Dieng - Leaves club

I think it's somewhere around 5000 games.

 

I only speak english and italian. Can you translate that please.

 

The amount of minutes he's played on the pitch across his entire career equates to about 2 seasons of football. He's turning 27 in a few months time. His entire career has been bit part, so what exactly is he experienced in?

 

Someone who's played regular football at this level for a number of years, or who has played a good amount of football during the course of their career. Chicksen has done neither of those.

 

Neither am I at the moment, I'm just pointing out with our new coaching team it would be ideal if we could get the deals we have targeted done, rather than bringing players in the last week before the season starts, although I know that may be the case if we are bringing any better quality loans in.

 

No big loss for me this one, and with the poor quality of midfielders we currently have left at the club then this should give us some room to bring in some real ''Proven'' quality.

 

Yeah, that's fair enough.

I can't exactly sell or sack anyone, so we're going to have to see how it goes.

I am interested, by the way, it's an intriguing squad we're assembling, but it feels a little flimsy and lightweight. That's just a gut instinct though, I mean I don't have first hand experience of some of these players at all - I don't imagine many City fans do either.

I admit on paper Gary Jones wasn't exactly an inspirational signing - but on the pitch, by heck, inspirational is exactly what he was. He was also signed on the back of Parky's first season (I believe), and Parky's transfer record at that point wasn't exactly golden.

I am concerned that we're looking at 24 and 25 year olds as 'experienced' players, when in most squads they are still learning from the older pros.

I'd be surprised if there were many EFL sides with a younger average age, but then again, maybe there are some. I'd be interested to see how they are doing, so we could more easily compare.

 

Yeah right

 

It never is the case, literally for any club in the country. It isn't a Bradford exclusive thing which some fans will have you believe.

 

I never said he was a bad player. He was a squad member, did his job adequately but we can improve on him. If we could have kept Dieng on a salary which fit our budget structure then fine....as it happens we couldn't and I don;t really care he has rejected us, Replaceable.

Nice try.

 

I suppose I’m less concerned about the wide positions with regards to experience. We have a good spine of experience, throughout the CBs, CMs and striker. If we sign an experienced GK then the spine of the team is looking pretty strong (experience-wise).

I would imagine we are still looking to sign a RB, RW and striker (at least) so if they are all experienced then I think the blend of the team looks good.

 

Wigan, Portsmouth, Walsall, Posh, Scunny, MKD, Fleetwood, Donny and Charlton all put out at least one matchday squad with an average age of 24 plus a few months. Pompey 3 times put out a squad where the average age was 22 plus a few months. We were putting teams out on occasion where the average was 29.

 

Last year we had something like the 4th highest average age in league one despite the perception being all about youth. I'd be surprised if we completely turned that around in a single season.

 

Age, training pitch, dressing room, involvement in football....

 

Somewhere Edin is on record as saying that 25 year old Charlie Wyke is a “young” player, which indicates that he thinks more experienced players are older than that.

 

So you have no actual idea on when a player can accurately be called experienced?

25 games? 50 games ? 100 games?

This is where the confusion lies.

To my mind if you are good enough then that's all that matters regardless of experience. And that will be apparent in under 10 games.

 

Wow. He's 26 years old and is a professional footballer involved in football. That's one hell of list mate. I'm really glad we've got experience in all the key areas.

 

You are wrongly confusing experience with ability/talent.

Some footballers can be very inexperienced but have great ability and can affect a game just as effectively and an 'experienced' footballer.

I have seen many young and inexperienced footballers at City come good without having many games under their belt.

 

I wouldn't say Vincelot is useless. Far from it. Okay, last season might not have been his best but you can't right off the rest of his career just because of that. The slate is wiped clean in August so here's hoping he will get back to being the player he has been in the past.