100% will take that bet.
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“Experienced”? In what? Ole has limiting coaching experiencing in the PL - let alone in a title race. Carrick, McKenna and Fletcher - let’s hear what their experience level is from a coaching perspective.....
Well Ole has won a league, maybe even 2 I can't remember. Not that it necessarily matters as it's about how good you are not whether you've done it before but still, you shouldn't make daft statements.
Ole needs to realise having him training with the first team won't make Marcus/Tony worry about their spot, however taking a risk and actually including in the squad could be the jolt that they both need to stop being so complacent
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Mike phelan is experienced if you want to go down that road... Wierd mention of Fletcher haha weakens whatever you are trying to say
We’re not going to see this lad on the bench, until later this month at the earliest.
Probably against Real Sociedad in the Europa League, or possibly against Newcastle in the EPL.
The next U23’s games are this Friday (Blackburn) and the following Friday (Arsenal), which are both home games.
Amad isn’t going anywhere near the 1st team until he’s played in at least those games, gained match fitness and had a chance to acclimatise to his new club and surroundings. Even if he does get a spot on the bench, we aren’t going to see much of him for a while yet, unless he turns out to be an amazing, undroppable sensation, which is unlikely.
Let the kid settle in and make him feel at home, before demanding he gets thrown to the wolves and have his confidence shattered.
Probably against Real Sociedad in the Europa League, or possibly against Newcastle in the EPL.
The next U23’s games are this Friday (Blackburn) and the following Friday (Arsenal), which are both home games.
Amad isn’t going anywhere near the 1st team until he’s played in at least those games, gained match fitness and had a chance to acclimatise to his new club and surroundings. Even if he does get a spot on the bench, we aren’t going to see much of him for a while yet, unless he turns out to be an amazing, undroppable sensation, which is unlikely.
Let the kid settle in and make him feel at home, before demanding he gets thrown to the wolves and have his confidence shattered.
Solskjaer's not been great at integrating youth so far but even that's pushing it, he'll definitely get one of our patented 8 minute cameos soon enough.
Yeah he's only given debuts to:
Mason Greenwood
Brandon Williams
Dean Henderson
Axel Tuanzebe
Tahith Chong
Andreas Pereira
And made prominent first team players out of all of those names at various points over his managerial career. Clearly 6 out of a possible 11 starting players is simply not givinyoofachance enough for you, so what can you do.
Tuanzebe and Pereira got their debuts under van Gaal. Not that it matters because of the players you listed only 1 is part of the first team in any significant capacity, Henderson gets the occasional cup game and Tuanzebe's played about 500 minutes. It's a fecking stretch to say "6 out of a possible 11 starting players" when only 1 of them ever starts, 1's been sent back to the reserves, 2 couldn't get decent gametime if their life depended on it and 2 of them are out on loan.
No, you're spot on, it absolutely isn't good enough for me. If you want to live in denial about him being great with youth then be my guest.
Absolutely mental post. If you can't understand my qualifier of "at various times" then recognise that Ole Solskjaer absolutely gives youth a chance but then doesn't continue playing them when they don't prove themselves, which is absolutely 100% well and truly the best way to go about it. Let's also forget another young player Ole Solskjaer gave a chance to in Erling Haaland, he's not doing so bad now is he.
But you'll pick holes in anything even though your point has been completely obliterated, carry on. If Traore is good enough, and ready, he will play, Ole has proven that in his short managerial career.
Edit and to add, Traore is a young signing. You could for instance consider him in the same terms as Dan James, who played plenty of football for us.
Gets a bit tiring
Who in the U23s do you believe has warranted a proper introduction into the squad?
Our back 4 is pretty stacked in ever position: Shaw/Telles, All our CBs, AWB/Brandon Williams
Our midfield is very stacked to the point that a 40 million pound signing isnt getting enough gametime: Fred/McTominay/Matic, Pogba/VDB, Bruno
Our forward line is relatively full beyond right wing: Rashford/James, Cavani/Martial, Greenwood
The only position to bring through youth is rw and no one in the U23s has been good enough to be playing first team level football in that position. Elanga has looked good, but he's a left winger. Pellistri looked good but raw and so has gone out on loan. However now we have Diallo who is training with the first team and Ole has said will feature in the squad soon.
Does this mean we won the January window?
Was just about to say this as well, the alternative is to keep playing youth players no matter how well they perform, which is exactly what Van Gaal did. We all know how that turned out.
It's just as important to manage youth players' games to protect them from the spotlight.
Keep playing them no matter what and they start to get abuse. Perfect examples with Tuanzebe, James, Greenwood and Williams.
I think your fundamentally misunderstanding the process of player development. He puts the long-term development of the player ahead of any immediate needs of the team. That's a world away from being poor at it. If you want to see poor player development, I'd suggest you look at how Houllier handled Owen's development.
Haaland being the player he is, is a lot down to Ole's handling of him at Molde and the player himself has said as much. Also, Ole could easily have rushed in Greenwood when we were floundering in the first half of last season (and when Martial/Rashford were out for prolonged points of the season) but he didn't and we reaped the benefits of Greenwood's acclimatisation to first team football in the first half of the season, in the second half of it.
If Ole feels that Amad needs to be in the Reserves for the timebeing while he adapts to the team and the culture around the club, then I'll fully back him on it.
As others have pointed out, he has integrated Greenwood into starting XI. And integrated Williams, Tuanzebe and Henderson into the squad. Granted Williams has played himself out of the squad. And he chose Henderson to be 2nd choice ahead of Romero. And he's made Tuanzebe 4th choice ahead of more experienced Jones, Smalling (you could argue he wouldn't have stayed, but he clearly moved him on) and Rojo.
That's the role of academy no? To provide some squad depth.
Phelan?
You are definitely going to lose this bet
I wonder what your comparisons are, and what your ideas about optimal ways of integrating youth in a team aiming for the top end of a big European league.
Outside of the Class of 92 anomaly, Ferguson would maybe get a starter - a player managing to get regular starts in over a lengthy period of time - every fourth year on average. Brown, O’Shea, Fletcher, Evans. If were looking at players coming through the youth ranks.
So if Greenwood continues his development, Solskjær will already have good results to show in terms of end product.
As Fergie knew, you can only play what you have, and Ferguson gave opportunities to a host of younglings who never got prolonged carreers at United. Solskjær has done the same. If they are not good enough to take the final step, which very few normally are, they will continue at other clubs.
We shall see. It’s not like Ole skips pecking orders. He has Mata and James ahead of him. Not to mention Rashford and Greenwood. Then in the big games probably Pogba. Good luck to the kid.
I think a lot of things are miss understood. For some weird reason we assume bringing in youth means they have to stay and be of a certain top level of performance. Our ethos is designed for the youth to believe they have an opportunity to the first team no matter what honours we are going for. This is why managers like Fergie and LVG could play a Darren Gibson, Luke Chadwick, Phil Bardsley, Paddy McNair etc into a side. It’s not alway about sustainability as the names I mentioned are clearly not players for a team aiming for the top or an anomaly.. but as I said earlier more of an ethos.
The difference with Ole is he plays to save his job so he can’t risk this. Fair play to him but he’s not looking after the clubs fundamentals.
I agree with what you say about the club ethos, and I agreed to begin with that Solskjær probably couldn’t afford into the extent that Ferguson did.
However, when you look at how he has given playing time to Angel Gomes, Tahit Chong, James Garner, Brandon Williams, Mason Greenwood, Tony Levitt, Ethan Laird, Ethan Gailbraith and Teden Mengi within two years, I dare you to find many seasons where Sir Alex had a better average. That coming on top of already having the youngest team in the league last year and going for developing further other youth products like Rashford, Lingard, Pogba, Tuanzebe, McTominay and Pereira. He has also been responsible for increasing cooperation between youth and first team coaches, and has had the last word on bringing in an unprecedented amount of youngsters from other clubs these last two years. Solskjær has given youth, in-house youth and local youth more time of day than most managers United or other comparable clubs. Which is not surprising, as he did the same at Molde, and he coached United youth to the reserves league championship as the first thing he ever did as a coach.
1. He did it in pretty much a single game (against Astana), 2. He didn't have the squad. Angel Gomes and James Garner WAS our squad. They were our 16, 17 players and therefore played a few times, although not many. I'm not entirely sure who you mean with Tony Levitt but I assume Dylan Levitt, and he, like Laird, Galbraith and Mengi, barely played. I'm not trying to take anything from Ole, he did a good job playing some youth players but Andreas Pereira was first choice and you could argue that Angel Gomes isn't much worse than him. It's a "long" time ago now that Ole gave a youth player a chance. He hasn't played any new youth player for almost a year and he isn't going to this season either. So I agree with the poster, it's a bit of a myth now. Yes. he did it, but he doesn't anymore.
That wasn’t what the poster claimed. I also think it is a bit unusual to use the word ‘myth’ about something someone did a lot last year and hasn’t done much this year. But I agree with your point that Solskjær gave much more debuts and game time to new youth players the first year than the second. Including Dylan Levitt (my bad, mixing up bass player Tony Levitt with singer Bob Dylan ..). I don’t think that’s much of an argument for saying ‘Solskjær isn’t a manager that likes to give youth a chance’, though. Quite the opposite, I’d say. But if you already have taken in a lot of young players, it narrows the space for taking in more, as you need a blend of experience and established matchwinners in that mix as well.
in these quarters, Solskjær have been criticised for not giving Gomes enough chances, while being criticised even more for giving Brandon Williams and Tahit Chong too many. Some wanted Pereira and Lindgard gone quickly to make way for Gomes, and want Tuanzebe to make way for Mengi, until Mengi has a bad patch and they want Will Fish (17) or Kampala (16, I know, I’m exaggerating now). But that’s not what managers do, any managers, when they have got a squad like the one United have this year, and not many injuries. Giving youth a chance is as much about sticking with the for a couple if years when they don’t play like stars or are injured when they are 21, 22, 23. Solskjær has a squad worth of millions, and has one of the highest scores since Busby for fielding players coming through the youth ranks, while simultaneously having had one of the youngest average starting line ups in the league in his time here. That’s context, and while I didn’t really write this to advocate Solskjær as the youth team coach of the world par excellence, I wrote it in response to some people that manage to pass him off as some kind of negative to bringing young players through.
On topic, I fon’t worry that Diallo is going to get hampered by not getting chances. I worry more about those that expect him to improve our chances of winning the league this season.
I am one of those who expects him to help our chances of finishing as high as possible. But that's because of him just being a competent RW. Not necessarily because he is going to blow everyone's mind. (although I do think he will be fine)
In hindsight its a shame he wasn't on the bench yesterday as that would have been the perfect moment for his debut but I guess Ole wasn't to know it would end up that comfortable.
Ole's integration of youth players is perfectly fine. No idea what some of you are on about
It seems, if you don’t expect a 9-0 result against Hasenhüttl’s men, you haven’t done your homework
99 times out of 100, when you play a 18 year old, the team will carry him somewhat more than he will carry the team. If the loss isn’t to big, however, it’s worth it, because you’re investing in his and your team’s future. It’s a bit like rotation, you put a somewhat inferior player on and accept some loss of quality for that game, to preserve the quality of your superior player for the future. It’s good management as long as the risk doesn’t cost to much. And as long as your kid actually develops better that way (not always the case, hence the expression ‘thrown to the wolves’, which does not indicate a loan move to learn defensive discipline from The Holy Ghost.)
I don’t expect an 18 year old with so little first team experience to function better for the team right away than Juan Mata, Dan James, Mason Greenwood or an out of position Marcus Rashford or Paul Pogba. If we lead Everton by a goal and need to shore up, or trail by one and struggle to penetrate, I’ll hope for Diallo to be good enough to make it worth the risk putting him on, thinking about his development for next season and the years after. But I won’t expect him to lift the team immediately based on some youth clips and some very very nice hearsay, and I suspect if a lot of people expect that, and we end up losing points to Everton, a lot of those people will paint the twitter walls of our society with beutiful murals of derogation and abuse, sprinkled with a hint of blunt racism, which will not increse his chances of developing nicely.
Let’s just say I prefer to be pleasantly surprised, and for his sake, I prefer for others to prefer that too.
This is exactly what I was going to post in this thread.
99 times out of 100, when you play a 18 year old, the team will carry him somewhat more than he will carry the team. If the loss isn’t to big, however, it’s worth it, because you’re investing in his and your team’s future. It’s a bit like rotation, you put a somewhat inferior player on and accept some loss of quality for that game, to preserve the quality of your superior player for the future. It’s good management as long as the risk doesn’t cost to much. And as long as your kid actually develops better that way (not always the case, hence the expression ‘thrown to the wolves’, which does not indicate a loan move to learn defensive discipline from The Holy Ghost.)
I don’t expect an 18 year old with so little first team experience to function better for the team right away than Juan Mata, Dan James, Mason Greenwood or an out of position Marcus Rashford or Paul Pogba. If we lead Everton by a goal and need to shore up, or trail by one and struggle to penetrate, I’ll hope for Diallo to be good enough to make it worth the risk putting him on, thinking about his development for next season and the years after. But I won’t expect him to lift the team immediately based on some youth clips and some very very nice hearsay, and I suspect if a lot of people expect that, and we end up losing points to Everton, a lot of those people will paint the twitter walls of our society with beutiful murals of derogation and abuse, sprinkled with a hint of blunt racism, which will not increse his chances of developing nicely.
Let’s just say I prefer to be pleasantly surprised, and for his sake, I prefer for others to prefer that too.
That's where we have to agree to disagree. Obviously I see Greenwood as a better option and maybe even Mata. But I see him doing better than those other 3. But I am also sure the coaches know better, and they know more information anyway. I am sure there's like a hundred factors that go into it rather than just talent/ability.
Having said that I don't see what's the point of having James on the bench ahead of him.
I dont even know if its hindsight because I don't see the point of James ahead of Diallo on the bench.
No.
Let's just never play him then considering this mindset. He'll never get in the squad.
When will Ole release the Kraken!
If you’re right, and if it’s because you are right about Diallo, I’ll love to be pleasantly surprised by it.
if he’s not an instant improvement on Mata, you won’t be surprised, it seems, but I’m fairly sure there will be quite a few others who will be vocal about it - ‘£40m (sic) and he’s not better than that fecking elderly child poetry do-gooder midget’. Mark my words!
As regards Dan James, (who has been involved in our two most free-scoring games since Ferguson’s days, mind), I have no doubt Diallo has abilities thatgoes beyond his, but I’m also quite sure James brings stuff to the party that Diallo can’t, so there might also be a question of what kind of variety you’d like to have on the bench as response to various scenarios.
To be fair he did also come on and score, I know what you mean though, James isn't really good enough.
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