Criticism of our Young Players

[Guest Col city fan]

1 hour ago, Bluetintedspecs said:

I've seen some rubbish spouted on this forum but wow, I'm 54 and I love our young players coming through.

HATE is a stupid word and completely out of context in this thread! I would guess that the majority on here defending the youngsters are the OLDER group you refer too.

 

Spot on. What a load of garbage.

[Nod.E]

Hmmm. This is very quickly becoming a thread about Gray, isn't it? I've been very vocal in my losing patience with Gray and I wouldn't say that has anything to do with age, in my case at least. We have a lot of young players, many of which I have jumped in to defend from critique on this forum. 

I could be wrong (after all, football scout I am not) but I just get the feeling that Gray has traits that may be beyond experience and coaching. He seems to hold on to the ball too long. When he releases the ball it's usually too late. If he shoots it's too soon. He almost always chooses the wrong way to take the ball and runs down blind alleys. Then there's his shooting. Jesus Christ, his shooting. Sure sometimes players will miss-hit or snatch at a chance, but with Gray it seems to be almost every shot. 

I do hope I'm wrong (and again, I stress I am not a qualified scout!) but I struggle to see him developing into a player at the level we require. Plus I have to admit his attitude makes it all the more difficult to sympathise. That isn't just my observations from the stands/on TV, rather what I have heard from people who have worked with him behind the scenes. By all accounts one of the most entitled and distasteful manifestations of the 'typical footballer nobhead' stereotype going. 
 

Edited 29 January 2018 by Nod.E

[ScouseFox]

54 minutes ago, Detroit Blues said:

It is worth noting that players like Chilwell, Gray, Ndidi, etc. are further along in their development than the players on the team everyone rates:

At 21, Riyad Mahrez scored 4 goals in 36 appearances for Le Havre in French Ligue 2. 

At 21, Ngolo Kante played in the third tier of french football for Boulogne. 

At 21, Vardy was playing non-league football. 

 

The fact of the matter is, some people on here would have slated those players back then. Nobody on FT wants to let kids develop, learn, make mistakes, and get better. We want all of these young players to be finished products. 

yeah but the old men are willing to give these guys a chance cos they’ve “worked their way up”/“not had it all their own way”/“haven’t had it all given to them on a plate”. pretty simple really. 

[Nickfosse]

21 hours ago, Captain... said:

This is the bit that I find most baffling from our fans, we won the league with a bunch of players most of which had been slow starters at the club. The only one of the starting 11 who made an instant impact was Huth, the rest, even Kante and Fuchs, needed a few games, a few weeks even months, in the case of Vardy it was an whole season after signing before starting to play close to their peak. The difference between Vardy, Drinkwater, Albrighton, Morgan, Simpson from their first appearances was vast. Mahrez we saw his potential in his first season and a half, but  I don't think anyone expected him to be player of the year, scoring 17 goals and 10 assists in the premier league.

 

Surely we should be the first set of fans to give players the time and space to develop, or maybe the fans that were trying to get Drinkwater and Vardy out the out club think they were responsible for the turn around in their fortunes and by giving unnecessary stick to Gray and Chilwell they will develop in the same way.

Completely agree with this. We have so many examples of players who took time to develop into excellent premier league footballers. You would think we would have more patience and understanding. 

And it doesn’t extend only to our own players who have developed with us.  We saw Kane and Lingard when they were young and we were underwhelmed by them. 

[Detroit Blues]

57 minutes ago, ScouseFox said:

yeah but the old men are willing to give these guys a chance cos they’ve “worked their way up”/“not had it all their own way”/“haven’t had it all given to them on a plate”. pretty simple really. 

Sounds to me just like a bunch of old people complaining

 

 

[Colourmy]

4 hours ago, foxfanazer said:

Diabate looks the part after 1 game

 

oh ft you never cease to amaze me

What? I was talking about DG.

[Daggers]

On 28/01/2018 at 10:03, Paddy. said:

...one thing really pisses me off and that's the battering some posters give our young lads...

 

I think Thracian was hoping to keep the reason for his public displays of homophobia hidden. Still, the truth will out, as they say.

[Colourmy]

3 hours ago, Nickfosse said:

Completely agree with this. We have so many examples of players who took time to develop into excellent premier league footballers. You would think we would have more patience and understanding. 

And it doesn’t extend only to our own players who have developed with us.  We saw Kane and Lingard when they were young and we were underwhelmed by them. 

 

Kane is still a greedy twat though and scores but Spurs kept him. Birmingham didn't fancy the gamble with DG and for very good reason in my eyes.

[foxfanazer]

20 minutes ago, Colourmy said:

What? I was talking about DG.

I didn’t quote you 

[Colourmy]

1 minute ago, foxfanazer said:

I didn’t quote you 

Okay, it's just that my post was the one that was quoted!

[foxfanazer]

1 minute ago, Colourmy said:

Okay, it's just that my post was the one that was quoted!

Oh yeah my bad, didn’t mean to quote you

[the fox]

4 hours ago, Detroit Blues said:

It is worth noting that players like Chilwell, Gray, Ndidi, etc. are further along in their development than the players on the team everyone rates:

At 21, Riyad Mahrez scored 4 goals in 36 appearances for Le Havre in French Ligue 2. 

At 21, Ngolo Kante played in the third tier of french football for Boulogne. 

At 21, Vardy was playing non-league football. 

 

The fact of the matter is, some people on here would have slated those players back then. Nobody on FT wants to let kids develop, learn, make mistakes, and get better. We want all of these young players to be finished products. 

it's been 2 years, how much does he need!

 

mahrez wasn't an academy player iirc and started late in his teenage years, vardy was a league 1 player and a factory worker not long ago and short DM's like kante will go unnoticed.

from my point of view, gray isn't capable of learning (or he doesn't want to, who knows?) in a vacuum, gray is better than mahrez, stronger, faster and with a more powerful shot, but on the pitch, he can't lace his shoes. if you put riyad's brain in gray's body you will get the perfect footballer

 

atm, gray is riding his talented footballing body, but if he doesn't develop the mental aspect he will go nowhere

Edited 29 January 2018 by the fox

[Colourmy]

DG = Jeff Schlupp.

[the fox]

it's not about how young you are, it's about how mature you can be! ndidi is 6 months younger than me and he looks like a man amongst men.

you can't teach maturity, some people just have it.

[Nigel Graham Pearson]

5 minutes ago, the fox said:

it's not about how young you are, it's about how mature you can be! ndidi is 6 months younger than me and he looks like a man amongst men.

you can't teach maturity, some people just have it.

Agree. He has a swagger and coolness about him. When he was brought on on Saturday I couldn’t help but think that he’s now one of our ‘big guns’. 

[ZeGuy]

22 minutes ago, Colourmy said:

DG = Jeff Schlupp.

Behave.

[the fox]

5 minutes ago, Nigel Graham Pearson said:

Agree. He has a swagger and coolness about him. When he was brought on on Saturday I couldn’t help but think that he’s now one of our ‘big guns’. 

he is, think he is our 3rd best player, mahrez is first and vardy second. look at arsenal and pool, they would give anything to have a player like him on their team

[Koke]

This is the best squad we've had in my lifetime and I'm 34. We have top class talent on display, some promising youngsters and a good competent manager, yet if you read match threads abd some players threads you'd think we were an utter shambles. 

[Koke]

With regards to Gray I think he, and Mahrez as well to an extent, should learn to release the ball more often.  Whenever I watch Manchester City play I am impressed with their 2 touch ball movement  KDB, Sane and Silva rarely touch the ball more than 3 times at a time. They don't ball hug. I wish our players could watch hours of video footage of Man City players. That's why Diabate impresses me so much at Posh. He didn't ball hug. He kept the ball moving. Intelligent players make the ball do the work.

[Nickfosse]

2 hours ago, Colourmy said:

Kane is still a greedy twat though and scores but Spurs kept him. Birmingham didn't fancy the gamble with DG and for very good reason in my eyes.

If you’re going to set yourself up as the board’s windup merchant, at least get your facts right. Birmingham wanted to keep Gray. He insisted on a release clause that we met and they had no choice but to sell him. 

 

Edited 29 January 2018 by Nickfosse

[ZeGuy]

31 minutes ago, Koke said:

With regards to Gray I think he, and Mahrez as well to an extent, should learn to release the ball more often.  Whenever I watch Manchester City play I am impressed with their 2 touch ball movement  KDB, Sane and Silva rarely touch the ball more than 3 times at a time. They don't ball hug. I wish our players could watch hours of video footage of Man City players. That's why Diabate impresses me so much at Posh. He didn't ball hug. He kept the ball moving. Intelligent players make the ball do the work.

You can't compare. Our flair players tend to hug the ball because there is 0 movement around them and almost no support. Look at how far they are when one of our wingers get the ball. Diabs could release it sooner because there was more space and Barnes as well as Nacho or Gray made some good runs

[Detroit Blues]

1 hour ago, the fox said:

it's been 2 years, how much does he need!

 

mahrez wasn't an academy player iirc and started late in his teenage years, vardy was a league 1 player and a factory worker not long ago and short DM's like kante will go unnoticed.

from my point of view, gray isn't capable of learning (or he doesn't want to, who knows?) in a vacuum, gray is better than mahrez, stronger, faster and with a more powerful shot, but on the pitch, he can't lace his shoes. if you put riyad's brain in gray's body you will get the perfect footballer

 

atm, gray is riding his talented footballing body, but if he doesn't develop the mental aspect he will go nowhere

 

I just don't think he's played a consistent amount of minutes to improve. Sure he has been here for 2 years, but he has mostly just come in for 10-20 minutes as a sub, and has not had a run of starts to really show what he can do. The fact of the matter is, we have two very good wingers right now, and Gray is third best. There's no shame in that. Mahrez is a special player worth an obscene amount of money, and Albrighton is one of those important energy players like Okazaki that is difficult to replace.

 

The club clearly values Gray, and has turned down offers from other clubs for his transfer. I think if Mahrez goes, he will be given a chance to shine, and we can judge him better then. But i would not write off a 21 year old, given how talented he is. 

 

 

 

 

[Nod.E]

1 hour ago, Detroit Blues said:

 

I just don't think he's played a consistent amount of minutes to improve. Sure he has been here for 2 years, but he has mostly just come in for 10-20 minutes as a sub, and has not had a run of starts to really show what he can do. The fact of the matter is, we have two very good wingers right now, and Gray is third best. There's no shame in that. Mahrez is a special player worth an obscene amount of money, and Albrighton is one of those important energy players like Okazaki that is difficult to replace.

 

The club clearly values Gray, and has turned down offers from other clubs for his transfer. I think if Mahrez goes, he will be given a chance to shine, and we can judge him better then. But i would not write off a 21 year old, given how talented he is. 

 

 

 

 

4

*shudders*

[Guest Col city fan]

2 hours ago, Koke said:

This is the best squad we've had in my lifetime and I'm 34. We have top class talent on display, some promising youngsters and a good competent manager, yet if you read match threads abd some players threads you'd think we were an utter shambles. 

I agree. I don't think we've ever had a better squad of players than this one.

[Colourmy]

2 hours ago, Nickfosse said:

If you’re going to set yourself up as the board’s windup merchant, at least get your facts right. Birmingham wanted to keep Gray. He insisted on a release clause that we met and they had no choice but to sell him. 

 

Therein lies the issue, a young kid insists on a release clause at that age. He thinks he's cracked it. 

It's an inherent issue with him clearly. Read a bit further down the Wikipedia input on him. 

Aspirations beyond ability I'm afraid!