I've grown up with managers who don't like playing youngsters because of both the physical and mental pressures it puts on young physiques and inexperienced brains. Yet here we have a manager with a totally opposite attitude. I'll bide my time on this one and see how it pans out.
I'm a fan of Bob so far too, but sorry, this one's a bit over the top. It will of course read very well on RD's laptop, which I think is the point of it. He cannot seriously believe that the answer to our problems is a kid upfront, when he clearly has no faith in either George or Church. I'm all for giving kids a chance, and up to now he's done that well, but up front is a different matter. Carl Leaburn suffered a lot for being overplayed too soon because there was no money for an alternative.
We need another striking option. I know they are neither cheap nor easy to obtain, so he has to lobby RD heavily. I'm not sure this article helps his cause, since RD is not a football person and is likely to take it at face value.
I'm a fan of Bob so far too, but sorry, this one's a bit over the top. It will of course read very well on RD's laptop, which I think is the point of it. He cannot seriously believe that the answer to our problems is a kid upfront, when he clearly has no faith in either George or Church. I'm all for giving kids a chance, and up to now he's done that well, but up front is a different matter. Carl Leaburn suffered a lot for being overplayed too soon because there was no money for an alternative.
We need another striking option. I know they are neither cheap nor easy to obtain, so he has to lobby RD heavily. I'm not sure this article helps his cause, since RD is not a football person and is likely to take it at face value.
I am not sure that RD is not a football person. In fact, I believe he is - just that his 'business head' comes on when talking about clubs he owns.
I also disagree that he has no faith in George.
Finally, I see itr more as BP telling the academy 'products' what they want to hear....work hard and you'll make it to our 1st team - in theory it will give them that extra drive, which in turn may result in us not having to spend money on a striker afterall.
I do think there is an element of making a virtue of a necessity here.
And bulot and Buyens both play ahead of our own players.
But that is true of a lot of clubs and we do have some good youngsters to allow that as an option.
We don't have buckets loads of money so we make the most of what we have. Nothing wrong in that.
It is a plan that relies on those youngsters being good enough and having a few older heads such as AB, TBH and JJ around them.
It's great for their confidnece that Bob talks up the kids but if a 28 year old experienced forward suddenly became available on loan at the right price I still think Bob would snap him up.
BP isn't daft. He wouldn't put the young ones in if he didn't think they had a chance of succeeding. I also get the impression he knows what he is doing when it comes to dealing with young players. His handling of Gomez so far has been excellent...and the lad has responded with a number of good performances.
I also quite like the thought of not loaning in players willy-nilly from outside the network. Maybe if more clubs followed suit and didn't do it, then Premier League clubs might think twice about stock-piling so many young players who have got very little chance of being used by their parent club. Let's use our own young players where we can and if that means we finish a couple of places down the league then so be it.
i think that it has to be a mixture of Loans and youth depending on what exactly is needed and who is available at a price that we want to pay also with a view to a permanent.Clearly it would not be ideal to play eg. either Piggott ,the ex Spurs youth midfielder who is about 5 foot tall or Pope too often and except in the event of a dire emergency as none of them are up to it and despite what Bob says about his preference for youngsters.Shame that other managers at places like Gillingham or Crawley might be thinking the same thing about their young players rather than wanting eg. Church on loan .
None of this addresses the fact that we need a holding player up front and we do not have one in the squad or in the youth team. The rest is just words.
You can't fill a team with youth players as its too much pressure on them but introducing them to the game gradually like Peeters is doing i am all for. Most of the loan players that would be available to us are because they are not good enough for their current clubs, returning to fitness or coming to us for experience. Unless we could find that perfect guaranteed player to come in on loan and score goals why not put faith in the likes for KAG.
Personally I'm not saying no to loans at all, I'm just saying Peeters has my support of his opinion on this. Plus he hasn't said no completely to loans either. He says “Maybe if there is an opportunity and we need to do something we will do it". He is simply saying rather than bringing players in just to add to the squad, but not improve it, he would prefer to use our youth. Good man.
Bob had already nailed his colours to the mast on this one when he gave KAG the nod over Church on the bench at Norwich resulting in Church being told he could go out on loan if someone came in for him.
I was impressed with my first glimpse of KAG on Tuesday in the U21 cup game at Park View Road who scored one and hit the post twice, the rebound from one becoming an assist for Munns to slot home. He is not however a target man on that showing but more of a speedy striker with a low centre of gravity who likes playing off the shoulder of the CB. Having said this, his hold up play was good, certainly has an eye for goal and puts his foot through the ball un Church like.
I see him more as a replacement for Igor if injured or on African Cup duty or as an impact sub. @DickPlumb and others have watched him regularly so I would be interested to see if their opinions confirm my first impressions.
Dont see a problem with this, gives the youngsters a confidence boost and lets and loan players that we are interested in that we think very highly of them.
I'm a fan of Bob so far too, but sorry, this one's a bit over the top. It will of course read very well on RD's laptop, which I think is the point of it. He cannot seriously believe that the answer to our problems is a kid upfront, when he clearly has no faith in either George or Church. I'm all for giving kids a chance, and up to now he's done that well, but up front is a different matter. Carl Leaburn suffered a lot for being overplayed too soon because there was no money for an alternative.
We need another striking option. I know they are neither cheap nor easy to obtain, so he has to lobby RD heavily. I'm not sure this article helps his cause, since RD is not a football person and is likely to take it at face value.
This. Bob would of course prefer playing kids, because otherwise he won't have a job. This was the basis of him being appointed. I'm not saying the approach is right or wrong, but agree with Prague, kids can only take you so far and it also depends on the ability of "your kids" as well.
Unless its a loan from the prem what are the chances of a loanee being any better than what we have. Think Bob is saying unless he can get nailed on quality he would rather take a chance on youth than a chance on another club's reject.
He could have said that a loanee is urgently being sought without success, which is what most managers would probably say to take the heat off.
Seems pretty clear to me that Big Bob is by no means ruling out loans on principle - simply that he is not going to rely on loans if there is another option available. I can see where PragueAddick is coming from but I honestly don't think that we're anywhere close to relying on kids, nor do I think Bob would play them if he didn't really believe they were ready.
Bob's got (or had in Belgium anyway) a good rep for bringing kids through and developing them, so knows his business in this regard. KA-G and Fox have been coming on for short periods which I assume will get longer over the course of the season, we are unlikely to be seeing a repeat of Pardew's derailing of Wagstaff.
Just look at Joe Gomez, he's young and inexperienced yet has looked decent. Same as Poyet and Cousins last year. I'm glad he's got the balls to try it rather than loan another dud.
I do think there is an element of making a virtue of a necessity here.
And bulot and Buyens both play ahead of our own players.
But that is true of a lot of clubs and we do have some good youngsters to allow that as an option.
We don't have buckets loads of money so we make the most of what we have. Nothing wrong in that.
It is a plan that relies on those youngsters being good enough and having a few older heads such as AB, TBH and JJ around them.
It's great for their confidnece that Bob talks up the kids but if a 28 year old experienced forward suddenly became available on loan at the right price I still think Bob would snap him up.
Kag is not going to play every week at just 17. George go's for the spectacular and still needs to learn the basics. Pigott can be a hold up striker, but still not sure at champ level yet. Moussa and Bulot are not num 9, yet both have talent. Church is not rated by coach.
So we have Igor.(who can score)
With Henry Irving on this,
Necessity is the mother of invention. Good for Bob to talk up the academy,
Just hope we don't retire the number 9 shirt for too long. ( it's a very competitive division)
Good call from Bob, methinks. OK so it has an element of risk about it, but Who Dares, Wins.
The one thing that Bob has brought with him, and seems to make all the difference, is his bold-as-brass attitude.
Lets give the kids some game time so they can prove themselves.
And lets hope if that happens that the fans give a very young striker a very big load of breaks when they don't start banging in the goals straight away. It's much easier for fans to make allowances for a 17 year old full back than a 17 year old striker. That was what I was getting at above. if we lose 2-0 to Bolton at home with KAG starting and look toothless up front, you won't find many people on here afterwards saying "hey no problem, KAG got game time". I'm sure Bob's aware of that being a striker himself, but I remain slightly uneasy that this particular comment has made him a hostage to fortune in future.
Comments
Good attitude from Bob, give them a chance, some will prosper and some will fall by the wayside but at least they've had an opportunity.
We need another striking option. I know they are neither cheap nor easy to obtain, so he has to lobby RD heavily. I'm not sure this article helps his cause, since RD is not a football person and is likely to take it at face value.
I also disagree that he has no faith in George.
Finally, I see itr more as BP telling the academy 'products' what they want to hear....work hard and you'll make it to our 1st team - in theory it will give them that extra drive, which in turn may result in us not having to spend money on a striker afterall.
And bulot and Buyens both play ahead of our own players.
But that is true of a lot of clubs and we do have some good youngsters to allow that as an option.
We don't have buckets loads of money so we make the most of what we have. Nothing wrong in that.
It is a plan that relies on those youngsters being good enough and having a few older heads such as AB, TBH and JJ around them.
It's great for their confidnece that Bob talks up the kids but if a 28 year old experienced forward suddenly became available on loan at the right price I still think Bob would snap him up.
I also quite like the thought of not loaning in players willy-nilly from outside the network. Maybe if more clubs followed suit and didn't do it, then Premier League clubs might think twice about stock-piling so many young players who have got very little chance of being used by their parent club. Let's use our own young players where we can and if that means we finish a couple of places down the league then so be it.
Personally I'm not saying no to loans at all, I'm just saying Peeters has my support of his opinion on this. Plus he hasn't said no completely to loans either. He says “Maybe if there is an opportunity and we need to do something we will do it". He is simply saying rather than bringing players in just to add to the squad, but not improve it, he would prefer to use our youth. Good man.
I was impressed with my first glimpse of KAG on Tuesday in the U21 cup game at Park View Road who scored one and hit the post twice, the rebound from one becoming an assist for Munns to slot home. He is not however a target man on that showing but more of a speedy striker with a low centre of gravity who likes playing off the shoulder of the CB. Having said this, his hold up play was good, certainly has an eye for goal and puts his foot through the ball un Church like.
I see him more as a replacement for Igor if injured or on African Cup duty or as an impact sub. @DickPlumb and others have watched him regularly so I would be interested to see if their opinions confirm my first impressions.
Good work Bob
He could have said that a loanee is urgently being sought without success, which is what most managers would probably say to take the heat off.
Bob's got (or had in Belgium anyway) a good rep for bringing kids through and developing them, so knows his business in this regard. KA-G and Fox have been coming on for short periods which I assume will get longer over the course of the season, we are unlikely to be seeing a repeat of Pardew's derailing of Wagstaff.
George go's for the spectacular and still needs to learn the basics.
Pigott can be a hold up striker, but still not sure at champ level yet.
Moussa and Bulot are not num 9, yet both have talent.
Church is not rated by coach.
So we have Igor.(who can score)
With Henry Irving on this,
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Good for Bob to talk up the academy,
Just hope we don't retire the number 9 shirt for too long. ( it's a very competitive division)
The one thing that Bob has brought with him, and seems to make all the difference, is his bold-as-brass attitude.
Lets give the kids some game time so they can prove themselves.