The difference is that Brighton are a club who provide the next step for a teenage talent to progress in his career by giving the player game time. And to implement the method of buying a young player with high potential and to then develop the player at the club, they (Brighton) need the first team head coach to buy in to their methods. Which is normal at clubs like Brighton who are a mid table club in the EPL with a league best finish of placing 9th.
And as far as Caicedo is concerned, he was still loaned out by Brighton, but his loan was to a club in Belgium (Beerschot). He made 12 appearances for Beerschot before he was recalled by Brighton due to the club having a shortage of midfield options. Potter started playing him and Caicedo started growing as a player and started becoming more and more confident in the EPL. If he had been at our club, then I'm sure the consensus on this forum would've been to send him on loan to the championship and then a year later send him on loan to a EPL club.
We can't operate like Brighton, because the pressure and expectations are huge at the club in comparison. But what we can do is maybe give one or two younger players a bit more of a chance than what we've been giving in recent years. Our problem isn't that we can't develop players or there's a problem with our development at youth level. Our issue at the club has been the first team manager who has been reluctant to give the younger players minutes in Cup competitions like the league Cup. And we still see a very poor midfield pairing of McFred still starting for us, and it's no surprise to see mid-table clubs with better midfields.
So typical.
