Miscellaneous Reserve/Youth News


Aidy Barlow off out on loan to Tromso who play in the Norweigan top flight. Will keep my fingers crossed for him. I've always liked Barlow, I think he's a good player, I fancy him to have a really solid career in football.
 
Game time is the most important, as long as he gets that, then this is a good option. Players don't improve by sitting on a bench.
 
limerickcitykid said:
Will have to wait and see really. These foreign kids are always highly rated every year and while some come here and are great, others are actually bang average or even downright terrible. Learned to take these highly rated touts with a pinch of salt for most until we can see them play for ourselves.
Click to expand...

The strangest I have seen in recent years was Giuliano van Velzen - he was also highly rated, but it was so obvious he was never gonna be anywhere near the required level. And we have had some fairly average italians
 
From the players we've bought this season for the youth set up that are genuinely big talents in their respective age group. I'd say Emeran, Hoogewerf and Mejbri are the three.

Mejbri and Emeran we've paid a considerable amount for and Hoogewerf has been desribed by regular observers of Jong Ajax as their best young attacker (not including Naci Unuvar) which is high praise indeed considering the talent Ajax churn out.

Mateo Mejia scored 51 goals from a wing forward position last season but I can't seem to find too much info on him as yet. The same applies to Bjorn Hardley who we've signed from NAC Breda in the Netherlands.
 
Hardley seems like a dark horse kind of signing but we've scouted him a lot of times so I would trust our judgement. Thing is we have 3 second-year CBs and 3 first-year CBs (not counting Denham and Dodgson who can play there) so I'm not sure how can we arrange the game times.
 
Can anyone give me a rundown of some of the top young players coming through. It seems like we've signed a lot recently so would be great to get some insights

In particular:

Emeran
Hoogewerf
Mejia
Mejbri
Shoretire

Plus anyone else who seems promising
 
Adnan said:
From the players we've bought this season for the youth set up that are genuinely big talents in their respective age group. I'd say Emeran, Hoogewerf and Mejbri are the three.

Mejbri and Emeran we've paid a considerable amount for and Hoogewerf has been desribed by regular observers of Jong Ajax as their best young attacker (not including Naci Unuvar) which is high praise indeed considering the talent Ajax churn out.

Mateo Mejia scored 51 goals from a wing forward position last season but I can't seem to find too much info on him as yet. The same applies to Bjorn Hardley who we've signed from NAC Breda in the Netherlands.
Click to expand...
Mejia interests me the most because, like you said, there's so little to go off. He must have a bit of talent if he can score 51 from the wing, although I suspect he plays an inside forward role moreso than a traditional winger role.
 
AltiUn said:
Mejia interests me the most because, like you said, there's so little to go off. He must have a bit of talent if he can score 51 from the wing, although I suspect he plays an inside forward role moreso than a traditional winger role.
Click to expand...
Zaragoza were absolutely fuming after losing him to us if reports out of Spain are to be believed.

Scoring 51 goals in a season is quite incredible and I agree he must have played as a inside forward to hit such a ridiculous number of goals.
 
khoazany said:
Hardley seems like a dark horse kind of signing but we've scouted him a lot of times so I would trust our judgement. Thing is we have 3 second-year CBs and 3 first-year CBs (not counting Denham and Dodgson who can play there) so I'm not sure how can we arrange the game times.
Click to expand...
Bjorn Hardley is 6'1 already at 16 years of age. There's conflicting reports of him being either a LB or CB. With his height I'll assume he's a CB long term that can fill in at LB.
 
AltiUn said:
Mejia interests me the most because, like you said, there's so little to go off. He must have a bit of talent if he can score 51 from the wing, although I suspect he plays an inside forward role moreso than a traditional winger role.
Click to expand...
He played quite a lot as a number 9 last season so wouldn't be surprised if that's what we view him as considering he looks to have the physique to play there & we have plenty of options for the wings with Elanga, Emeran, Sotona, Wellens, Stanley, Hoogewerf, McCann & Shoretire all capable of playing on the wings but not many proper strikers.
 
jb8521 said:
He played quite a lot as a number 9 last season so wouldn't be surprised if that's what we view him as considering he looks to have the physique to play there & we have plenty of options for the wings with Elanga, Emeran, Sotona, Wellens, Stanley, Hoogewerf, McCann & Shoretire all capable of playing on the wings but not many proper strikers.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the information as always, could he possibly be a replacement for Odubeko? As I gathered he was meant to be playing up top this season but obviously he left before our season began.
 
What's going on with Nathan Collins from Stoke City? Was so much talk and then ... quiet
 
AltiUn said:
Thanks for the information as always, could he possibly be a replacement for Odubeko? As I gathered he was meant to be playing up top this season but obviously he left before our season began.
Click to expand...
Yeah himself, Hoogewerf, Haygarth, Shoretire, Emeran & Elanga all pretty comfortable playing as the number 9 should offer some good options depending on how we want to play
 
Will all of the new recruits begin life in the U18s or is there any chance that they might step straight into U23?
 
does anyone know what happened to levent gundogan wasn't he supposed to be a first year scholar this season?
 
Robbo* said:
Will all of the new recruits begin life in the U18s or is there any chance that they might step straight into U23?
Click to expand...
Pretty much all would go into the U18s to start off with, I imagine. We have a very strong group of U23s at the moment so it'd be very difficult for any of them to get into the side. Over the last few years January has been when we usually start promoting the most promising U18s players.
 
DarkRed said:
Did he refuse the move or Stoke refused to sell?
Click to expand...
Not a clue. Just know he signed a new long term deal. Have to say it was the correct decision. He will play regularly in the Championship rather than playing for our under 23s. No doubt we are keeping tabs.
 
Red Rash said:
Can anyone give me a rundown of some of the top young players coming through. It seems like we've signed a lot recently so would be great to get some insights

In particular:

Emeran
Hoogewerf
Mejia
Mejbri
Shoretire

Plus anyone else who seems promising
Click to expand...

Have not seen enough of the new players to comment but you can be sure if Manchester United signed them they are promising, if you read around a bit you will see they are very highly rated and it is exciting with the renewed focus on the youth setup, last u23 game was great to watch, Garner was outstanding.
 
Any news on Florent Da Silva from Lyon who we was strongly linked with this summer?
 
stubie said:
Any news on Florent Da Silva from Lyon who we was strongly linked with this summer?
Click to expand...
It was reported by L'Equipe that we were in adavanced negotiations to buy out the final year of his contract from Lyon. But the player himself was still undecided about his future and was mulling over what was best for him in the longterm.

It's gone quiet since and it'll be interesting to see if he renews with Lyon or runs his contract down which has only one year remaining.
 
I think this is Bjorn Hardley in action in the below vid playing for NAC Breda u17s. Must've been 15 at the time but looks over 6ft tall. All I could gather from what I saw was he seems to be good at distributing the ball from defence. The opposition looked poor so didn't see him defend much.

 
Anyone know anything about the players in our U15s? As in who have impressed the most so far.
 
Guys, not very related but wanted your opinion on Barca playing a 16 year old kid yesterday.
All that - not ready to play vs men, first a loan and more stuff.
 
DarkRed said:
Guys, not very related but wanted your opinion on Barca playing a 16 year old kid yesterday.
All that - not ready to play vs men, first a loan and more stuff.
Click to expand...
He came on when they were 5-1 up. Not really the same, we give opportunities like that too.
 
DarkRed said:
Guys, not very related but wanted your opinion on Barca playing a 16 year old kid yesterday.
All that - not ready to play vs men, first a loan and more stuff.
Click to expand...
Barca have been neglecting their academy recently, which is why a lot of fans aren't happy. A lot of them are demanding Puig plays more right now.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.