago, when Wenger virtually got the jump on his British rivals by raiding the French youth set-up at a minimal outlay - Anelka and Viera are the notable examples. Fast forward the clock a decade on, and Arsenal are forking out 10m for Nasri.... the going rate. According to Keegan we looked at the same player. What drew the red flag? The price tag, in comparison to what were prepared to and eventually payed for another French-based U'21 repesentative player in Bassong? 

 

The transfer market's bubble has burst, re- the youth ranks, and this has been so for a few years now, and Ashley never quite caught up with this. Purchases like Bassong - ie. a bargain, with some ability - are a rare thing nowadays.

 

Unfortunately the club's grocery store transfer policy - scouring the lower leagues for bargains - is a departure from the current day transfer market reality where U'21 internationals are concerned/the prices which are duly placed upon their heads, and it may have cost us in picking up a couple of very promising prospects. Unless you attain these kids when they're around the 15yr old mark or earlier, the Arsenal model - in terms of measuring the quality of it's youth ranks (the 18yr old bracket) against it's outlay - is dated.

 

While Ashley remains at the helm our chances of picking up the likes of Delph, or the pick of the U'21/19 crop, are slim. Cheaper prospects like Kadar - ie. 900k - and signing them broadscale as the youth buying policy is just about the club's current direction. It's a riskier & scattershot - abeit cheaper & penny-pinching - youth buying policy.

 

 

 

 

[Guest Heneage]

Simon Jordan hit the nail on the head with Michael Carrick and John Bostock. Bostock should cost around 5m, because he has the potential to play for England, when Man Utd paid 20m nigh on for Carrick, whats bad about 5m for a player with the same potential.

[sicsfingeredmong]

Simon Jordan hit the nail on the head with Michael Carrick and John Bostock. Bostock should cost around 5m, because he has the potential to play for England, when Man Utd paid 20m nigh on for Carrick, whats bad about 5m for a player with the same potential.

 

Nothing wrong with paying the going rate, when speculating on potential. It irks me when clubs such as ours - under Ashley, same applies to Chelsea by picking another of Leeds' prospects no that long ago for 200k - miss the boat when spotting talent prior to the 15yr mark, only to then try & pennypinch by committing daylight robbery in attempting sign them up a couple of years later for a solitary million pounds or less.

 

Same has applied to Arsenal and their respective purchases of Pennant & Walcott, yet there is a bit of a myth that they're building a proverbial footballing empire - where the basis of which has been their youth ranks - for peanuts and that we/Ashley have been duly correct by following the so-called Arsenal route.

[Syrette]

Simon Jordan hit the nail on the head with Michael Carrick and John Bostock. Bostock should cost around 5m, because he has the potential to play for England, when Man Utd paid 20m nigh on for Carrick, whats bad about 5m for a player with the same potential.

 

Nothing wrong with paying the going rate, when speculating on potential. It irks me when clubs such as ours - under Ashley, same applies to Chelsea by picking another of Leeds' prospects no that long ago for 200k - miss the boat when spotting talent prior to the 15yr mark, only to then try & pennypinch by committing daylight robbery in attempting sign them up a couple of years later for a solitary million pounds or less.

 

Same has applied to Arsenal and their respective purchases of Pennant & Walcott, yet there is a bit of a myth that they're building a proverbial footballing empire - where the basis of which has been their youth ranks - for peanuts and that we/Ashley have been duly correct by following the so-called Arsenal route.

 

To be fair how many of these young players such as Delph have we actually gone for and failed to bring in recently?

[Guest Heneage]

Simon Jordan hit the nail on the head with Michael Carrick and John Bostock. Bostock should cost around 5m, because he has the potential to play for England, when Man Utd paid 20m nigh on for Carrick, whats bad about 5m for a player with the same potential.

 

Nothing wrong with paying the going rate, when speculating on potential. It irks me when clubs such as ours - under Ashley, same applies to Chelsea by picking another of Leeds' prospects no that long ago for 200k - miss the boat when spotting talent prior to the 15yr mark, only to then try & pennypinch by committing daylight robbery in attempting sign them up a couple of years later for a solitary million pounds or less.

 

Same has applied to Arsenal and their respective purchases of Pennant & Walcott, yet there is a bit of a myth that they're building a proverbial footballing empire - where the basis of which has been their youth ranks - for peanuts and that we/Ashley have been duly correct by following the so-called Arsenal route.

But you cannot blame the current regime as he was not on the owner when Delph was 15. But I know what you mean. Tbh Bates is and always has been a twat, he'd demand £5m at least for everyone of his players/

[Big Geordie]

Anyone remember how good Ritchie Humphreys was at Sheff Wed?

 

Pools legend though.

 

He was said to be on the verge of greatness, by Marco van Basten, no less.

[Guest Stephen927]

Gowan Dutty son.

[Mike]

Newcastle has a couple of outstanding young players in Michael Chopra and Richard Offiong

 

I'll see that quote and raise you...

 

"Alan Smith will be our best forward at the next World Cup."

 

 

 

Wasn't he?

[Wullie]

Anyone remember how good Ritchie Humphreys was at Sheff Wed?

 

Pools legend though.

 

He was said to be on the verge of greatness, by Marco van Basten, no less.

 

It was actually Cruyff said he was 'the new van Basten'.

[Mick]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/nov/13/1

 

 

Fabian Delph 18

 

Leeds United

 

Midfielder

 

Ken Bates laughed off Newcastle United's £1m bid for a dynamic talent currently not only making his mark in League One but who has just broken into Stuart Pearce's England Under-21 squad. Arsenal and Manchester United are also seriously interested, but his value has risen closer to £6m.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one struck a chord, particularly with the club's/Ashley's line of thinking that you can try and attain the pick of the up & coming talent pool for next to nothing ie. Leeds deriding our 1m offer. Bates was well within his right to laugh us off.

 

To pick up such players - and i'll rewind the clock to our purchase of a similarly hyped Jenas, a dynamic & young central midfielder.... whom we payed 5m for - the club has to speculate on their ability/attributes and their scope for development, whilst paying the going rate. No surprise to hear the player mentioned being linked with some big clubs come January, for 5m.

 

The days of picking up the likes of Anelka or their prized assets at around the 18yr old mark, from the relevant youth set-ups for minimal fees for million pounds, a few hundred K's or less are virtually over. Hence Ashley's, and formerly Mort's, viewpoint that we could operate on a Arsenal-based model - which accomplished much, & formed the framework of their success over the course of the ensuing decade & beyond - today's transfer market is an ill-conceived myth. It's just an excuse for penny-pinching on Ashley's part.

 

Arsenal's best work in the transfer market occured about a decade ago, when Wenger virtually got the jump on his British rivals by raiding the French youth set-up at a minimal outlay - Anelka and Viera are the notable examples. Fast forward the clock a decade on, and Arsenal are forking out 10m for Nasri.... the going rate. According to Keegan we looked at the same player. What drew the red flag? The price tag, in comparison to what were prepared to and eventually payed for another French-based U'21 repesentative player in Bassong? 

 

The transfer market's bubble has burst, re- the youth ranks, and this has been so for a few years now, and Ashley never quite caught up with this. Purchases like Bassong - ie. a bargain, with some ability - are a rare thing nowadays.

 

Unfortunately the club's grocery store transfer policy - scouring the lower leagues for bargains - is a departure from the current day transfer market reality where U'21 internationals are concerned/the prices which are duly placed upon their heads, and it may have cost us in picking up a couple of very promising prospects. Unless you attain these kids when they're around the 15yr old mark or earlier, the Arsenal model - in terms of measuring the quality of it's youth ranks (the 18yr old bracket) against it's outlay - is dated.

 

While Ashley remains at the helm our chances of picking up the likes of Delph, or the pick of the U'21/19 crop, are slim. Cheaper prospects like Kadar - ie. 900k - and signing them broadscale as the youth buying policy is just about the club's current direction. It's a riskier & scattershot - abeit cheaper & penny-pinching - youth buying policy.

 

 

 

 

 

We get mentioned twice yet you pick up on the one we didn't get, you base your post around that and don't mention the one we do get just so you can rip our transfer policy to bits. 

[Astroblack]

I'm wondering where the Indian players are. I used to live in England and I'm Indian and love football to death. At my school there were plenty of Indian kids playing but I haven't seen any at youth level yet. Am I wrong? There are a lot of Indian cricet players in England but I haven't seen any apart from Chopra(and he's half and half... my favorite... Get the reference?)

[Incognito]

I'm wondering where the Indian players are. I used to live in England and I'm Indian and love football to death. At my school there were plenty of Indian kids playing but I haven't seen any at youth level yet. Am I wrong? There are a lot of Indian cricet players in England but I haven't seen any apart from Chopra(and he's half and half... my favorite... Get the reference?)

 

I think that is a great question.

[Guest]

Simon Jordan hit the nail on the head with Michael Carrick and John Bostock. Bostock should cost around 5m, because he has the potential to play for England, when Man Utd paid 20m nigh on for Carrick, whats bad about 5m for a player with the same potential.

 

If they're in additional payments, I'm all for it. For example, £2m initial transfer fee, and then if he's good enough, £1m when he plays a certain number of matches, £1m after so many goals/assists, £2m if he earns an England cup, sell-on clauses, etc.

 

But £5m for a kid who might turn out to be sh*te and not fulfill his potential is a joke.

[Neil]

I'm wondering where the Indian players are. I used to live in England and I'm Indian and love football to death. At my school there were plenty of Indian kids playing but I haven't seen any at youth level yet. Am I wrong? There are a lot of Indian cricet players in England but I haven't seen any apart from Chopra(and he's half and half... my favorite... Get the reference?)

 

I think that is a great question.

 

I think I was discussing this with a friend recently. It's an interesting thought, and I for one can't really explain the lack of young footballers emerging from that area of the world. It's strange.

[madras]

Simon Jordan hit the nail on the head with Michael Carrick and John Bostock. Bostock should cost around 5m, because he has the potential to play for England, when Man Utd paid 20m nigh on for Carrick, whats bad about 5m for a player with the same potential.

 

If they're in additional payments, I'm all for it. For example, £2m initial transfer fee, and then if he's good enough, £1m when he plays a certain number of matches, £1m after so many goals/assists, £2m if he earns an England cup, sell-on clauses, etc.

 

But £5m for a kid who might turn out to be sh*te and not fulfill his potential is a joke.

thats the risk...thats the idea behind a transfer market..winners and losers and all that.

 

 

there should be a set age beyond which is all fair game ie beyond 16 all professional players are the same and open to the biases etc of the market

[Guest optimistic nit]

"The other is James Milner of Leeds, who clearly possesses an unbelievable talent. "

 

 

also this guy was only 11, but imagine this forward line in the 2006 world cup: Forwards: Jeffers, Rooney, Smith, Beattie

 

 

i find it amazing how many names are in the same brachet of terry. Dawson, carlton cole, even malcom fucking christie.

[Guest optimistic nit]

Simon Jordan hit the nail on the head with Michael Carrick and John Bostock. Bostock should cost around 5m, because he has the potential to play for England, when Man Utd paid 20m nigh on for Carrick, whats bad about 5m for a player with the same potential.

 

Nothing wrong with paying the going rate, when speculating on potential. It irks me when clubs such as ours - under Ashley, same applies to Chelsea by picking another of Leeds' prospects no that long ago for 200k - miss the boat when spotting talent prior to the 15yr mark, only to then try & pennypinch by committing daylight robbery in attempting sign them up a couple of years later for a solitary million pounds or less.

 

Same has applied to Arsenal and their respective purchases of Pennant & Walcott, yet there is a bit of a myth that they're building a proverbial footballing empire - where the basis of which has been their youth ranks - for peanuts and that we/Ashley have been duly correct by following the so-called Arsenal route.

 

our problem was nothing to do with trying to be too much like arsenal and everything to do with trying to be too much like spurs.

[sicsfingeredmong]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/nov/13/1

 

 

Fabian Delph 18

 

Leeds United

 

Midfielder

 

Ken Bates laughed off Newcastle United's £1m bid for a dynamic talent currently not only making his mark in League One but who has just broken into Stuart Pearce's England Under-21 squad. Arsenal and Manchester United are also seriously interested, but his value has risen closer to £6m.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one struck a chord, particularly with the club's/Ashley's line of thinking that you can try and attain the pick of the up & coming talent pool for next to nothing ie. Leeds deriding our 1m offer. Bates was well within his right to laugh us off.

 

To pick up such players - and i'll rewind the clock to our purchase of a similarly hyped Jenas, a dynamic & young central midfielder.... whom we payed 5m for - the club has to speculate on their ability/attributes and their scope for development, whilst paying the going rate. No surprise to hear the player mentioned being linked with some big clubs come January, for 5m.

 

The days of picking up the likes of Anelka or their prized assets at around the 18yr old mark, from the relevant youth set-ups for minimal fees for million pounds, a few hundred K's or less are virtually over. Hence Ashley's, and formerly Mort's, viewpoint that we could operate on a Arsenal-based model - which accomplished much, & formed the framework of their success over the course of the ensuing decade & beyond - today's transfer market is an ill-conceived myth. It's just an excuse for penny-pinching on Ashley's part.

 

Arsenal's best work in the transfer market occured about a decade ago, when Wenger virtually got the jump on his British rivals by raiding the French youth set-up at a minimal outlay - Anelka and Viera are the notable examples. Fast forward the clock a decade on, and Arsenal are forking out 10m for Nasri.... the going rate. According to Keegan we looked at the same player. What drew the red flag? The price tag, in comparison to what were prepared to and eventually payed for another French-based U'21 repesentative player in Bassong? 

 

The transfer market's bubble has burst, re- the youth ranks, and this has been so for a few years now, and Ashley never quite caught up with this. Purchases like Bassong - ie. a bargain, with some ability - are a rare thing nowadays.

 

Unfortunately the club's grocery store transfer policy - scouring the lower leagues for bargains - is a departure from the current day transfer market reality where U'21 internationals are concerned/the prices which are duly placed upon their heads, and it may have cost us in picking up a couple of very promising prospects. Unless you attain these kids when they're around the 15yr old mark or earlier, the Arsenal model - in terms of measuring the quality of it's youth ranks (the 18yr old bracket) against it's outlay - is dated.

 

While Ashley remains at the helm our chances of picking up the likes of Delph, or the pick of the U'21/19 crop, are slim. Cheaper prospects like Kadar - ie. 900k - and signing them broadscale as the youth buying policy is just about the club's current direction. It's a riskier & scattershot - abeit cheaper & penny-pinching - youth buying policy.

 

 

 

 

 

We get mentioned twice yet you pick up on the one we didn't get, you base your post around that and don't mention the one we do get just so you can rip our transfer policy to bits. 

 

Let's mention that we acquired a player - in Ranger - who was released by his club for next to nothing when taking into account sign-on fees. Seems to fit the Ashley Criteria for Transfer Targets wherever possible, which has been duly adhered to by his right-hand men in the football front office.

 

Provided that he was still contractually attached to Southhampton at the time - minus his disciplinary record & subsequent release - i don't think we would have signed him. Or more accurately the club probably would not have been prepared to outlay the amount needed to sign those youngsters who are thought to among the top echelon of the youth ranks, which as we've seen already can approach the figure already mentioned.

 

I raise the point of comparison again. Shepherd sanctioned a 5m outlay to sign Jenas, who like Delph was playing beyond his listed U'19 representative level and was attracting similar praise based on potential, league form, and his displays at Youth International level.

 

Yet in the case of Delph, a similarly related player to Jenas both in age and the other factors mentioned above, and under a new regime complete with a grocery store transfer policy we barely muster up a 1m bid. And here you are laughing at my take - which is based on comparative facts - on what has been a penny pinching transfer policy. A policy which compromises the club's ability to travel down the Mort-hyped Arsenal route by signing similarly & highly rated youngsters when a transfer fee - ie the going rate, as per Delph - is involved. Transfer fees which the likes of Spurs - ie. Bostock for an eventual fee of approx 5m - United and Arsenal have little objection paying now.

 

Ashley being the Spreadsheet-orientated owner that he is hasn't accepted a reality which in time even Wenger has been forced to swallow, that is going by Arsenal's subsequent purchases of Walcott and Nasri. That scenario being that you can no longer build an impressive list of youngsters - the type needed to form the 1st team squad's back-bone for a decade or thereabouts - for peanuts by purely assembling a group of kids signed for fees hovering around the 1m mark or less, and free transfers.

 

[sicsfingeredmong]

Simon Jordan hit the nail on the head with Michael Carrick and John Bostock. Bostock should cost around 5m, because he has the potential to play for England, when Man Utd paid 20m nigh on for Carrick, whats bad about 5m for a player with the same potential.

 

Nothing wrong with paying the going rate, when speculating on potential. It irks me when clubs such as ours - under Ashley, same applies to Chelsea by picking another of Leeds' prospects no that long ago for 200k - miss the boat when spotting talent prior to the 15yr mark, only to then try & pennypinch by committing daylight robbery in attempting sign them up a couple of years later for a solitary million pounds or less.

 

Same has applied to Arsenal and their respective purchases of Pennant & Walcott, yet there is a bit of a myth that they're building a proverbial footballing empire - where the basis of which has been their youth ranks - for peanuts and that we/Ashley have been duly correct by following the so-called Arsenal route.

 

our problem was nothing to do with trying to be too much like arsenal and everything to do with trying to be too much like spurs.

 

In building an impressive list of youngsters our problem involves adopting a recruiting model - pertaining to the youth ranks, and the amount of money we're prepared to part with - which admittedly worked wonders for Arsenal when clubs were not so diligent in protecting their top youngsters from predatory & opportunistic buyers. That model/buying policy is dated and no longer relevant, and this is thanks to the dynamic of today's transfer market relating to the 15-18 yr old bracket.

[sicsfingeredmong]

Simon Jordan hit the nail on the head with Michael Carrick and John Bostock. Bostock should cost around 5m, because he has the potential to play for England, when Man Utd paid 20m nigh on for Carrick, whats bad about 5m for a player with the same potential.

 

Nothing wrong with paying the going rate, when speculating on potential. It irks me when clubs such as ours - under Ashley, same applies to Chelsea by picking another of Leeds' prospects no that long ago for 200k - miss the boat when spotting talent prior to the 15yr mark, only to then try & pennypinch by committing daylight robbery in attempting sign them up a couple of years later for a solitary million pounds or less.

 

Same has applied to Arsenal and their respective purchases of Pennant & Walcott, yet there is a bit of a myth that they're building a proverbial footballing empire - where the basis of which has been their youth ranks - for peanuts and that we/Ashley have been duly correct by following the so-called Arsenal route.

 

To be fair how many of these young players such as Delph have we actually gone for and failed to bring in recently?

 

It's not to do with the 'amount of' it's more to do with our belated efforts to recruit the sort of potential relating to kids like Delph, and the wide gap our front-office places in between it's valuation and that of the club who are simply adherring to the trend of today's market. Ashley, who places the financial limits on the football front office and what they've been prepared to bid for the likes of Delph is sad reflection of these limits, is at severe odds to what the market is saying. Walcott, Jenas and Bostock have been listed as examples, and the subsequent figures have been raised.

 

For a club which has adopted a broadscale youth policy, by the way of recruiting, we'll be going nowhere fast if we're not prepared to compromise - when needed - to an unwilling seller's demands and they're know-how of a market which is no longer reflective of top-flight clubs taking the piss out of financially unstable clubs in the 1st division or lower.

[Guest optimistic nit]

Simon Jordan hit the nail on the head with Michael Carrick and John Bostock. Bostock should cost around 5m, because he has the potential to play for England, when Man Utd paid 20m nigh on for Carrick, whats bad about 5m for a player with the same potential.

 

Nothing wrong with paying the going rate, when speculating on potential. It irks me when clubs such as ours - under Ashley, same applies to Chelsea by picking another of Leeds' prospects no that long ago for 200k - miss the boat when spotting talent prior to the 15yr mark, only to then try & pennypinch by committing daylight robbery in attempting sign them up a couple of years later for a solitary million pounds or less.

 

Same has applied to Arsenal and their respective purchases of Pennant & Walcott, yet there is a bit of a myth that they're building a proverbial footballing empire - where the basis of which has been their youth ranks - for peanuts and that we/Ashley have been duly correct by following the so-called Arsenal route.

 

our problem was nothing to do with trying to be too much like arsenal and everything to do with trying to be too much like spurs.

 

In building an impressive list of youngsters our problem involves adopting a recruiting model - pertaining to the youth ranks, and the amount of money we're prepared to part with - which admittedly worked wonders for Arsenal when clubs were not so diligent in protecting their top youngsters from predatory & opportunistic buyers. That model/buying policy is dated and no longer relevant, and this is thanks to the dynamic of today's transfer market relating to the 15-18 yr old bracket.

 

erm, no.

 

 

there is no point debating this with you as you're not going to listen anyway.

[La Parka]

Ranger ftw!