Vanja Milinkovic

khoazany

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Manchester United ‏@ManUtd 1m
#mufc has reached agreement to sign Serbian U17 international goalkeeper Vanja Milinkovic from FK Vojvodina. More: http://bddy.me/1gR9LXt
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Bit of background about him: a 6ft6 GK who was born in 20/02/1997 and capped by Serbia at U17s level.He's in the same age group as 2 of our U18s GK Dean Henderson and George Dorrington but will stay at Serbia next season.
 
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PSingh

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Anyone know anything about him?
 

Hojoon

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So he's the Serbian player we were going to sign according to a Serbian newspaper some time back.
 

Sixpence

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Can't believe we are now signing players who were born in 1997. Makes me feel so old.
 

Conrad

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I always find it odd how we seem to stockpile goalkeepers at the academy level. This year we had 4 goalkeepers at the U18 level, including Joel Pereira who we brought in from abroad, and next year we'll still have 2 of the current crop plus this lad and possibly another keeper from the first year intake while I'm pretty sure the year before this we had 5. It seems mad, we inevitably can't give them much game time considering the league is only 31 games long so a fair few end up being released without ever really playing that much (Liam Jacob, Joe Coll).

Even with the release of a fair few of these goalkeepers before they reach reserve level there is starting to become a backlog of keepers at that level as well. We've had Gollini, Johnstone and Sutherland all eligible for U21 football this season, as well as Ben Amos quite often playing as an overage player. Unless players are sold it looks like we may have 5 next year.

Anybody have any idea why we do this? There definitely seems to be a concerted effort to keep the number of Goalkeepers up with the large number of them coming through from the lower age levels consistently supplemented with youth signings from elsewhere (This guy, J. Pereira, Gollini, Coll, Jacob). I remember the year we won the FA Youth Cup recently Sir Alex said in an interview that it's key at this level to have a competent goalkeeper for the team to thrive competitively which in some years we hadn't had (Conor Devlin was pretty rubbish even at youth level). Maybe we've taken the approach in recent years that having multiple Goalkeepers on the books is worth it in order to increase the chance that at least one of them is a commanding presence, which will help with the development with the rest of the team. Seems a pretty weak theory but it's the best I can think of.
 

khoazany

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Conrad said:
I always find it odd how we seem to stockpile goalkeepers at the academy level. This year we had 4 goalkeepers at the U18 level, including Joel Pereira who we brought in from abroad, and next year we'll still have 2 of the current crop plus this lad and possibly another keeper from the first year intake while I'm pretty sure the year before this we had 5. It seems mad, we inevitably can't give them much game time considering the league is only 31 games long so a fair few end up being released without ever really playing that much (Liam Jacob, Joe Coll).

Even with the release of a fair few of these goalkeepers before they reach reserve level there is starting to become a backlog of keepers at that level as well. We've had Gollini, Johnstone and Sutherland all eligible for U21 football this season, as well as Ben Amos quite often playing as an overage player. Unless players are sold it looks like we may have 5 next year.
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No we always have 4 GKs in the U18s in recent years.The ideal pattern is the second-year scholars GKs will get most of the game times while the first-years will play for the U16s (although this is hardly the case when Sutherland and Henderson got a lot of U18s game times in their first years due to the older keepers being not as good(Coll,Jacob)/on loan(O'Hara)/promoted to the U21s(J.Pereira)).

GKs at this age get injured quite often so we usually need 4 unless there's anyone in the U16s that can do the job (again we need GKs for the U16s and U16s match often play at roughly the same time as U18s match so unlikely we'll promote the GK to the U18s)

Sutherland was released and Gollini probably will go back to Italy from what I've heard anyway.

The answer for this recruitment simply because this is Manchester United and we want the best talent no matter who we have at that level.

Milinkovic won't be here next season so at this point of time we'll have 3 for next season (the current 2 + Byrne from U16s).
 
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Mr. MUJAC

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Conrad said:
I always find it odd how we seem to stockpile goalkeepers at the academy level. This year we had 4 goalkeepers at the U18 level, including Joel Pereira who we brought in from abroad, and next year we'll still have 2 of the current crop plus this lad and possibly another keeper from the first year intake while I'm pretty sure the year before this we had 5. It seems mad, we inevitably can't give them much game time considering the league is only 31 games long so a fair few end up being released without ever really playing that much (Liam Jacob, Joe Coll).

Even with the release of a fair few of these goalkeepers before they reach reserve level there is starting to become a backlog of keepers at that level as well. We've had Gollini, Johnstone and Sutherland all eligible for U21 football this season, as well as Ben Amos quite often playing as an overage player. Unless players are sold it looks like we may have 5 next year.

Anybody have any idea why we do this? There definitely seems to be a concerted effort to keep the number of Goalkeepers up with the large number of them coming through from the lower age levels consistently supplemented with youth signings from elsewhere (This guy, J. Pereira, Gollini, Coll, Jacob). I remember the year we won the FA Youth Cup recently Sir Alex said in an interview that it's key at this level to have a competent goalkeeper for the team to thrive competitively which in some years we hadn't had (Conor Devlin was pretty rubbish even at youth level). Maybe we've taken the approach in recent years that having multiple Goalkeepers on the books is worth it in order to increase the chance that at least one of them is a commanding presence, which will help with the development with the rest of the team. Seems a pretty weak theory but it's the best I can think of.
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It's mostly an age thing.

When Amos was U/16 we needed cover so bought in Zieler…you need two keepers for each age group.

So when Amos/Zieler got to U/18's you had Johnstone, O'Hara, Sutherland all behind them and so on.

By the time they reach U/21's (that is, are too old for Academy football) you have loads of keepers on the books. Mostly they are moved on like Jacob, Coll and others. I expect O'Hara, Sutherland, and one other to move in the summer. I've also heard rumours that Gollini and even Amos may be leaving.

This will create space for younger keepers behind them.

United have rarely had a youth keeper make the grade…seems a real weak spot. Crompton, Gaskell, Rimmer and Walsh were probably the closest to first team regulars.
 

Brightonian

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Mr. MUJAC said:
United have rarely had a youth keeper make the grade…seems a real weak spot. Crompton, Gaskell, Rimmer and Walsh were probably the closest to first team regulars.
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When you think about it, it's almost impossible for a top club to bring an academy keeper into the first team these days. No top team can risk having an unproven second choice keeper. One injury to your first choice and suddenly you're trusting a kid to immediately be good enough. From the perspective of the player himself, his development is going to be seriously damaged if he is promoted to sit on the bench any time before the age of, say, 23/24. You need to be playing regular football up until that sort of age to finish developing into a mature player.

So it's almost inevitable that the club instead signs someone like Lindegaard, who has finished developing at a smaller club, and has played first-team football for long enough to have proven himself to be quality. He's old enough that he can spend large swathes of the season sitting on the bench without his actual ability being damaged as a result.

The only way I can really see it happening would be the unlikely serendipity of the first team finding themselves in need of a first-choice keeper just as they have a star GK in the U21s reaching the stage that he looks ready for first-team football. For example, if someone like de Gea had come through the ranks at United, having a 'Januzaj 2012-13' type season in 2010-11. You're still taking the 'relying on a kid' risk, obviously, but this time it's offset by the incredible potential of the youngster in question. And because he's being promoted straight to first choice, rather than to be the back-up, he'll continue to get regular football and his development won't be impeded.
 

Kill 'em all

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Brightonian said:
When you think about it, it's almost impossible for a top club to bring an academy keeper into the first team these days. No top team can risk having an unproven second choice keeper. One injury to your first choice and suddenly you're trusting a kid to immediately be good enough. From the perspective of the player himself, his development is going to be seriously damaged if he is promoted to sit on the bench any time before the age of, say, 23/24. You need to be playing regular football up until that sort of age to finish developing into a mature player.

So it's almost inevitable that the club instead signs someone like Lindegaard, who has finished developing at a smaller club, and has played first-team football for long enough to have proven himself to be quality. He's old enough that he can spend large swathes of the season sitting on the bench without his actual ability being damaged as a result.

The only way I can really see it happening would be the unlikely serendipity of the first team finding themselves in need of a first-choice keeper just as they have a star GK in the U21s reaching the stage that he looks ready for first-team football. For example, if someone like de Gea had come through the ranks at United, having a 'Januzaj 2012-13' type season in 2010-11. You're still taking the 'relying on a kid' risk, obviously, but this time it's offset by the incredible potential of the youngster in question. And because he's being promoted straight to first choice, rather than to be the back-up, he'll continue to get regular football and his development won't be impeded.
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Do what Chelsea did and loan him to the same club for more than 1 season. :)
 

Brightonian

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Kill 'em all said:
Do what Chelsea did and loan him to the same club for more than 1 season. :)
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True, but then like Chelsea you risk the player deciding that he quite likes playing guaranteed regular first team football and that actually he'd rather stay with his loan club. It seems like Chelsea have dodged that land-mine, but it was a definite possibility for a while. Can you imagine the frustration if they'd lost one of the best young keepers in the world like that?
 

The Mitcher

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Brightonian said:
When you think about it, it's almost impossible for a top club to bring an academy keeper into the first team these days. No top team can risk having an unproven second choice keeper. One injury to your first choice and suddenly you're trusting a kid to immediately be good enough. From the perspective of the player himself, his development is going to be seriously damaged if he is promoted to sit on the bench any time before the age of, say, 23/24. You need to be playing regular football up until that sort of age to finish developing into a mature player.

So it's almost inevitable that the club instead signs someone like Lindegaard, who has finished developing at a smaller club, and has played first-team football for long enough to have proven himself to be quality. He's old enough that he can spend large swathes of the season sitting on the bench without his actual ability being damaged as a result.

The only way I can really see it happening would be the unlikely serendipity of the first team finding themselves in need of a first-choice keeper just as they have a star GK in the U21s reaching the stage that he looks ready for first-team football. For example, if someone like de Gea had come through the ranks at United, having a 'Januzaj 2012-13' type season in 2010-11. You're still taking the 'relying on a kid' risk, obviously, but this time it's offset by the incredible potential of the youngster in question. And because he's being promoted straight to first choice, rather than to be the back-up, he'll continue to get regular football and his development won't be impeded.
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Goalkeepers don't reach their peak until their very late twenties and early thirties though.
 

Seveneric

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Was beginning to wonder if he had a face, amazing that the website didn't think a pic would be necessary to accompany the article
 

The Mitcher

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Brightonian said:
True... does that affect my point? (Not being sarky, genuinely asking.)
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I was also going to add, that maybe lack of game time doesn't effect them as much as outfield players. But I forgot. I don't know if it affects your point much, but its not too much of a problem for them.
 

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The Mitcher said:
I was also going to add, that maybe lack of game time doesn't effect them as much as outfield players. But I forgot. I don't know if it affects your point much, but its not too much of a problem for them.
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I reckon it does at that young age, up until maybe 24, 25. They may not be outfield players but it would definitely still damage their development to not be playing regularly during those formative years. In some ways it could probably affect them more, since the main difference between training and playing actual matches - the pressure of the occasion - is particularly intense for goalkeepers, whose every slight mistake can lose a match.
 

Kill 'em all

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Brightonian said:
True, but then like Chelsea you risk the player deciding that he quite likes playing guaranteed regular first team football and that actually he'd rather stay with his loan club. It seems like Chelsea have dodged that land-mine, but it was a definite possibility for a while. Can you imagine the frustration if they'd lost one of the best young keepers in the world like that?
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You will lose him anyway if he stays at your club and gets no first team football. At least you would get a good transfer fee out of the loaning option if the club deems he's not good enough to replace the first team GK.
 

Sid234

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I remember that Genk were trying to Hijack the deal after signing his brother.. Good to know we signed him
 

jb8521

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Milinkovic made his senior debut for Vojvodina on Sunday and kept a clean sheet in a 3-0 win against OFK Belgrade
 

FromTheBench

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Interesting he is playing for their first team already.

Will come to united with good experience at a young age.
 
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