Transfer Window - COMPLETE. Where’s Gregg?

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, SuperBrfc said:

As soon as I see somebody hesitate to bring in quality because they 'don't want to block the pathways', that's when I know we are on to a loser. That is what Broughton displayed a few days ago, in my view.

An extreme example, as he was a top class manager, but remember when Wenger refused to properly replace Vieira, Henry and Co because he "didn't want to block the pathway of the youngsters"? They persisted with those youngsters and went to shit (relative to their ambitions) and have been floundering for 18 years without a league title.

In our case, we've been floundering for 12 years and look set to add a few more to that as Broughton feeds us some guff about a youth project and "measures of success".

I'm not convinced that any of this lot (aside from JDT, maybe) are serious about promotion. It looks like it is all about developing kids, getting them minutes and hoping to sell them on for big fees further down the line.

You only have to read/listen to Broughton's spiel to understand what he sees as success.

One of the first things he said when he arrived was that Rovers would have to overachieve to make it to the Premier League. Inspirational stuff and exactly what you want to hear.

Next, he talked about how almost 40 percent of the minutes played by the Rovers squad last season were from Academy players, and how that needed to be maintained this season. Why? Is the aim to win football matches and try and go up or to give minutes to youngsters and crow about how many first teamers are from the Academy?

On a podcast about his time at Bodo, he talks about how one of the ways of measuring success was by looking at the 'R number' of the Football Club. That is done at any stage, over a five year average, by looking at how many young players from the Academy are in the first team. The more, the better, for the 'R number'. What a load of bollocks! I thought football was about trying to be the best, though? I've obviously had it wrong for all of these years.

Just like the 40 percent quote about the Rovers first team, he proudly mentioned how Bodo had 35 percent of their first team made up of North Norwegians from their Academy. This guy will do stuff all, IMO, and won't help us to get promoted. As long as the youngsters are getting game time, it's all good.

Bear in mind, he turned up at Luton when they had just finished outside the play offs in the Championship. They went on to suffer three successive relegations whilst he was there. Not saying it was all on him, clearly. However, in his own words, he had the autonomy to implement the vision of the Academy. Three relegations. Yet he takes the fact that youngsters got first team football and brought increased financial value to the club as plusses. Three relegations, but the above are positives. That should serve as a warning sign, in my opinion.

We missed out on Anel, Davies, many of us are after Van Hecke and another quality defender. Will he want to 'block the pathway' for Carter and Phillips by bringing in a couple of quality defenders? I highly doubt it. I'm expecting another cheap loan back there.

Our DoF would do well to remember what Alan Hansen said, and it still applies today 27 years on:

"You can't win anything with kids".

Didn't United win that title?

[sverrehh]

18 minutes ago, SuperBrfc said:

As soon as I see somebody hesitate to bring in quality because they 'don't want to block the pathways', that's when I know we are on to a loser. That is what Broughton displayed a few days ago, in my view.

An extreme example, as he was a top class manager, but remember when Wenger refused to properly replace Vieira, Henry and Co because he "didn't want to block the pathway of the youngsters"? They persisted with those youngsters and went to shit (relative to their ambitions) and have been floundering for 18 years without a league title.

In our case, we've been floundering for 12 years and look set to add a few more to that as Broughton feeds us some guff about a youth project and "measures of success".

I'm not convinced that any of this lot (aside from JDT, maybe) are serious about promotion. It looks like it is all about developing kids, getting them minutes and hoping to sell them on for big fees further down the line.

You only have to read/listen to Broughton's spiel to understand what he sees as success.

One of the first things he said when he arrived was that Rovers would have to overachieve to make it to the Premier League. Inspirational stuff and exactly what you want to hear.

Next, he talked about how almost 40 percent of the minutes played by the Rovers squad last season were from Academy players, and how that needed to be maintained this season. Why? Is the aim to win football matches and try and go up or to give minutes to youngsters and crow about how many first teamers are from the Academy?

On a podcast about his time at Bodo, he talks about how one of the ways of measuring success was by looking at the 'R number' of the Football Club. That is done at any stage, over a five year average, by looking at how many young players from the Academy are in the first team. The more, the better, for the 'R number'. What a load of bollocks! I thought football was about trying to be the best, though? I've obviously had it wrong for all of these years.

Just like the 40 percent quote about the Rovers first team, he proudly mentioned how Bodo had 35 percent of their first team made up of North Norwegians from their Academy. This guy will do stuff all, IMO, and won't help us to get promoted. As long as the youngsters are getting game time, it's all good.

Bear in mind, he turned up at Luton when they had just finished outside the play offs in the Championship. They went on to suffer three successive relegations whilst he was there. Not saying it was all on him, clearly. However, in his own words, he had the autonomy to implement the vision of the Academy. Three relegations. Yet he takes the fact that youngsters got first team football and brought increased financial value to the club as plusses. Three relegations, but the above are positives. That should serve as a warning sign, in my opinion.

We missed out on Anel, Davies, many of us are after Van Hecke and another quality defender. Will he want to 'block the pathway' for Carter and Phillips by bringing in a couple of quality defenders? I highly doubt it. I'm expecting another cheap loan back there.

Our DoF would do well to remember what Alan Hansen said, and it still applies today 27 years on:

"You can't win anything with kids".

I don't think the transfers thus far suggest we are trying to win with only kids.

Using our great academy is only wise though!

Edited August 4, 2022 by sverrehh

[RoverDom]

12 minutes ago, SuperBrfc said:

As soon as I see somebody hesitate to bring in quality because they 'don't want to block the pathways', that's when I know we are on to a loser. That is what Broughton displayed a few days ago, in my view.

An extreme example, as he was a top class manager, but remember when Wenger refused to properly replace Vieira, Henry and Co because he "didn't want to block the pathway of the youngsters"? They persisted with those youngsters and went to shit (relative to their ambitions) and have been floundering for 18 years without a league title.

In our case, we've been floundering for 12 years and look set to add a few more to that as Broughton feeds us some guff about a youth project and "measures of success".

I'm not convinced that any of this lot (aside from JDT, maybe) are serious about promotion. It looks like it is all about developing kids, getting them minutes and hoping to sell them on for big fees further down the line.

You only have to read/listen to Broughton's spiel to understand what he sees as success.

One of the first things he said when he arrived was that Rovers would have to overachieve to make it to the Premier League. Inspirational stuff and exactly what you want to hear.

Next, he talked about how almost 40 percent of the minutes played by the Rovers squad last season were from Academy players, and how that needed to be maintained this season. Why? Is the aim to win football matches and try and go up or to give minutes to youngsters and crow about how many first teamers are from the Academy?

On a podcast about his time at Bodo, he talks about how one of the ways of measuring success was by looking at the 'R number' of the Football Club. That is done at any stage, over a five year average, by looking at how many young players from the Academy are in the first team. The more, the better, for the 'R number'. What a load of bollocks! I thought football was about trying to be the best, though? I've obviously had it wrong for all of these years.

Just like the 40 percent quote about the Rovers first team, he proudly mentioned how Bodo had 35 percent of their first team made up of North Norwegians from their Academy. This guy will do stuff all, IMO, and won't help us to get promoted. As long as the youngsters are getting game time, it's all good.

Bear in mind, he turned up at Luton when they had just finished outside the play offs in the Championship. They went on to suffer three successive relegations whilst he was there. Not saying it was all on him, clearly. However, in his own words, he had the autonomy to implement the vision of the Academy. Three relegations. Yet he takes the fact that youngsters got first team football and brought increased financial value to the club as plusses. Three relegations, but the above are positives. That should serve as a warning sign, in my opinion.

We missed out on Anel, Davies, many of us are after Van Hecke and another quality defender. Will he want to 'block the pathway' for Carter and Phillips by bringing in a couple of quality defenders? I highly doubt it. I'm expecting another cheap loan back there.

Our DoF would do well to remember what Alan Hansen said, and it still applies today 27 years on:

"You can't win anything with kids".

I get your point but a few things

1. Wenger didn't replace Vieira, true. We're looking to replace Davenport / Johnson not quite the same gap that needs filling. Where there is a gap - Nyambe and Rothwell, we've spent money. Windows not over so just see what happens in replacing our departing centre backs. 

2. What's the issue with focusing on young talent and selling for big bucks.  We have a cat 1 Academy and there's no way we're going to build a decent war chest through ticket sales. We need to get into a cycle of buy low / promote youth and sell high and reinvest in the squad. 

The R number and % Academy minutes is to be fair a lot of overkill but to me I took it as he's just come fresh out of the job interview process and this is the usual BS they spout there. Many of us would have been happy if he'd just said "we need a realy focus on youth" without all the technical S behind it. 

3. "You can't win anything with kids" was used as a stick to beat him with when Man Utd went on to win a lot of stuff with kids. 

[bluebruce]

15 minutes ago, SuperBrfc said:

As soon as I see somebody hesitate to bring in quality because they 'don't want to block the pathways', that's when I know we are on to a loser. That is what Broughton displayed a few days ago, in my view.

An extreme example, as he was a top class manager, but remember when Wenger refused to properly replace Vieira, Henry and Co because he "didn't want to block the pathway of the youngsters"? They persisted with those youngsters and went to shit (relative to their ambitions) and have been floundering for 18 years without a league title.

On the other hand, our academy products don't need to be anywhere near as good as Arsenal's, although our academy itself is nearly as good and competes in the same league. Producing youngsters to win Premier League titles and compete in Europe is very, very different and far harder than producing youngsters to attain promotion from the Championship. What I'm saying is in relative terms, it's easier for our academy to meet our needs than for Arsenal's to meet theirs.

You also talked about GB and his focus on bringing through academy players. Clearly the reason he believes in this approach is because it has already worked exceptionally at a club he was at. Bodo pulled off a minor miracle, going from a yo-yo club bouncing between the top two divisions to being Norweigan champions, two years running. They did it with a massive emphasis on bringing through youth players. Yes it's 'only' the Norweigan league, but their academy will have been far weaker than ours. I can understand why he believes this could bring success, and it's probably unfair to imply he isn't serious about promotion because of this belief.

Whether it will work is another story. The belief seems to be that the club has produced a bit of a golden generation by our standards, which certainly helps. Personally, I'm of the opinion that we absolutely must bring in quality in key areas (especially CB) and that the untested youth players we have should be brought through in a squad player capacity until they prove good enough for more. Spending more of our limited budget on fewer but better players. Which tbf, is looking like the plan so far.

[Admiral Nelsen]

11 minutes ago, SuperBrfc said:

As soon as I see somebody hesitate to bring in quality because they 'don't want to block the pathways', that's when I know we are on to a loser. That is what Broughton displayed a few days ago, in my view.

An extreme example, as he was a top class manager, but remember when Wenger refused to properly replace Vieira, Henry and Co because he "didn't want to block the pathway of the youngsters"? They persisted with those youngsters and went to shit (relative to their ambitions) and have been floundering for 18 years without a league title.

In our case, we've been floundering for 12 years and look set to add a few more to that as Broughton feeds us some guff about a youth project and "measures of success".

I'm not convinced that any of this lot (aside from JDT, maybe) are serious about promotion. It looks like it is all about developing kids, getting them minutes and hoping to sell them on for big fees further down the line.

You only have to read/listen to Broughton's spiel to understand what he sees as success.

One of the first things he said when he arrived was that Rovers would have to overachieve to make it to the Premier League. Inspirational stuff and exactly what you want to hear.

Next, he talked about how almost 40 percent of the minutes played by the Rovers squad last season were from Academy players, and how that needed to be maintained this season. Why? Is the aim to win football matches and try and go up or to give minutes to youngsters and crow about how many first teamers are from the Academy?

On a podcast about his time at Bodo, he talks about how one of the ways of measuring success was by looking at the 'R number' of the Football Club. That is done at any stage, over a five year average, by looking at how many young players from the Academy are in the first team. The more, the better, for the 'R number'. What a load of bollocks! I thought football was about trying to be the best, though? I've obviously had it wrong for all of these years.

Just like the 40 percent quote about the Rovers first team, he proudly mentioned how Bodo had 35 percent of their first team made up of North Norwegians from their Academy. This guy will do stuff all, IMO, and won't help us to get promoted. As long as the youngsters are getting game time, it's all good.

Bear in mind, he turned up at Luton when they had just finished outside the play offs in the Championship. They went on to suffer three successive relegations whilst he was there. Not saying it was all on him, clearly. However, in his own words, he had the autonomy to implement the vision of the Academy. Three relegations. Yet he takes the fact that youngsters got first team football and brought increased financial value to the club as plusses. Three relegations, but the above are positives. That should serve as a warning sign, in my opinion.

We missed out on Anel, Davies, many of us are after Van Hecke and another quality defender. Will he want to 'block the pathway' for Carter and Phillips by bringing in a couple of quality defenders? I highly doubt it. I'm expecting another cheap loan back there.

Our DoF would do well to remember what Alan Hansen said, and it still applies today 27 years on:

"You can't win anything with kids".

 

Respect your opinion, but I think it's too black and white. 

Bringing through youth players isn't an inherently good or bad thing - it depends on how good the kids are! I don't think anybody would advocate playing Garrett, Wharton or Carter unless there was a reasonable expectation that they will soon be worth their place in the side.  

Obviously it doesn't always work, but we've had our fingers burned by not giving young players enough chances. Josh King and Jack O'Connell to take two examples both turned into good premier league players pretty soon after they left Rovers, and we let them slip through our fingers by not playing them enough. As well as costing us very good players who could get us out of the league, those decisions also cost us potentially tens of millions of pounds that could've been crucial in funding a serious promotion bid. 

Given the financial advantage that relegated clubs will always have over us, we can't afford to be wasting assets that we already have on our books in my view. 

[roversfan99]

The thing is, the benchmark is always to revert to being "as good" as last season. 

I personally don't think that we were strong enough in central midfield last season, and got lucky with injuries/suspensions. Surely the aim is to be better than last season?

[chaddyrovers]

24 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Great post. If a young player as an individual is deemed to be good enough then he will break through either way, every summer with this one particularly bad, we have this thing where people say we don't need to replace x number of senior departees because our young players will all simultaneously step up.

Given that you don't watch any of the under 23's and 18's games I don't know how you judge whether any of these young players like Sam Barnes, Ash Phillips, Jack Vale, Jake Garrett or Adam Wharton are ready for playing championship football. From reading JDT's comments today that Sam Barnes would have been around the first squad this season, Jack Vale started the the first game and did decent enough for me(disagree if you want) and its appears that JDT will keep Jake Garrett and Adam Wharton around the first squad and fill the roles of Johnson and Davenport filled last season. We replaced Rothwell by John Buckley dropping back into that Role and Tyler Morton replaced Clarkson from last season. 

[Admiral Nelsen]

1 minute ago, roversfan99 said:

The thing is, the benchmark is always to revert to being "as good" as last season. 

I personally don't think that we were strong enough in central midfield last season, and got lucky with injuries/suspensions. Surely the aim is to be better than last season?

Fair comment - although Buckley being seen as a deeper midfielder and not a false 9/attacker arguably strengthens it, depending on how you rate Rothwell. 

[Admiral Nelsen]

31 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Great post. If a young player as an individual is deemed to be good enough then he will break through either way, every summer with this one particularly bad, we have this thing where people say we don't need to replace x number of senior departees because our young players will all simultaneously step up.

That R number is a load of nonsense. If you start measuring targets like that, there becomes a very real chance of that objective conflicting with that of winning football matches.

 

Probably, but not necessarily at Rovers!

James Beattie had an amazing career, for all the good it did us. 

[JacknOry]

1 minute ago, chaddyrovers said:

Given that you don't watch any of the under 23's and 18's games I don't know how you judge whether any of these young players like Sam Barnes, Ash Phillips, Jack Vale, Jake Garrett or Adam Wharton are ready for playing championship football. From reading JDT's comments today that Sam Barnes would have been around the first squad this season, Jack Vale started the the first game and did decent enough for me(disagree if you want) and its appears that JDT will keep Jake Garrett and Adam Wharton around the first squad and fill the roles of Johnson and Davenport filled last season. We replaced Rothwell by John Buckley dropping back into that Role and Tyler Morton replaced Clarkson from last season. 

You said that Brown was good enough to be our starting RB

[roversfan99]

2 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Given that you don't watch any of the under 23's and 18's games I don't know how you judge whether any of these young players like Sam Barnes, Ash Phillips, Jack Vale, Jake Garrett or Adam Wharton are ready for playing championship football. From reading JDT's comments today that Sam Barnes would have been around the first squad this season, Jack Vale started the the first game and did decent enough for me(disagree if you want) and its appears that JDT will keep Jake Garrett and Adam Wharton around the first squad and fill the roles of Johnson and Davenport filled last season. We replaced Rothwell by John Buckley dropping back into that Role and Tyler Morton replaced Clarkson from last season. 

I don't feel like kids football is strong enough a barometer to judge the potential success of a young player at senior level, especially with immediate effect. 

But my point has never been about the individuals, it is about the expectation that a number come through at once, usually out of necessity. I have never doubted the quality of the individuals, but as with basically every youth team, some may well come through, some will tumble into obscurity, and even of those that will come through, they won't all be ready NOW, purely forced out of necessity. Say if Wharton and Phillips are the two that eventually come through, they might need a bit more development to do so. No need to rush it. If I had said x y and z youngsters aren't good enough, you would have a point but I never have.

The focus seems to be simply to equal the quality of squad last season but surely the onus is to better it.

I would try and get what I consider to be enough first teamers without considering the young lads, so we are covered prudently regardless of if and when they breakthrough, and allow any that are good enough to supplement it. It's a long old slog of a season and especially with 5 subs available, we can't afford to take risks not signing players.

Just to clarify, just because the manager does something does not mean that it is automatically right or that our opinions have to align with it. We have both said that we should sign another midfielder, I don't think we will and to me, we would look very threadbare, with no improvement on an area to which we was already light of quality last year. Take Hull away, one absentee in Travis and we looked all over the place, I think if and when he misses any games this year, it could happen again.

[roverstdt]

The problem need to be about managing expectation. Am I expecting promotion this year? Oh hell no! It is a year in transition we need to slowly build we haven’t got a Manchester City like war chest to buy our way out the league. So what do we have that no other or very little other clubs have in the league category 1 academy. Granted we can’t go up with kids, but kids will remain kids unless you give them minutes. If Garrett, Wharton, Markanday slowly build up The games they get this year we will have a solid 3 new additions to the team to push on next year. From their the addition of a Van Hecke Would be a master stroke by the club as Lenihan would be forgotten and overall the defence would have improved. I would arguably say that the midfield area has improved if Bucko steps up and I don’t think we will miss Johnson and Davenport. Let’s see where the window takes us. But I firmly agree with Gregg the only way we will be attractive to other young talent is by showing a path way to the first team which little clubs in the area can offer especially with the cat 1 status

[chaddyrovers]

15 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

I don't feel like kids football is strong enough a barometer to judge the potential success of a young player at senior level, especially with immediate effect. 

So you reach that judgement without watching any of it then? 

16 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

But my point has never been about the individuals, it is about the expectation that a number come through at once, usually out of necessity. I have never doubted the quality of the individuals, but as with basically every youth team, some may well come through, some will tumble into obscurity, and even of those that will come through, they won't all be ready NOW, purely forced out of necessity. Say if Wharton and Phillips are the two that eventually come through, they might need a bit more development to do so. No need to rush it. If I had said x y and z youngsters aren't good enough, you would have a point but I never have.

The focus seems to be simply to equal the quality of squad last season but surely the onus is to better it.

We will have have quality squad by the end of window of new signings and players promote from the under 23. A good balance approach as I like to say. 

18 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

I would try and get what I consider to be enough first teamers without considering the young lads, so we are covered prudently regardless of if and when they breakthrough, and allow any that are good enough to supplement it. It's a long old slog of a season and especially with 5 subs available, we can't afford to take risks not signing players.

We signed 3 players and I would expect a couple more signings. Only 28 days to go now to the transfer window ending. 

19 minutes ago, roversfan99 said:

Take Hull away, one absentee in Travis and we looked all over the place, I think if and when he misses any games this year, it could happen again.

Well that was down to Mowbray and his team selection. Plus tactics and how he set up the midfield and formation. 

[Iceman]

44 minutes ago, SuperBrfc said:

As soon as I see somebody hesitate to bring in quality because they 'don't want to block the pathways', that's when I know we are on to a loser. That is what Broughton displayed a few days ago, in my view.

An extreme example, as he was a top class manager, but remember when Wenger refused to properly replace Vieira, Henry and Co because he "didn't want to block the pathway of the youngsters"? They persisted with those youngsters and went to shit (relative to their ambitions) and have been floundering for 18 years without a league title.

In our case, we've been floundering for 12 years and look set to add a few more to that as Broughton feeds us some guff about a youth project and "measures of success".

I'm not convinced that any of this lot (aside from JDT, maybe) are serious about promotion. It looks like it is all about developing kids, getting them minutes and hoping to sell them on for big fees further down the line.

You only have to read/listen to Broughton's spiel to understand what he sees as success.

One of the first things he said when he arrived was that Rovers would have to overachieve to make it to the Premier League. Inspirational stuff and exactly what you want to hear.

Next, he talked about how almost 40 percent of the minutes played by the Rovers squad last season were from Academy players, and how that needed to be maintained this season. Why? Is the aim to win football matches and try and go up or to give minutes to youngsters and crow about how many first teamers are from the Academy?

On a podcast about his time at Bodo, he talks about how one of the ways of measuring success was by looking at the 'R number' of the Football Club. That is done at any stage, over a five year average, by looking at how many young players from the Academy are in the first team. The more, the better, for the 'R number'. What a load of bollocks! I thought football was about trying to be the best, though? I've obviously had it wrong for all of these years.

Just like the 40 percent quote about the Rovers first team, he proudly mentioned how Bodo had 35 percent of their first team made up of North Norwegians from their Academy. This guy will do stuff all, IMO, and won't help us to get promoted. As long as the youngsters are getting game time, it's all good.

Bear in mind, he turned up at Luton when they had just finished outside the play offs in the Championship. They went on to suffer three successive relegations whilst he was there. Not saying it was all on him, clearly. However, in his own words, he had the autonomy to implement the vision of the Academy. Three relegations. Yet he takes the fact that youngsters got first team football and brought increased financial value to the club as plusses. Three relegations, but the above are positives. That should serve as a warning sign, in my opinion.

We missed out on Anel, Davies, many of us are after Van Hecke and another quality defender. Will he want to 'block the pathway' for Carter and Phillips by bringing in a couple of quality defenders? I highly doubt it. I'm expecting another cheap loan back there.

Our DoF would do well to remember what Alan Hansen said, and it still applies today 27 years on:

"You can't win anything with kids".

I just want to ask you something... Under Mowbray these last 4 or 5 years (excl league 1) what exactly have we won, with experienced players? How many playoffs and promotions did we achieve under those players? 

Aston Villa and a host of other PL clubs have spent a ton of money on players in the PL, and what exactly have they won with those so called quality experienced players? Is the objective just to stay in the PL, or to win trophies? West Brom, Norwich, Fulham, Bournmouth, for all their spending, have been bouncing around. We are identifying a clear plan to move the club forward, while improving our financial stability, along with sustaining the future of the club. 

We have brought in Sammie, Morton and Brittain to come in and compete for a place in the starting 11. There are still deals to be done, and nobody are guaranteed their place. Out of the academy players, if 1 or 2 holds down their place, because of good performances, then why should we spend money on an experienced player? If we don't believe in giving our academy players the opportunities to take that chance, then why do we have an academy? 

We have been in a fortunate position, that we are still able to have an opportunity, to give our youngsters the chance to impress at senior level. Even if we don't go up, but have a good season, there is the possibility that we could sell one or 2 of those players for big money, and then re invest it back into the club. 

You can win games with kids, maybe not all of them have to start games, but to see the fruits of our labor flourish at senior level should give us all hope that the club has a plan in place to make the club successful eventually 

[DavidMailsTightPerm]

1 minute ago, roverstdt said:

 I would arguably say that the midfield area has improved if Bucko steps up and I don’t think we will miss Johnson and Davenport. Let’s see where the window takes us. But I firmly agree with Gregg the only way we will be attractive to other young talent is by showing a path way to the first team which little clubs in the area can offer especially with the cat 1 status

With our lack of centre halves I think we might miss our emergency centre half - not advocating keeping Johnson, but we possibly need a utility player to help cover some positions (especially as we have also lost Nyambe who could also cover central defence.

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

3 minutes ago, roverstdt said:

The problem need to be about managing expectation. Am I expecting promotion this year? Oh hell no! It is a year in transition we need to slowly build we haven’t got a Manchester City like war chest to buy our way out the league. So what do we have that no other or very little other clubs have in the league category 1 academy. Granted we can’t go up with kids, but kids will remain kids unless you give them minutes. If Garrett, Wharton, Markanday slowly build up The games they get this year we will have a solid 3 new additions to the team to push on next year. From their the addition of a Van Hecke Would be a master stroke by the club as Lenihan would be forgotten and overall the defence would have improved. I would arguably say that the midfield area has improved if Bucko steps up and I don’t think we will miss Johnson and Davenport. Let’s see where the window takes us. But I firmly agree with Gregg the only way we will be attractive to other young talent is by showing a path way to the first team which little clubs in the area can offer especially with the cat 1 status

The only problem with that is as soon as they are anything like good enough to star in the Champ some club further up the food chain comes along to take them off our hands. Sometimes they are taken before they even get that far.

[Beanie01289]

1 hour ago, SuperBrfc said:

As soon as I see somebody hesitate to bring in quality because they 'don't want to block the pathways', that's when I know we are on to a loser. That is what Broughton displayed a few days ago, in my view.

An extreme example, as he was a top class manager, but remember when Wenger refused to properly replace Vieira, Henry and Co because he "didn't want to block the pathway of the youngsters"? They persisted with those youngsters and went to shit (relative to their ambitions) and have been floundering for 18 years without a league title.

In our case, we've been floundering for 12 years and look set to add a few more to that as Broughton feeds us some guff about a youth project and "measures of success".

I'm not convinced that any of this lot (aside from JDT, maybe) are serious about promotion. It looks like it is all about developing kids, getting them minutes and hoping to sell them on for big fees further down the line.

You only have to read/listen to Broughton's spiel to understand what he sees as success.

One of the first things he said when he arrived was that Rovers would have to overachieve to make it to the Premier League. Inspirational stuff and exactly what you want to hear.

Next, he talked about how almost 40 percent of the minutes played by the Rovers squad last season were from Academy players, and how that needed to be maintained this season. Why? Is the aim to win football matches and try and go up or to give minutes to youngsters and crow about how many first teamers are from the Academy?

On a podcast about his time at Bodo, he talks about how one of the ways of measuring success was by looking at the 'R number' of the Football Club. That is done at any stage, over a five year average, by looking at how many young players from the Academy are in the first team. The more, the better, for the 'R number'. What a load of bollocks! I thought football was about trying to be the best, though? I've obviously had it wrong for all of these years.

Just like the 40 percent quote about the Rovers first team, he proudly mentioned how Bodo had 35 percent of their first team made up of North Norwegians from their Academy. This guy will do stuff all, IMO, and won't help us to get promoted. As long as the youngsters are getting game time, it's all good.

Bear in mind, he turned up at Luton when they had just finished outside the play offs in the Championship. They went on to suffer three successive relegations whilst he was there. Not saying it was all on him, clearly. However, in his own words, he had the autonomy to implement the vision of the Academy. Three relegations. Yet he takes the fact that youngsters got first team football and brought increased financial value to the club as plusses. Three relegations, but the above are positives. That should serve as a warning sign, in my opinion.

We missed out on Anel, Davies, many of us are after Van Hecke and another quality defender. Will he want to 'block the pathway' for Carter and Phillips by bringing in a couple of quality defenders? I highly doubt it. I'm expecting another cheap loan back there.

Our DoF would do well to remember what Alan Hansen said, and it still applies today 27 years on:

"You can't win anything with kids".

I'd perhaps steer clear of using a quote that made the pundit a laughing stock for a while to back up your point.

[Ossydave]

We're in 'defenders are coming' territory now then after the latest comments.

Let's hope GB can deliver them this time though..........

[Guest]

1 hour ago, SuperBrfc said:

As soon as I see somebody hesitate to bring in quality because they 'don't want to block the pathways', that's when I know we are on to a loser. That is what Broughton displayed a few days ago, in my view.

An extreme example, as he was a top class manager, but remember when Wenger refused to properly replace Vieira, Henry and Co because he "didn't want to block the pathway of the youngsters"? They persisted with those youngsters and went to shit (relative to their ambitions) and have been floundering for 18 years without a league title.

In our case, we've been floundering for 12 years and look set to add a few more to that as Broughton feeds us some guff about a youth project and "measures of success".

I'm not convinced that any of this lot (aside from JDT, maybe) are serious about promotion. It looks like it is all about developing kids, getting them minutes and hoping to sell them on for big fees further down the line.

You only have to read/listen to Broughton's spiel to understand what he sees as success.

One of the first things he said when he arrived was that Rovers would have to overachieve to make it to the Premier League. Inspirational stuff and exactly what you want to hear.

Next, he talked about how almost 40 percent of the minutes played by the Rovers squad last season were from Academy players, and how that needed to be maintained this season. Why? Is the aim to win football matches and try and go up or to give minutes to youngsters and crow about how many first teamers are from the Academy?

On a podcast about his time at Bodo, he talks about how one of the ways of measuring success was by looking at the 'R number' of the Football Club. That is done at any stage, over a five year average, by looking at how many young players from the Academy are in the first team. The more, the better, for the 'R number'. What a load of bollocks! I thought football was about trying to be the best, though? I've obviously had it wrong for all of these years.

Just like the 40 percent quote about the Rovers first team, he proudly mentioned how Bodo had 35 percent of their first team made up of North Norwegians from their Academy. This guy will do stuff all, IMO, and won't help us to get promoted. As long as the youngsters are getting game time, it's all good.

Bear in mind, he turned up at Luton when they had just finished outside the play offs in the Championship. They went on to suffer three successive relegations whilst he was there. Not saying it was all on him, clearly. However, in his own words, he had the autonomy to implement the vision of the Academy. Three relegations. Yet he takes the fact that youngsters got first team football and brought increased financial value to the club as plusses. Three relegations, but the above are positives. That should serve as a warning sign, in my opinion.

We missed out on Anel, Davies, many of us are after Van Hecke and another quality defender. Will he want to 'block the pathway' for Carter and Phillips by bringing in a couple of quality defenders? I highly doubt it. I'm expecting another cheap loan back there.

Our DoF would do well to remember what Alan Hansen said, and it still applies today 27 years on:

"You can't win anything with kids".

This post had merit for me until you started blaming the numerous relegations of a side riddled with financial and club wide issues on someone who worked in their academy. 

[phili]

1 hour ago, SuperBrfc said:

As soon as I see somebody hesitate to bring in quality because they 'don't want to block the pathways', that's when I know we are on to a loser. That is what Broughton displayed a few days ago, in my view.

An extreme example, as he was a top class manager, but remember when Wenger refused to properly replace Vieira, Henry and Co because he "didn't want to block the pathway of the youngsters"? They persisted with those youngsters and went to shit (relative to their ambitions) and have been floundering for 18 years without a league title.

In our case, we've been floundering for 12 years and look set to add a few more to that as Broughton feeds us some guff about a youth project and "measures of success".

I'm not convinced that any of this lot (aside from JDT, maybe) are serious about promotion. It looks like it is all about developing kids, getting them minutes and hoping to sell them on for big fees further down the line.

You only have to read/listen to Broughton's spiel to understand what he sees as success.

One of the first things he said when he arrived was that Rovers would have to overachieve to make it to the Premier League. Inspirational stuff and exactly what you want to hear.

Next, he talked about how almost 40 percent of the minutes played by the Rovers squad last season were from Academy players, and how that needed to be maintained this season. Why? Is the aim to win football matches and try and go up or to give minutes to youngsters and crow about how many first teamers are from the Academy?

On a podcast about his time at Bodo, he talks about how one of the ways of measuring success was by looking at the 'R number' of the Football Club. That is done at any stage, over a five year average, by looking at how many young players from the Academy are in the first team. The more, the better, for the 'R number'. What a load of bollocks! I thought football was about trying to be the best, though? I've obviously had it wrong for all of these years.

Just like the 40 percent quote about the Rovers first team, he proudly mentioned how Bodo had 35 percent of their first team made up of North Norwegians from their Academy. This guy will do stuff all, IMO, and won't help us to get promoted. As long as the youngsters are getting game time, it's all good.

Bear in mind, he turned up at Luton when they had just finished outside the play offs in the Championship. They went on to suffer three successive relegations whilst he was there. Not saying it was all on him, clearly. However, in his own words, he had the autonomy to implement the vision of the Academy. Three relegations. Yet he takes the fact that youngsters got first team football and brought increased financial value to the club as plusses. Three relegations, but the above are positives. That should serve as a warning sign, in my opinion.

We missed out on Anel, Davies, many of us are after Van Hecke and another quality defender. Will he want to 'block the pathway' for Carter and Phillips by bringing in a couple of quality defenders? I highly doubt it. I'm expecting another cheap loan back there.

Our DoF would do well to remember what Alan Hansen said, and it still applies today 27 years on:

"You can't win anything with kids".

Wenger couldn't replace as he was having to balance the books and fund the building of the stadium at the time and he had very strict allowances. 

If they had stayed at Highbury you will find he would have spent the funds on quality replacements. Also the board told him he had to qualify for the Champions League each season which he duly did with those kids you talk about.

[chaddyrovers]

 

 

[1864roverite]

1 hour ago, SuperBrfc said:

As soon as I see somebody hesitate to bring in quality because they 'don't want to block the pathways', that's when I know we are on to a loser. That is what Broughton displayed a few days ago, in my view.

An extreme example, as he was a top class manager, but remember when Wenger refused to properly replace Vieira, Henry and Co because he "didn't want to block the pathway of the youngsters"? They persisted with those youngsters and went to shit (relative to their ambitions) and have been floundering for 18 years without a league title.

In our case, we've been floundering for 12 years and look set to add a few more to that as Broughton feeds us some guff about a youth project and "measures of success".

I'm not convinced that any of this lot (aside from JDT, maybe) are serious about promotion. It looks like it is all about developing kids, getting them minutes and hoping to sell them on for big fees further down the line.

You only have to read/listen to Broughton's spiel to understand what he sees as success.

One of the first things he said when he arrived was that Rovers would have to overachieve to make it to the Premier League. Inspirational stuff and exactly what you want to hear.

Next, he talked about how almost 40 percent of the minutes played by the Rovers squad last season were from Academy players, and how that needed to be maintained this season. Why? Is the aim to win football matches and try and go up or to give minutes to youngsters and crow about how many first teamers are from the Academy?

On a podcast about his time at Bodo, he talks about how one of the ways of measuring success was by looking at the 'R number' of the Football Club. That is done at any stage, over a five year average, by looking at how many young players from the Academy are in the first team. The more, the better, for the 'R number'. What a load of bollocks! I thought football was about trying to be the best, though? I've obviously had it wrong for all of these years.

Just like the 40 percent quote about the Rovers first team, he proudly mentioned how Bodo had 35 percent of their first team made up of North Norwegians from their Academy. This guy will do stuff all, IMO, and won't help us to get promoted. As long as the youngsters are getting game time, it's all good.

Bear in mind, he turned up at Luton when they had just finished outside the play offs in the Championship. They went on to suffer three successive relegations whilst he was there. Not saying it was all on him, clearly. However, in his own words, he had the autonomy to implement the vision of the Academy. Three relegations. Yet he takes the fact that youngsters got first team football and brought increased financial value to the club as plusses. Three relegations, but the above are positives. That should serve as a warning sign, in my opinion.

We missed out on Anel, Davies, many of us are after Van Hecke and another quality defender. Will he want to 'block the pathway' for Carter and Phillips by bringing in a couple of quality defenders? I highly doubt it. I'm expecting another cheap loan back there.

Our DoF would do well to remember what Alan Hansen said, and it still applies today 27 years on:

"You can't win anything with kids".

Think Man U rammed that quote down his throat

[rigger]

3 hours ago, bluebruce said:

4? It's 3 isn't it? Wharton, Ayala, Phillips. Carter is injured for a month.

Carter is probably a couple of weeks away from being available. 1 center-back coming in would be helpful, but not, in my opinion a necessity.

[Wing Wizard Windy Miller]

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

Given that you don't watch any of the under 23's and 18's games I don't know how you judge whether any of these young players like Sam Barnes, Ash Phillips, Jack Vale, Jake Garrett or Adam Wharton are ready for playing championship football. From reading JDT's comments today that Sam Barnes would have been around the first squad this season, Jack Vale started the the first game and did decent enough for me(disagree if you want) and its appears that JDT will keep Jake Garrett and Adam Wharton around the first squad and fill the roles of Johnson and Davenport filled last season. We replaced Rothwell by John Buckley dropping back into that Role and Tyler Morton replaced Clarkson from last season. 

If we replaced Rothwell with Buckley, who played in the same side, who did we replace Buckley with?

[chaddyrovers]