| The Mysterious 8. 08:43 - Sep 7 with 7183 views | LoftusR |
In another thread the topic has turned to what players the development team has produced suitable for the first team.
This has been an argument since Warburton and one of the mitigation points Ferdinand offered was that (around) eight players had been whisked away by Premier League/ Cat A teams.
Does anyone know who any of these players are which teams they went to and most importantly what are they doing now? Have we really missed out on eight super stars or have they all drifted away to lower leagues or sat in U23 teams?
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| The Mysterious 8. on 21:05 - Sep 7 with 1480 views | Match82 |
| The Mysterious 8. on 14:58 - Sep 7 by BazzaInTheLoft |
Easy to find out I guess.
One for the tracker graph.
Nevertheless a positive in a season short of them. |
It's actually not! Or at least it takes more than 5 minutes on Google, though perhaps someone less inept than me would have more success. I did try though! |  | | |
| The Mysterious 8. on 23:03 - Sep 7 with 1335 views | CiderwithRsie |
| The Mysterious 8. on 14:51 - Sep 7 by Match82 |
Only moral champions due to our own inept history I think. Love the trend on that graph but I have a feeling if you stacked our total numbers for the last decade against pretty much any other club in our division we'd be below them |
That may or may not be true.
My feeling is that you can't really call the Ferdinand years a great triumph of our youth set-up, if they were we'd have earned a sight more fees. But that's not really the point.
The point is that Ferdinand came in after years of total neglect and an addiction by the owners to high-profile managers who were in turn addicted to throwing money at the transfer market. I've always felt he did a lot to turn that around, and I'm also glad to see Holloway getting some credit.
That's not to say that either of them didn't have faults, just that they at least tried to point us in the right direction when others didn't even bother. | | | |
| The Mysterious 8. on 00:37 - Sep 8 with 1271 views | BazzaInTheLoft |
| The Mysterious 8. on 23:03 - Sep 7 by CiderwithRsie |
That may or may not be true.
My feeling is that you can't really call the Ferdinand years a great triumph of our youth set-up, if they were we'd have earned a sight more fees. But that's not really the point.
The point is that Ferdinand came in after years of total neglect and an addiction by the owners to high-profile managers who were in turn addicted to throwing money at the transfer market. I've always felt he did a lot to turn that around, and I'm also glad to see Holloway getting some credit.
That's not to say that either of them didn't have faults, just that they at least tried to point us in the right direction when others didn't even bother. |
Did it with League Two facilities too. |  | | |
| The Mysterious 8. on 10:24 - Sep 8 with 1092 views | NW11R |
| The Mysterious 8. on 23:03 - Sep 7 by CiderwithRsie |
That may or may not be true.
My feeling is that you can't really call the Ferdinand years a great triumph of our youth set-up, if they were we'd have earned a sight more fees. But that's not really the point.
The point is that Ferdinand came in after years of total neglect and an addiction by the owners to high-profile managers who were in turn addicted to throwing money at the transfer market. I've always felt he did a lot to turn that around, and I'm also glad to see Holloway getting some credit.
That's not to say that either of them didn't have faults, just that they at least tried to point us in the right direction when others didn't even bother. |
I think this point here really highlights what has really been the biggest problem at the club over the last 5 years or so for me.
Bar Eze, we have been simply unable to extract fees anywhere near commensurate to the value of our players. BOS, Manning, Dieng, Freeman, were all - at times - among the best players in the division in the their position. For most of them contract related reasons ultimately underpinned the low fees, but had we been able to have obtained larger fees for a few of them which could have been reinvested who knows what would have happened.
With Sinclair's contract expiring 2025 it seems, I am worried we are sleepwalking into another such situation and lose him for a shade of what he is worth. | | | |
| The Mysterious 8. on 11:50 - Sep 8 with 1021 views | Padulas_Shampoo |
| The Mysterious 8. on 10:24 - Sep 8 by NW11R |
I think this point here really highlights what has really been the biggest problem at the club over the last 5 years or so for me.
Bar Eze, we have been simply unable to extract fees anywhere near commensurate to the value of our players. BOS, Manning, Dieng, Freeman, were all - at times - among the best players in the division in the their position. For most of them contract related reasons ultimately underpinned the low fees, but had we been able to have obtained larger fees for a few of them which could have been reinvested who knows what would have happened.
With Sinclair's contract expiring 2025 it seems, I am worried we are sleepwalking into another such situation and lose him for a shade of what he is worth. |
Totally agree with this, coupled with the questionable (but not awful) reinvestment of the Eze money. We've already made a loss on Dickie who was undoubtedly someone that we'd planned on making a profit on and we haven't maximised returns on a fair few others.
For me, we need three 'types' of player within the squad every season:
A. Academy lads that have grown as footballers and progressed into the first team - almost 100% of any transfer fee and sell on registers as profit and FFP headroom.
B. Reinvested-budget players that come here for a modest fee where the plan is to coach them up, get them exposed and sell them for a profit and again create FFP headroom.
C. Throw away at the end of contract (or loan) players where there is no plan to make a profit but rather supplement the squad to fill gaps and add experience.
Over LF's tenure I think we did a good job at A. We made mistakes with the Cs and possibly didn't sign the right 'type'. I say that purely because Colback and Cook for example already look like they will add more intangible benefit than the likes of SJ, Wallace, Balogun and Austin. Perhaps we spent too much money on inexperienced loans too. Time will obviously tell on that though.
It's the B section where I think most fingers can be pointed. Bright, Manning, Dickie, Freeman, Willock could all have been sold for more money than they eventually were. Ultimately I think that was Les' undoing. It is a shame he never has and probably never will get the credit for what he and his 'mates' did with the A pool though, which - relative to QPRs recent history - was really rather an exceptional job. |  | | |
| The Mysterious 8. on 13:40 - Sep 8 with 952 views | SimonD |
Just to clarify, the approx £750k is the initial compensation package for those 13 players. I don't recall whether Liverpool paid money to Fulham for Harvey Elliot, but if they did some of that would have come our way. I think we also get additional payments when the players poached off of us reach various landmarks in appearances for their new clubs. | | | |
| The Mysterious 8. on 13:42 - Sep 8 with 938 views | SimonD |
| The Mysterious 8. on 10:24 - Sep 8 by NW11R |
I think this point here really highlights what has really been the biggest problem at the club over the last 5 years or so for me.
Bar Eze, we have been simply unable to extract fees anywhere near commensurate to the value of our players. BOS, Manning, Dieng, Freeman, were all - at times - among the best players in the division in the their position. For most of them contract related reasons ultimately underpinned the low fees, but had we been able to have obtained larger fees for a few of them which could have been reinvested who knows what would have happened.
With Sinclair's contract expiring 2025 it seems, I am worried we are sleepwalking into another such situation and lose him for a shade of what he is worth. |
I think "sleepwalking" is doing a huge disservice to the club. It may not be emblazoned across social media, but they will be doing their utmost to get Armstrong to sign an extension. | | | |
| The Mysterious 8. on 13:47 - Sep 8 with 917 views | Hunterhoop |
| The Mysterious 8. on 15:28 - Sep 7 by ngbqpr |
Kelman aside, I'd argue they're two sides of the same coin when it comes to The Plan.
If they've been with us since they were nippers, like Furlong and Lumley. great. If we took a chance on teenagers when others didn't (Eze) or found promising youngsters in unlikely and / or under-scouted places (Armstrong, Manning, Chair) - also great.
All means to the same end. |
Exactly, and if they arrive and spend their initial months/year with the academy not first team squad, like Eze, Manning, Chair, etc, you can’t say they haven’t been developed by them. If they weren’t developed they would have walked into the first team immediately, which none of them did. It’s an entirely valid side of the coin, just like the “have them from kids” side (excluding all the best ones who were nicked!). |  | | |
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