Jake Young

but they didn’t know if he was going back or staying all season

 

Seriously? They will have been fully aware, weeks ago. GA was in the press talking about Young returning in early December.

There was absolutely no chance he was remaining on loan at Swindon.

 

Only this “window” I’m afraid.

 

Our strikers seem to have this in them, and I suppose that's why they are tier 4 strikers, but consistency is a killer for our forwards. Seems mad to say when you have Cook, but his conversation rate is poor. His conversation rate at the minute is 15%, which is the worst return of anyone with 10+ goals in L2 this season. His shot accuracy (on target rate) is also the worst in the league for the same 10+ metric at 38%. And his 65 shots this season so far are the 3rd highest in the league behind Langstaff (78) & Al-Hamadi (68), with Cook featuring in 4 less games than Langstaff.

But we've had 24 shots at goal in our final two outings, obviously that level of shots without return cant carry on and form is temporary. That's why I'm thinking we give clubs a week or 10 days, maybe until the 15th at latest to get a bid in or he stays and the forwards in the building know they need to get their scoring boots back on.

 

Not sure that’s true Simon, he’s been subbed off in a few Dec games from memory and the video by Flynn confirmed on video he shouldn’t have played I think it was games 1/2 following the pretty dreadful tackle. They were pretty desperate for a win during this time, one they didn’t get?
We shall see?

 

Ditto.

 

We sell him and it’s another example of why we are perpetually in the lower leagues. We never learn and never will.

 

He could be available for Tuesday nights game against Derby.
According to the Swindon match stats he didn't feature in any of the group stage games.

 

Interesting comments by GA regarding JY.
He makes all the right noises about wanting him and viewing him as a new signing, however threw in the caveat that all players have their value in the transfer market. This is true for all players, however it isn't said about all players.
There's L1 clubs sounding him out, therefore the club has got the convenient excuse that he's got a slight niggly injury.
If he was 100% staying that slight niggly injury wouldn't be an issue, Cook's been playing all season with niggly injuries.

The acid test is tomorrow, not in squad, he's leaving, in squad he's staying.

GA would like to keep him and I'd love to see him in the line-up tomorrow, but my gut feeling is he'll be leaving.

 

This is the kind of thinking the club will probably have as well and it stinks. Yes, it might not work out if he stays but equally if he is sold, there is absolutely no guarantee the player we bring in as his replacement will do anything either. There are always risks in football, but when you have ambitions of promotion and have the leagues second top scorer on your books, you'd be an absolute fool to cash in at this stage, especially when the figure being banded about is only 300k.

 

I agree, every player has his price but the worry is that we seem happy to accept peanuts when other clubs make it clear they won't sell their star player for scraps. Look at Wimbledon with Al Hamadi, they've made it clear they won't sell for anything less than a million, but yet some of our fans seem desperate for us to take 300k for Young because he might be worth less than that in the summer if we keep him. Beggers belief.

 

Don't think its quite as simple as that. It may be that Young wants to leave, and if a good offer from a higher league comes in, we shouldn't stand in his way. We should aim to build a reputation that good young players come here, develop, move on to bigger and better things by achieving personal success and success for our club as a whole. The f**k up here won't necessarily be selling him, it'll be yet another example of why players don't shine here but do shine elsewhere. The fact that Young wasn't given a crack here but became one of the most prolific strikers in the country elsewhere is an indictment of how poorly run we are.

 

People are basing fanciful figures on how much we should get for Young on half a season admittedly good stats on an below average start to a career. Young hasn’t proven anything other that short period snatch the hand of anyone offering 300k

 

It is and it needs to change. No time like the present so let's see the club act like one with some ambition and give him that chance now.

 

350-450k is a good price

 

Its all subjective Park, and I mean no offence, but I think you do epitomise the lack of ambitious thinking amongst our fanbase.

Mo Eisa went from Cheltenham to Bristol City after one good season, for £1m - he was 25 and the sum total of his league record was 23 goals in 46 games. Not just for that season, his career to date at that point.

Max Watters went on loan to Crawley for half a season and joined Cardiff for £1m. He was 21, and scored 13 league goals. Almost identical to Young in terms of age and performance (in fact, Young has scored more).

Omar Bogle went to Wigan for £850k after scoring 19 goals in 27 games, in his first spell in league football at the age of 23

Luke James (remember him?!) went for £650K, after scoring 13 in his first full season in League 2.

Connor Washington went for £600K after just 5 goals in his first League 2 season, at the age of 22.

 

We sell him and it’s another example of why we are perpetually in the lower leagues. We never learn and never will.

The reason why he didn’t shine here was because of one manager. A new man is here now and Young has to show some maturity and knuckle down and we have to show some balls and say you’re not being sold and see what the summer brings. Clubs will be looking at his behaviour more than anything.

 

I would like to keep Young, but as a principle, I'm not against selling him.

Problem is, I have no confidence in Sparks to sell him for a good price or our ability to reinvest that fee into the squad.

 

I don't blame him hopefully with the weather forecast suggesting there will be little rain between now and Saturdays game the surface may be firm but with any sort of niggle I'd be very reluctant to ask a player to play on a heavy pitch like the Stockport game.

 

There’s no football people behind the scenes however I heard a rumour Paul Jewell was involved with getting Alexander in. Hopefully he is a more permanent fixture.