Youth team

[dknward2]

Won again today 2-1 now top of the league and unbeaten

[roversontheup]

That is encouraging particularly after reading in our business plan that we are aiming to retain four youth players each season with a view to developing into our first team or selling for a profit.

[roverstillidie91]

Was reading that interview

It says we will try and bring 5 in every season

What if we had 7 or 8 that are good enough would the 2/3 miss out

Or for instance we only had 2 that are good enough

Would that mean we would bring on 3 more for sake of it ?

[roversontheup]

I guess it depends how good they are. We need to balance youth and experience so I would imagine that unless they are good enough to be almost ready for first team action we would look to sell them.
If we have a year where only 2 or 3 make the grade then we will have to live with that. Mind you I guess questions would be asked re the youth team coaching etc were that to be the case!

[DonnyOsmond]

Yeah, it will probably be a case of whether they are good enough or not, if theres 8 good enough then all 8 will get signed but if there's a year where only 1 or 2 are good enough then we have to live with that. The number 5 is just an aim/target really.

[MachoMadness]

By the sounds of that interview, it would seem like the target is to produce 5 players who are good enough. It's not about the numbers it's about developing kids into talented players through the youth setup. If we produce more, then great, we've got more players who can compete in the first team. If not, then we don't. Can't remember the last time we had so much potential in the youth team. For years it seemed like we were just bringing players up for the sake of it, like Craig Nelthorpe. I think the last genuine star we had from the youth team was Paul Green.

[Wild Rover]

The Key word is TRY.
TRY to bring 5 through, if its 7 thats great, if it 3 well, so be it.

[Spike]

The bad news is Chris Whincop suffered a broken fibula in todays game & will have surgery on his injury tomorrow.

[RedJ]

The Key word is TRY.
TRY to bring 5 through, if its 7 thats great, if it 3 well, so be it.

even that would be a damn sight more than we've produced of sufficient quality for a long time

[GazLaz]

What Paul Wilson put in place when he came in 4/5/6 years ago is starting to pay dividends.

[DRFCSouth]

I think talking figures is not the approach we need to take. It needs to be about scouting the right kids young enough, changing the image of the setup, employing the right people to do this and when someone is good enough, to promote them, irrespective of how many we would look to keep.