Clayton Donaldson

Nowt wrong with young and hungry, the top two in league one last year adopted this philosophy as have other successful clubs. You just need to sign the right youngsters, not shite like we did, and have a good mix in the squad between youth and experience. You can't have a squad full of kids but likewise you can't have a squad full of 30yr olds.

 

Doyle to Swindon has been on Twitter for the last 2 weeks.

 

Barnsley have been developing their focus on youth for a long, long time.

They have a philosophy, and a set approach.

We have nothing.

We have just been relegated to League Two. Another half arsed, short sighted attempt to sign younger players (whose real plus side is value, not ability) just doesn't wash.

By all means if we set out a decade long plan to invest in younger players, fine. To simply expect success for the first xi by signing a majority of 21 year olds instead of 30 year olds makes precisely no sense.

Having said that, we haven't exactly over burdened ourselves with 30 year olds anyway, so it's an interesting criticism.

 

I don’t think you could accuse Doyle of “not being arsed” last season. I didn’t get that impression of him at all.

 

Agreed he was starved by a supply line that pure and simply couldn't deliver.

 

I think the philosophy thing is correct, we need one, whatever it is. But I don't see any long term planning like that coming until we have a settled owner and CEO.

And for what it's worth I think Bowyer is getting it spot on in terms of the mix of experience and youth and signing some real leaders.

 

Well. I for one was very against Mclean. He had done nothing for years before rocking up at City. Thorne was just a master craftsman, but completely different to Donaldson

 

I am all for bringing in good young players. We have signed a number of those, but surely you are not suggesting we have no experience at all? I don’t think anybody has gone ott tbh, of course fans are excited that’s natural given the disaster zone last season previously known as Bradford AFC. I hope you don’t take offence, but you come across as supercilious, and derisory of other fans opinion. Your preferred option of taking our time to gain promotion and building a team approach has many pluses, and for the record I like the idea.

However, many fans are appalled that we have sunk back into lg2, and would take some persuading to stay with the club whilst rebuilding takes place. The club is probably of the view that it needs to keep the fan base together as much as possible, it has been hard won and they do not want to let it go lightly. Hard to say whether this can be achieved in one season, or whether the signings so far will knit well together and make a challenge for a swift return to lg1.

 

Young & hungry I give you Clare, Robinson, Patrick, Gibson, Jones, McCartan, Seedorf, Riley, I'm with you no thanks.

 

I agree, under the current ownership such a plan is unlikely, which is a major reason it holds no appeal for me.

A leader in midfield, along with the experience up front, is not a bad place to start.

 

Just awful.

 

With such approaches, clubs need to have correct people at the top making these football decisions. We didn't and ended up with the shite you listed. Its not the plan that's the problem, it's those executing it.

 

Agree, and not thinking it can be done within a couple of seasons on the cheap, but at the time we wanted to believe our new owners.

 

Couldn’t agree more, the old adage fail to plan and plan to fail comes to mind. If you want to have developing youth at the heart of the club, you will need at least a ten year plan, with appropriate resources put in place. It is not a cheap option, you need first class youth team coaches and facilities. This needs to be separate from the first team resources, and don’t expect to see any money back on your investment for a number of years, and that is if we get it right.

If you have really good scouts, we might pick up the odd one here and there without a stampede from the PL to sign him up, but they scoop up all available talent at a very young age, a bit like dredge fishing that doesn’t leave any young fish in the sea, and damages the sea bed.

 

Although he was guilty of not having the first clue, Rahic actually had the chance to create something given that some fans were buying into his post-Archie Christie development idea.

The right way would have involved a lot of patience, signing far fewer young players initially, making sure he got only the right ones (granted he'd have probably signed Riley, for example, anyway), and not expecting them to impact the first team right away.

Slowly, slowly.

Instead, we had an influx of players, a massively bloated squad (without a legitimate reserve team or development side set up), and an overhaul of the first team that relied upon multiple-time relegatees and players who weren't adequately character-checked.

In the end, we had too many young players with no hope of making it to the required level being led by players with no hope of keeping us at the required level, whilst STILL relying extremely heavily on loan players, who were invariably our best players.

If the idea made any sense at all, the execution made none whatsoever.

Let's not do that again.

We have a manager who seems like a Parky-type, looking for players with the right attitude, or with the motivation to do better, or with the ability to improve on what we already had. Not all his signings will work out, but he's not the man to be leading some development agenda in my view. Save that for a few years when we're either top end League One or bottom end Championship.

 

Think you make a very fair point there about philosophy. Thought it was interesting that Woodgate said at his press conference that all his team's would play the same way, Academy, Reserves, First Team. This is exactly what England have said over the last few years and introduced The Future Game and The England DNA philosophy so it makes it easier for player's to progress. This is where management/head coach stability comes into it rather than chopping and changing every 5 minutes.

 

Replacing Stuart with Grayson made no sense from that point of view, neither did appointing Collins, nor did replacing HIM with Hopkin.

Rahic just flip-flopped from one style to another, underwrote every single transfer window by ensuring changes were made just slightly afterwards, and royally screwed us for a good 18 months solid.

 

Where are those guys now Broncs? Only 1 you could say was young and hungry last season and that was LOB who was a loanee!!

 

Agree on both counts, I like the way Bowyer is going about his business I am a little taken aback by the calibre of signings he's made hopefully it will continue by signing a mixture of youth and experience.

 

Absolutely agree. The bigger clubs have more scouts and more sway. I remember being at a Shipley Juniors tournament with U6/U7s and the Man City scout basically said I'd like to look at these 4 or 5 can you introduce me to parents even though I knew that 3 of them weren't that gifted but we're just physically bigger and stronger at that age. I also recall a time when Man City and Sheff U scouts spoke to me about a lad, so I spoke to parents and they said we only want to speak to Man City. They do Hoover them up just to drop them later.