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If that's Ole's plan then he will fail. Coming through the academy should mean feck all if you are an average football player like Lingard.
At best he should be a squad option and that's generous.
Players who come through the academy cost very little so if they can do a job as a squad player like Butt, P. Neville, O'Shea, Brown, Evans, Lingard, McTominay they are very useful. They are less likely to complain about playing time and force a move elsewhere and their wages are usually low. They contribute to home grown talent quotas and also inspire kids from the academy that they can make it. This also attracts other kids to join the academy if they can see a pathway to the first team.
Yes, what you are pointing out is very true about cost and playing squad roles. In the same time everyone (bar Scott who's journey is at the start) was a better player at their respective position than Lingard is in his. To top it off, most of them played in positions where their general lack of talent could be compensated by workrate and commitment. Lingard plays in a position where you can't compensate general lack of talent regarding the essentials of playing as an attacker by running and even working harder, and then even his workrate is questionable in the last period.
There's plenty of rubbish players in the England set up, Hell Smalling should be in the England team and isn't. It's not really a great barometer to judge a players ability.
Yes your last point about blocking youth players is fair. I'm hoping Ole's reluctance to play them is because he feels it's not good for their development to be in a high pressure situation surrounded by dross because they will likely fail, and not because he doesn't have faith in young players or they're not good enough. The three you mentioned aren't exactly replacements for Lingard either, apart from maybe Chong who has had a few games and didn't really perform well. That's why we've had Dalot playing as a winger at times.
By that logic though, we'd keep waiting for the perfect opportunity to play them until their contracts ran out/they stagnated in the reserves.
He's doing it in preseason.
Totally agree. We need to buy a first choice RW, and give the remaining game time to our youth players like Chong, Gomes or Greenwood.
Now is the best time to do it. After this summer he will bring in his own big money signing and the pressure will be on him to deliver and them to succeed. There will be always pressure for players at this club. Only the best should be tolerated and same applies with youth products.
He was a false 9 who was supposed to be all over the pitch and press from the front specially press busquests and stop him from dictating the game, drop deep to create overloads when on the ball. He was so effing poor all game .
We're still fighting for top 4. Some on here say it's not important, but it is and I'm sure Ole and the players agree. If we lose our next 2 games then yes play the kids. As the other poster said, they will have preseason and League Cup / FA Cup games next season. We'll be releasing more players than we sign this summer so I don't think there is an issue with squad size.
Well playing the likes of Lingard isn't helping our chances for top 4 some of you fail to grasp that. I sincerely think what Lingard brings to the table any of the 3 I mentioned can bring along with other things respectively. It's not about squad size, it's about the same underperforming overpaid pros that get into the team despite being awful.
What makes you think that? Not calling you out - I'd love for this to be the case, has ole given quotes about this kind of thing?
Pretty much this, I want to like the lad and would love it if our entire 11 were homegrown, Manc academy products. But he just doesn’t bring enough. Squad option, maybe, but he shouldn’t be a first team consideration. His work rate isn’t high enough to cover his failings and lack of consistency. I was shocked to learn he was 26 the other day. He’s not going to get any better than he currently is.
You just took that whole comment out of context... I was talking about pressure. Lingard isn't affected by it, younger players probably will be. Also our team is playing poorly in general, it's not just Lingard. Rashford, Martial, Lukaku, Pogba, Matic, Herrera, Young have all had terrible games recently. There is little to be gained from playing young players in a badly performing side which is still under big pressure to win the next 5 games against tough opponents. So far the young players have played due to injury crisis (PSG) and a couple of games for experience. They have shown nothing that warrants their inclusion in the first team. That's not a criticism of their ability, just a fact. Just because they have higher potential, doesn't mean they are better now. People forget that in Rashford and Dalot we already have two young players in our first team. Shaw and Lindelof are also young for defenders.
There has been lots of media pieces about this (some likely leaks from United) and Ole's philosophy from his time with United and Molde has been to buy and bring through young players. He dropped Lukaku for Rashford when he came in. The club doesn't like buying older players for financial reasons and there are stories about the older players not getting new contracts. So I would say there is an extremely high chance of underperforming older players to be shipped out this summer. Fellaini went in January, Valencia confirmed to be leaving. Darmian and Rojo set to leave. Club not desperate to keep Herrera or Mata. Sanchez would be sold if possible. I think Matic would be under threat if we weren't already losing Herrera.What makes you think that? Not calling you out - I'd love for this to be the case, has ole given quotes about this kind of thing?
I'd love for us to ship out the underperforming players on massive wages like Mata, Sanchez, Young, Valencia, Rojo, Darmian (and sadly Herrera seems to be gone too) and go for hungry signings and our own highly talented youth crop.
Being in the Europa League could actually be a small blessing in the sense that we'll get to see more of Greenwood et al there. I'm a sucker for having youth players in the team
Cheers, thanks for your perspective. This would be great if true - lowering the wage and average age of the squad would be brilliant. We need hungry players here, not the likes of Sanchez - or the likes of Rojo, Jones and Bailly who are never fit!
Take out one of Ole’s first matches against Cardiff or whoever the feck it was and he’s on 3 goals and 2 assists all year.
That's the point, Lingard should be affected by pressure, he is not, simply because he's been shite and he's still playing. And ultimately whether he is affected by pressure or not is far less important, he's not good enough, he's actually useless as shown even though as you say pressure does not affect him. Play shit against West Ham start in the CL against Barcelona. No pressure to deliver since apparently movement and running is good enough for most of you.
Our team is playing poorly in general but if you fail to see how awful and useless Lingard is by a mile then nothing can be done. And it's not like it's the last 2 games. He's had plenty of shit games even when we were winning, just nobody wanted to state the obvious. I was branded as a hater for stating the obvious. Now the revolt is much bigger since we are loosing.
How can you say there's little to be gained from playing young players? And what is to be gained by playing the same shit overpaid pros who have let us down so many times? What exactly? Is young going to turn into Cafu over night? No he won't he will probably cost us again in the next 5 games just like he did against Wolves. Or is Lingard going to turn into Christian Eriksen over night? No they won't.
What's in there that makes no sense? Lingard just finished 90 minutes at the Nou Camp after being absolutely appalling, and that after being absolutely appalling over the weekend. In addition we just renewed the contracts of Young and Phil Jones, two players who have been absolutely woeful so many times. That's awarding being shite and it makes no sense.
