Stato
Well-known member
- Dec 21, 2011
- 7,367
RDZ in his press conference last night said that we are about playing young players and that young players have to be given the chance to play and make their mistakes in order to improve. He took pains to point out that although Barco made a mistake for the third goal, he 'played a good game'. Yes there is an argument for saying that we were naive in trying to have kids play City at their own game and yes it always has the chance of blowing up in our face, but our manager has recently been maligned from some quarters for media statements that seem to not understand what we are and what he signed up to.
I'd suggest that his insistence that young players who come into the first team learn to play the way we want to play and not 'safety first' points to a very good understanding of the project. We find raw talent and we try to balance the club's progression with developing it. It's a big ask. There will be risk, there will be peaks and troughs and there will be times when one aim takes precedent over the other.
To this end I was interested to see how we compare to the rest of the league in terms of using youngsters this season, so took a look at appearances/minutes played by players 20 or under. There are mitigating factors to the results. The figures would obviously be different if we'd had better luck with injuries, but the practice of giving minutes to young prospects seems to precede RDZ's time at the club and has been referenced by TB & PB as part of the business model. The £100m+ made on Caicedo shows the potential pay off from the investment.
So far over the EPL's 2023/24 season we have fielded 8 players who are 20 or under: Baker Boaitey, Baleba, Barco, Buonanotte, Enciso, Ferguson, Hinshelwood and O'Mahony. Only Chelsea have matched this number. Sheffield United, Manchester United and Liverpool have all fielded 6.
In terms of appearances we are way out in front. U21s have played in 99 games for us. Man Utd are the next closest with 62, then Chelsea with 57. Both Fulham and Arsenal have played only one U21 year old in one match.
In minutes played we are also top with 4,893. Man Utd's 4,052 in second is mainly because of Garnacho and Mainoo who have played 3,674 of those minutes. We have three of the top ten U21s in terms of minutes played: Ferguson, Baleba and Buonanotte. Jack Hinshelwood would have made it four, but his season ending injury has left him currently twelfth on the list. It could be argued that he wouldn't have played as much if not for injuries to others, but given that one of the long term injured was Enciso, better luck with injuries probably wouldn't have affected the overall numbers. In 2022/23 when Enciso was fit we were still the only team with three players in the top ten.
In terms of goals scored by this age group we are also top. Ferguson, Buonanotte and Hinshelwood have 12 between them. Man Utd have 9. The league in total has 37. In 2022/23 we were also top, scoring 11 of the total 18 goals scored by U21s over the season. This, of course, included Julio's goal of the season.
If the doomsayers arguing that our injury ravaged season has marred RDZ's reputation as a genius are right, then maybe he'll be staying*. Of course this will mean occasional heavy defeats from naive performances in games where we are out-gunned, but it will also mean continued trust and opportunities to improve for the kids who will be the long term life blood of the organisation. If we can't keep him, I hope we will be looking for someone with the same approach.
Its a hard fact that like so many other English sides, we may never win a major trophy and a lot of EPL fans understandably wonder what they are getting out of staying in a league where ultimate glory is always for the chosen few. Thinking about a football club in terms of eras rather than seasons seems some protection against this melancholy. No plan is ever perfect, but ours seems to be doing a lot of things very well. The courage to pick kids and give them the license to play progressively regardless of short term risk may seem 'stupid' to Alan Smith https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/brighton-mancity-stupidity-premier-league-32674038, but if we don't fail, we don't learn and we don't progress. Or perhaps to paraphrase Shakespeare: 'A Sean Dyche team dies a thousand times before its relegation, but the valiant taste of it but once'.
* - I'd personally like this even more than someone buying Jarred Gillett a one way ticket back to Oz.
I'd suggest that his insistence that young players who come into the first team learn to play the way we want to play and not 'safety first' points to a very good understanding of the project. We find raw talent and we try to balance the club's progression with developing it. It's a big ask. There will be risk, there will be peaks and troughs and there will be times when one aim takes precedent over the other.
To this end I was interested to see how we compare to the rest of the league in terms of using youngsters this season, so took a look at appearances/minutes played by players 20 or under. There are mitigating factors to the results. The figures would obviously be different if we'd had better luck with injuries, but the practice of giving minutes to young prospects seems to precede RDZ's time at the club and has been referenced by TB & PB as part of the business model. The £100m+ made on Caicedo shows the potential pay off from the investment.
So far over the EPL's 2023/24 season we have fielded 8 players who are 20 or under: Baker Boaitey, Baleba, Barco, Buonanotte, Enciso, Ferguson, Hinshelwood and O'Mahony. Only Chelsea have matched this number. Sheffield United, Manchester United and Liverpool have all fielded 6.
In terms of appearances we are way out in front. U21s have played in 99 games for us. Man Utd are the next closest with 62, then Chelsea with 57. Both Fulham and Arsenal have played only one U21 year old in one match.
In minutes played we are also top with 4,893. Man Utd's 4,052 in second is mainly because of Garnacho and Mainoo who have played 3,674 of those minutes. We have three of the top ten U21s in terms of minutes played: Ferguson, Baleba and Buonanotte. Jack Hinshelwood would have made it four, but his season ending injury has left him currently twelfth on the list. It could be argued that he wouldn't have played as much if not for injuries to others, but given that one of the long term injured was Enciso, better luck with injuries probably wouldn't have affected the overall numbers. In 2022/23 when Enciso was fit we were still the only team with three players in the top ten.
In terms of goals scored by this age group we are also top. Ferguson, Buonanotte and Hinshelwood have 12 between them. Man Utd have 9. The league in total has 37. In 2022/23 we were also top, scoring 11 of the total 18 goals scored by U21s over the season. This, of course, included Julio's goal of the season.
If the doomsayers arguing that our injury ravaged season has marred RDZ's reputation as a genius are right, then maybe he'll be staying*. Of course this will mean occasional heavy defeats from naive performances in games where we are out-gunned, but it will also mean continued trust and opportunities to improve for the kids who will be the long term life blood of the organisation. If we can't keep him, I hope we will be looking for someone with the same approach.
Its a hard fact that like so many other English sides, we may never win a major trophy and a lot of EPL fans understandably wonder what they are getting out of staying in a league where ultimate glory is always for the chosen few. Thinking about a football club in terms of eras rather than seasons seems some protection against this melancholy. No plan is ever perfect, but ours seems to be doing a lot of things very well. The courage to pick kids and give them the license to play progressively regardless of short term risk may seem 'stupid' to Alan Smith https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/brighton-mancity-stupidity-premier-league-32674038, but if we don't fail, we don't learn and we don't progress. Or perhaps to paraphrase Shakespeare: 'A Sean Dyche team dies a thousand times before its relegation, but the valiant taste of it but once'.
* - I'd personally like this even more than someone buying Jarred Gillett a one way ticket back to Oz.
)
